Advocacy communications: how to plan a campaign for change

Advocacy communications is different from awareness-raising or brand building. Its purpose is to change something specific: a law, a regulation, a budget line, a procedure or the way a policy is put into practice. The audience is often small, the timetable is set by someone else, and success is measured by what decision-makers do, not by how many people saw a post.

ODI's Rapid Outcome Mapping Approach (ROMA), a widely used guide to policy engagement, notes that policy change can take many forms, from a change in discourse among policy actors and commentators to improvements in policy-making procedure, changes in policy content and behaviour change for effective implementation.¹ It also warns that influence will not come about by simply disseminating the results of your work.¹ A good report is a starting point. An advocacy strategy is what carries it to the people who decide.

The University of Kansas Community Tool Box advises advocates to begin by clarifying the broader change the group wants to achieve, then to break it into long-term goals, intermediate goals and short-term objectives.² This matters because most campaigns run for longer than a single communications cycle, and teams need milestones they can reach along the way.

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator's guide to policy advocacy campaigns recommends objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, and that name the decision-maker, the action required and the timeline.³ Its example reads: "By December 2016, Parliament will approve a ten percent increase in the national health budget."³ The UK Government Communication Service makes the same link in its OASIS model: start with the policy aim and develop communications objectives that will deliver it, focusing on outcomes rather than outputs.⁴

Once the objective is clear, work out who can make the change happen. The Global Health Advocacy Incubator calls this political mapping: analysing the political environment to understand the important decision-makers, policy processes and opposition viewpoints relevant to your issue.³ Its guide suggests recording each decision-maker's interests and concerns, as well as the individuals and groups that might oppose you, their reasons, and their messages, tactics and connections with key decision-makers.³

The Community Tool Box adds two useful cautions. Focus on the authority or behaviour that needs to change rather than labelling a person as a target, and include people directly affected by the issue even if they are not formally organised.² It also advises mapping support and resistance without assuming that people fall permanently into simple categories of allies and opponents.² In our own practice, we find that a sceptical official today can become a champion once the evidence and the relationship are in place.

Advocacy without evidence is opinion. The Global Health Advocacy Incubator observes that the most effective campaigns tend to be based on accepted facts and figures, and suggests commissioning research if credible information is lacking.³ Its first two campaign elements are to gather background information and set clear policy objectives, before any messaging is written.³

ROMA likewise begins with diagnosing the problem before developing a strategy, and treats policy influence as one of three main activities: diagnosing, developing a strategy, and monitoring and learning.¹ For communications teams, this means agreeing early which figures you will use, where they come from and how recent they are. Decision-makers and their advisers will check, and one weak statistic can undermine an otherwise strong case.

Decision-makers are busy. The Global Health Advocacy Incubator recommends short, simple messages and says that each one should generally contain the elements below.³ It also notes that delivering one strong message many times is more effective than sending a multitude of messages, and suggests using focus groups or polling to identify the most effective messages.³

Messengers matter as much as messages. The same guide advises choosing individuals or groups that your audience will listen to and believe.³ ROMA recommends developing overall messages and sub-messages for each audience group, and reminds teams that credible voices are not limited to technocrats or elites.¹ When people affected by an issue share their own experience, Bond's ethical guidelines are clear that informed consent is the cornerstone of ethical story production, and that contributors must be told how their story will be used and that they can withdraw consent for further use at any time.⁵

• A short problem statement: what you want to change and why.
• A few key facts that illustrate the problem or the solution.
• A specific action the audience can take.
• Optionally, a human story that shows how the issue affects people.

Most advocacy campaigns combine several tactics. The Global Health Advocacy Incubator lists direct interaction with decision-makers, media engagement and grassroots mobilisation, and notes that a multi-strategy approach is usually the most effective.³ The OASIS model suggests mapping the audience's journey, designing communications for each stage and bringing influencers and partners on board to increase impact.⁴

The Center for Evaluation Innovation's Advocacy Strategy Framework is a useful one-page tool here. It helps advocates think about their audiences, the positions of other actors, their tactics and the interim outcomes that set the stage for long-range goals.⁶ In practice, that might mean a policy brief and a private briefing for a ministry's technical team, a short documentary for a parliamentary committee and partner-led radio or social media content for the communities whose voices give the case its weight.

Advocacy rarely follows a straight line. The Center for Evaluation Innovation describes advocacy as not predictable or linear, which is why its framework focuses on interim outcomes rather than only the final policy win.⁶ ROMA goes further, noting that traditional monitoring approaches, which rely on predefined indicators, do not work well in complex situations.¹

Track what you can see: meetings secured, commitments made, changes in how officials or the media describe the issue, and new allies speaking out. The OASIS guidance advises monitoring outputs, outtakes and outcomes throughout a campaign and evaluating them once it is complete.⁴ The Community Tool Box puts it well: revising a plan in response to evidence is a strength, not a failure.²

• A time-bound policy objective naming the decision-maker and the action
• A political map of decision-makers, influencers, allies and opponents
• Agreed evidence, with sources and dates for every figure
• Core messages with a problem, key facts and a clear ask
• Credible messengers, including people directly affected, with informed consent
• A mix of tactics: direct engagement, media and community voices
• Interim outcomes to track, not only the final decision
• Regular review points to adapt the plan