The EMPASY training toolkit

The EMPASY training toolkit

How to plan, implement and monitor a successful advocacy campaign

Start

This toolkit includes:

Storytelling

Alliance building

Campaign planning

Digital communication

Intro to advocacy

Intro to advocacy: key conceptsClick to reveal more information

Online communication refers to any communication done through digital channels, whether they be public (website and social media) or private channels (WhatsApp or email).Offline communication refers to any communication action done in person like meetings or events.Online and offline communication in your campaign should support each other.

The probem tree method encourages you to visualise the issue you are trying to solve.Roots: These are thr root causes or underlying factors that create the problem. Trunk: this is the problem itself. Branches: These are the consequences or the broader impacts that grow out of the core problem.

The SMART acronym stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Your goals should meet these criteria for the greatest chance of success.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

SMART goals

The Problem Tree

Online vs offline communication

Title

Title

Title

Developing SMART goals helps you define what your campaign will set out to achieve.

Write a brief description here

Write a brief description here

This tool can help you identify what you want to change with your campaign as well as the story you want to tell.

Write a brief description here

Both online and offline communication are needed to disseminate your messages.

Intro to advocacy

Advocacy is defined as any action that speaks in favour of, recommends, argues for a cause, supports or defends, or pleads on behalf of others.At the start of an advocacy campaign, there are some intial steps that should be taken to help you tailor your campaign:

1. Define the goals of your campaign i.e. what exactly you want to achieve.
2. Identify stakeholders, i.e. everyone who needs to be engaged in the campaign including the people you want to reach.
3. Craft messages that plainly communicate what your goal is and why it matters.
4. Consider how you will monitor and evaluate the campaign, including defining what success means to you.

The acronym SMART can help you with the first step of defining your goals. SMART stands for specifc, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. The goals of your campaign should meet these criteria to ensure the greatest chance of success.Yi

The problem tree is another useful tool for goal-setting. Using the problem tree, you can visualise your main problem as the trunk of the tree, the causes being the roots and the consequences being the branches. It helps you understand your own objectives and how to communicate them externally. When it comes to the second step, we can think about stakeholders as people or groups who can support you in achieving your goal, including decision-makers with the power to make changes. It can be helpful to list your stakeholders and note how they can help you and at what moment of the campaign they need to be involved. Some guiding questions could be:

• Which decision-makers can make the changes necessary for us to achieve our goal?
• Which people or groups could help us reach these decision-makers?
• What are the priorities and interests of these decision-makers?
• How can we illustrate that our goal aligns with their interests?

Communication for advocacy

Communication is a key part of any advocacy campaign as you will need to craft demands that appeal to your target audience and create messages that are memorable, understandable and actionable.Your advocacy campaign will most likely encompass both offline and online communication:

• Offline communication refers to communication action that take place in person i.e. meetings, events or distribution of information materials.
• Online communication refers to communication that takes place through digital channels like social media, websites and newsletters, as well as private channels like WhatsApp.

Your offline and online communication should compliment each other. For example, if you host an in-person event, you can use digital channels both to disseminate the invitation and share the outcome of the conversation afterwards.i

At the start of your campaign, as well as identifying the main goals and stakeholders, you will need to decide on the key messages you want to convey. You can work out the key messages of the campaign by asking yourself what story you're trying to tell with the campaign. The problem tree can help you here! Once you've defined the story you want to tell (more on storytelling later) you can elaborate the key messages. Ensure these messagages:

• Appeal to the emotions of your audience, possible by telling human-centred stories and exploring the experience of real people.
• Challenge the ideas of your audience by presenting a new perspective or information on an issue.
• Encourage concrete action by demonstrating how the audience can contribute to the solution of the problem you're tackling.

