A Flexible Frame for Strategy Planning

When embarking on a journey, planning the trip and directing its course is not something that is done only once. Travelers move forward, consulting maps or other sources that inform them about what's ahead, and keeping a fixed point - a mountain peak, the stars, or a compass heading - as a reference for guidance along the way.

In social justice advocacy, strategy planning, like trip planning, reflects this kind of ongoing dialogue between advocates and their surroundings. When framing an overall approach to strategy planning, we introduce the steps that orient advocates to the process of navigating among the tools, resources, and knowledge that they have at hand.

1. Advocacy Orientation. Recognize, practice, and anchor the most powerful mindset for advocacy: as advocates, you are the initiators of action.
2. Environmental Scan. Assess where you are, always with an eye to determining your next action.
3. Rolling Incrementalism. Take action, while looking for and finding the forward motion towards the overall goal in every event surrounding your advocacy.

Though these steps may call for some creative thinking, none of them involve wishful thinking. To be effective, each habit must be practical and grounded in reality.With this frame in place, we invite you to explore our wealth of strategy planning tools to find concrete ways to: assess reality to determine next steps

As advocates, you are the initiators of action.

This mindset is the simplest and most powerful means for navigating among options when planning your advocacy strategy. As advocates, it is your agency that matters: choose the strategies that promote and preserve that agency.

Advocacy strategy can focus on shaping WHAT policy is - establishing a law, a policy, a decree, or some other kind of societal rule. Advocacy strategy can also focus on HOW policy happens - opening up the process by which such societal rules are made and kept.

But advocacy strategy works in the most powerful and lasting ways when it also centers on WHO makes policy happen - facilitating a process by which people know the power they themselves have in making and keeping societal rules.

This orientation towards initiative acts as your compass on your advocacy journey. No matter the twists and turns of the road, the needle keeps its orientation, allowing you to navigate in any needed direction.

Also, like a magnetized needle, advocates who practice this mindset bring others around them into the same orientation, permeating all aspects and levels of their advocacy campaigns with this very pragmatic sense of possibility.

Social justice advocates, with good cause, rarely believe that they have a dominant hand in power relationships. Nearly every issue is affected by unequal power relationships between advocates and decision makers.

Yet there are many accounts in which those with seemingly less power have overcome tremendous odds to thwart those with greater power, resources, experience, and access.

We can counter three common myths about power with three truths about power:

Myth: “They have all the power”

Truth: Power is a matter of degree. It can be absolute, or shared and limited. Social justice advocacy seeks to share the power to make decisions that will affect people's lives.

Myth: “They'll always have all the power”

Truth: Power changes. It is dynamic, always shifting - not static. Just because someone has power over you today, it does not mean they will have power over you tomorrow. Social justice advocates know from experience that power is rarely given or yielded. It must be won through resistance and struggle.

Myth: “They have all the resources from which power comes”

Truth: Social justice advocates have their own sources of strength from which they draw tremendous power:

• Strategic action that engages public problem solving processes, defines and frames issues, fixes responsibility, and creates solutions.
• Innovation, invention, and initiation.
• Vision, commitment, and intensity.
• Above all, people - their knowledge, experiences, and stories.

These sources of power can all rend asunder traditional measures of power.

Transformative social movements create environments where people feel safe to experiment, learn from mistakes, ask hard questions, and are not paralyzed by perfection.

At the Advocacy and Leadership Center, we have identified a set of core values that we believe create an innovative, learning organization. The acronym - THE RAMP - symbolically means reaching greater heights.

Organizations that make THE RAMP operational provide opportunities for members and less experienced organizations to practice the skills and art of advocacy, gain confidence and self-respect, deepen their commitment, and broaden their experiences. These are key elements for sustaining social change movements.

• Transparency in decision making and communication. Those responsible for decisions have no hidden agendas, and encourage an open flow of communication among everyone involved in the effort, members and leaders alike.

• Hope that people's advocacy efforts will create change. When realistic hope is nurtured, it can motivate advocates, giving them something to look forward to as they engage in a long-term campaign.

• Exchange among peers and colleagues within an organization. Everyone has something to offer. Forums need to be created for people to learn from each other, and everyone should be modest enough to know they always have more to learn.

• Respect for members and leaders alike, given in one-on-one relationships and in group settings.

• Affirmation of people doing the work. This means not only the leaders, but also those who provide administrative and logistical support, and those who are relatively inexperienced.

• Modeling, setting a good example, or putting words and ideas into action. In other words, “walking the talk.”

• Pragmatism. Actions are based on long-term and short-term objectives that are realistic, achievable, and practical. Actions just for the sake of doing something must be avoided.

A social justice advocacy organization needs to work to stay connected with and accountable to the people whose interests it serves. A people-centered campaign produces not only change, but engaged community members who work to keep change going, and to implement other changes.

To make sure that your organization maintains significant relationships with its members, constituents, or those in affected groups, continuously ask yourself three questions:

• Are we giving voice to people whose voices are not fully heard?
• Are we enabling and motivating people to become actively involved in the advocacy process?
• Are we taking time to learn from the experiences of our members, constituents, or those in affected groups?

People-centered advocacy not only helps amplify the voices that are seldom heard, but also begins to transform existing power dynamics that determine who can be an “advocate” in the first place. Use our resource sheet,Focal Points for People-Centered Campaigns to suggest entry points for people's participation in your campaigns.

Information on this page came from Advocacy for Social Justice: A Global Action and Reflection Guide, now available in English and Spanish from Kumarian Press.