Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

3. CAMPAIGN PLANNING
3.1 STRATEGIC PLANNING: ESSENTIAL ISSUES
OVERVIEW
Strategic planning is the process of analyzing the current situation, setting goals for the
future, and determining how to effectively reach those goals. Campaign planning is not a
simple “prelude” to the actual campaign—it is of central importance to effective
campaigning and should receive as much attention and effort as the subsequent
campaign activities themselves. In fact, the success of a campaign is inherently linked to
how rigorously it has been planned from the outset—analyzing the context, identifying
problems and solutions, specifying target audiences and outlining an appropriate course
of action all enhance the chances of reaching campaign goals (Coe & Kingham, Tips on
Good Practice in Campaigning). Ideally, all members of the campaign team or alliance
should be involved in planning, as well as key stakeholders, particularly representatives
of the target audience.
This section describes the crucial first steps for a campaign —the research and analysis
steps that must be taken to a) determine why or when to start a campaign, b) define the
campaign issue (the problem), c) identify the necessary stakeholders to target or
involve, and then d) develop an appropriate campaign approach that best responds to
the issue. The following section explains how to develop the Campaign Strategy, the
roadmap or course of action for effective campaign implementation.
Bear in mind:
Both campaign planning and campaign strategy processes can overlap, and in some
cases even be interchangeable. One easy way of distinguishing between the two is:
planning determines WHAT to do, while strategy determines HOW to do it.
In the case of campaigns, the planning stage asks the question: What needs to
change? To answer, one will need an analysis of the situation and the specific
problem to be addressed; a purpose to drive the campaign; and a vision for the future
the campaign is intended to contribute to. The planning stage also asks the questions:
How will the campaign contribute to change? And who are the key stakeholders?
To answer, one will need to determine an appropriate theory of change, and conduct a
thorough analysis of stakeholders. All of this lays the foundation for then developing a
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Campaigns December 2011