Digital communication

Digital communication refers to all the ways in which you will disseminate your advocacy asks online. One key way of doing this is through social media as it will allow you to reach your target audiences directly, increase the visibility of your asks and enhance the storytelling element of the campaign. There are many platforms you can use in your campaign, such as:

• Instagram: Useful for sharing short-form video content and in general content with a lighter, more conversational tone. Can also be useful to create a community by engaging and collaborating with other accounts.
• LinkedIn: As a mostly professional platform, it's useful for targeting partner organisations or decision-makers with more detailed informative text posts and photos.
• Facebook: While the active usership of the platform has declined in recent years, it's still useful for targeting certain demographics, especially through the creation of events or private groups for mobilising those directly involved in the campaign.

Platforms like Bluesky, X or TikTok may also come in handy depending on your goals and resources.

Newsletters can also be an important part of your digital communication as they allow you to reach a group of people directly with information tailored to their needs or interests. Mailchimp is the most common tool for newsletter dissemination. You may wish to create a website specifically for your campaign or host it on an already existing website. If you'd like to start from scratch, tools like Squarespace or Weebly are simple website builders that anyone can learn to use. Finally, to produce content to populate these channels you will need to use content creation tools. Your most useful tool will be a mobile phone to take photos and video, but you may also wish to make use of the following:

• Canva: This is perfect for making basic visuals and doing simple video-editing, in addition to being very user-friendly.
• Adobe Express: If you already have some experience creating visuals and short videos, this is a step up from Canva in terms of complexity.
• CapCut: This is another very useful tool for simple video editing.

Storytelling: key conceptsClick to reveal more information

Which messages are not going to work?​​Where does the dialogue freeze?​​ Which audiences are the most difficult?​​ How much power do they have? ​​What are the values and boundaries we don’t want to compromise?​​ Where can we compromise?

Central character(s): A person or a group we care aboutProblem: A challenge or an injustice Stakes: A reason the problem matters Change: What we have the power to influence Call to action: Something the audience can do to create change

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Communicating with 'others'

Creating a story

Title

Title

When talking to people who aren't open to your messages, there are some background questions that can make the interaction go more smoothly.

Write a brief description here

For your story to resonate, there are some key elements it should contain.

Write a brief description here

Storytelling and messaging

Storytelling will be a crucial part of illustrating what your campaign is about and why it matters. Bringing a campaign beyond technical policy asks and transforming it into a story with meaning is what makes your messages memorable, creates an emotional connection between your campaign and those you're targeting and builds trust with your audience.For a story to resonate, there should be some basic elements:

• Central character(s): A person or a group we care about
• Problem: A challenge or an injustice
• Stakes: A reason the problem matters
• Change: What we have the power to influence
• Call to action: Something the audience can do to create change

The problem tree can be a useful starting point to help you understand how your campaign can be turned into a story which includes all of the elements above. This approach can be more challenging in hostile environments.The Th

Speaking to those who agree with you is easy - speaking to those who oppose you is when the real challenge kicks in. Most likely, in your campaign you will need to engage with people who are not necessarily on your side. In this context, you will need to identify some common ground with those who don't agree with you. This common ground may be only value-based e.g. maybe you don't agree on how to solve a lack of funding for mental health services in schools, but you can agree that equality of opportunity or the wellbeing of young people are important. It's also important to consider where your time and energy are best spent. Think about the 'moveable middle' i.e. the people who don't agree with you right now, but can be moved. Don't waste time on those you feel are not open to you at all.

Case study: The European Environmental Bureau used a storytelling approach in their Hands off Nature Campaign. Click to discover more!

Storytelling and messaging

When communicating with those who may be hostile to your messages, you will need to put yourself in their frame of mind. To do so, here are some background questions:​

• Which messages are not going to work?​
• ​Where does the dialogue freeze?​
• ​Which audiences are the most difficult?​
• ​How much power do they have?​
• ​What are the values and boundaries we don’t want to compromise?​
• ​Where can we compromise?

