Running your own campaign

1. Pick an issue you care about

This might seem obvious, but it’s vitally important. If you are truly passionate about an issue, other people will see this and take you seriously.

2. Know your issue

You need to properly understand the issue you have chosen to campaign on. The key to this is research: use the internet, ask your teachers and parents speak to people in the know and, if you’re part of a big campaign group, make sure you read through the information they have on the subject.

3. Know your goals and target audience

So you know what you want to change, but now you need to ask yourself what exactly it is you’re trying to achieve. This isn’t always straightforward. Let’s say you want to do something about the dangerous road in front of your school. There will be a number of ways to make the road safer for children, including the use of speed bumps, speed cameras and special crossings. You would need to decide exactly what to campaign for based on which of these options would do the best job, and what you can most realistically achieve.

In some cases, particularly where the issue is a global one, your goals are likely to be influenced by work that has already been done in that area. For example, if you choose to campaign on the issue of education in developing countries, your goal might be to lobby your own government to deliver on its promise to achieve universal primary education by 2015, as stated in the Millennium development goals.

4. Brainstorm

Get together with your fellow campaigners and jot down any campaigning ideas that come to mind. You can be as creative as you like, just remember to keep in mind what your goals are. To get you started, think about petitions, letter writing, and organising events, rallies and publicity stunts.

5. Match your campaign to your audience

The next step is to think about which of your ideas is likely to have the greatest effect on the people you’re trying to influence. You wouldn’t give your grandma a hip-hop CD for her birthday – the principle is the same when campaigning. To be successful in achieving your aims, you need to match the campaign to the target audience.

6. Do it and tell us about it!

Ok, so you’ve chosen your issue and your goals, picked your audience, done your research and come up with a fantastically effective campaign idea. Now all that remains is to go ahead and get campaigning. And once you’ve done that don’t forget to tell us all about it. You can email us here at Plan at plan-ed@plan-international.org.uk and we’ll put some of your inspirational campaign stories on the website. Happy campaigning!

How do I know I’ve made an impact?

In an ideal world the result of your campaign is exactly what you set out to achieve, and if you manage this, that’s fantastic. But we all know that things don’t always work out exactly as we planned them, so don’t be too disheartened if it doesn’t quite happen. Remember that these things take time. Ways of measuring your success include:

• More people knowing about the issue
• Other people joining your campaign
• Receiving letters from your target audience
• Getting mentioned in the media (press, radio or TV)
• Getting talked about in a school assembly or in class
• Something changing for the better because of your campaign

Above all, keep campaigning. Don’t think that because it didn’t happen straight away, it never will – as you can see from our Famous campaigns through history section, persistence is the key.