HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING

FIVE TOPICS TO CONSIDER AND DECIDE UPON
1st TOPIC
KNOW YOUR CAMPAIGN
When you start preparing your campaign, you should have one short-term
and one long-term objective, and they should emerge from your political programme.
You will probably have other objectives as well, but having one prime
objective to measure your success or failure against is indeed important. The
world has seen a considerable amount of failed campaigns because the importance
of this aspect was underestimated.
Before you start preparing a campaign you will discuss and agree upon the
following:
What is the overriding purpose of the campaign? Is it to change behaviour,
start a debate, recruit new members, create awareness or change policy?
Who is your target group? Different people use different means of communication.
While some can be reached through social media like Facebook,
others cannot. Often the personal encounter and meeting people where they
are (e.g. through public events) gives good and long term results even though it
demands a lot of resources.
How do you measure the (interrelated) immediate and long-term effects
that you want to see coming out of your action?
Once you start setting up the indicators for your short-term and long-term
objectives, you should be realistic about your achievements. This will be your
guiding principle once you start planning your activities, but before doing so
you might test the validity of your ideas by asking:
Are volunteers likely to join us on this issue?
Is the press likely to cover us on this issue?
Can we convey a message that is sharp enough to draw attention?
“It’s difficult” might be the answer to all three questions. Then you might
decide to move further ahead on another subject, or you might just decide to
continue anyway, because the issue is of such importance to you.
Having answered the questions you will start planning your campaign.
2nd TOPIC
CAMPAIGN PLANNING – TOP-DOWN
The Danish Socialist People’s Party Youth distinguishes between two kinds of
campaigns: The Top-Down and the Bottom-Up.
Top-down campaigns are approved by the Congress and further developed
as a responsibility of the Board. Local branches will indeed participate in the
development and in the implementation, but the Board will have the responsibility
for implementing the campaign, which will usually target a nationwide
audience.
You can use the following checklist when planning a top-down campaign.
Also see below the example on how the Social Democratic Youth of Denmark
executed a national campaign involving students and the press focusing on the
poor conditions in many state-run schools.
HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING DANIsH INsTITUTe fOr pArTIes AND DemOcrAcY pAGe 53