When addressing these questions, it may be useful to keep in mind:​​

• That you can adapt or tweak your message depending on who you're talking to.​​
• You may need to be quite flexible. If you determine a message is not working, get creative in adapting it (or getting rid of it).​​

Most importantly, don't forget about your allies. While trying to engage with people outside of your traditional contacts, don't neglect those who share your mission and continue to foster these relationships. They may even help you to break through to others.

Campaign planning: key conceptsClick to reveal more information

Key performance indicators (KPIs) should also follow the SMART criteria (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) but at a more detailed level to help you measure if you achieved your goal.For example, your goal could be to grow followers on social media, and the KPI would refer to a specific percentage increase per social media platform.

'Strategy' refers to your overarching plan of action i.e. what approach will actually help you achieve your goals.'Tactics' refer to concrete, actionable measures that will put your strategy into practice. Your strategy might be to target a particular set of decision makers ahead of an important decision, but tactics might be things like arranging meetings or carrying out a social media campaign.

Your risk analysis should include the following:

• Description of the risk
• Likelihood
• Potential impact
• Rating of potential damage caused
• Stakeholders affected
• Mitigation measures

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Strategy vs tactics

Risk analysis

KPIs

Title

Title

Title

A risk analysis helps you identify what could go wrong in the campaign, and a contingency plan. There are several elements to a risk analysis.

When you set your goals, it is also important to set KPIs which will help you measure how well you achieved your goal.

When planning the campaign, you will have to define a strategy, and then your tactics. It is important not to confuse the two.

Write a brief description here

Write a brief description here

Write a brief description here

Campaign planning

There are three stages to executing a successful advocacy campaign: planning, implementation and monitoring. If you lay the foundations well in the planning stage, it will make implementation and monitoring easier. The first step is identifying your goals: what exactly do you want to achieve and how are you going the achieve it? We covered this in the first module. Next, you will need to build a coalition. You will probably not be able to implement the campaign alone, so it's important to know who your allies are and how they can help you. You will also need to identify a strategy i.e. an overarching plan that guides how you will achieve your goals. This is different from identifying your tactics, which are the concrete measures you will take to put this strategy into action. It is important to also conduct a risk analysis as part of the planning process. This helps you prepare for potential problems that could arise during the implementation stage and have a back-up plan.NeN

As mentioned in the introduction to advocacy, it is important to already decide during the planning phase which metrics you will monitor to determine success. To make your goals more concrete, it can be helpful to create key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, if your goal is to raise awareness among young people of mental health, a suitable KPI might be: "Over the course of the campaign we see a 25% increase in the number of 18-24 year olds following our Instagram account." As with your overarching goals, your KPIs should follow the SMART model.

Case study: AONTAS ran a campaign to obtain greater funding for community education in Ireland. Click to discover how they planned to campaign.

Alliance-building for campaigning

As already mentioned, you need to pull together your alliance to carry out an effective advocacy campaign. There is strength in numbers! Identify who among the organisations you already work with have the same goals as you and bring them on board.There are several benefits to working in an alliance:Alliances enhance reach and visibility​

• Connecting mailing lists, social media channels and on-the-ground networks and communities​.
• Creating a critical mass to attract public attention​.

More resources and expertise​

• A diversity of actors brings complementary strengths: knowledge and expertise, community organising, communications, fundraising, access to policymakers​.
• Pooling resources makes processes more efficient while allowing for more ambitious actions​.

Greater credibility and political weight​

• Multiple organisations and communities standing together signals broad support for the issue and automatically increases legitimacy in the eyes of both the public and decision-makers.

Better strategies and learning​

• Diversity of perspectives means also more nuanced analysis of the problem and more creative tactics​.

Resilience and long-term change​

• Working in coalition builds long‑term relationships and learning spaces, so each campaign strengthens the ecosystem for future ones, shifting narratives and policy.

Case study: The European Alliance for a Just Transition brings together European organisations. Click to learn how they put the alliance into action.