Campaign to Win
After winning my first statewide issue campaign, an ally told me, “boy, the stars really aligned on this one.” I paused for a minute to process that - it didn’t sit right, but I didn’t immediately know why. Once I did, I corrected him, “Actually, we ran a campaign which aligned the stars,” I said. And that is what it means to campaign to win. You can’t wait for the stars to magically align to make change, someone has to align them. And that someone can be you.
It took me some time to figure out why people thought the stars just magically aligned, but it starts from an early age. I was taught in elementary school that one day Rosa Parks just didn’t feel like getting up from her seat. It wasn’t until my 20s that I learned that it was a tactic, part of a long campaign, executed after years of strategic planning, coalition building and grassroots organizing. The way to think about tactics in the context of a campaign is that they are just the tip of the iceberg that you can see. The real work of campaigns is beneath the ocean and it is massive - and mostly invisible to the public. Since then, I have studied, practiced, and won climate campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels. The campaigns ranged from stopping offshore drilling in the Atlantic, cleaning up dirty, coal- fired power plants, increasing fuel efficiency in cars, promoting solar energy, mandating 100% clean electricity and more. Winning can be taught when your worldview is rooted in people power and you know how to align the stars: how to campaign to win.
For example, in the offshore drilling campaign we built people power by educating communities and passing local resolutions along the Atlantic coast in opposition to offshore drilling and seismic airgun blasting. Our theory was that support from more than 50% (we ultimately got over 95%) of the municipalities in a coastal congressional district would bring that Member of Congress to our side on the issue. If we flipped enough Members of Congress, we could then flip US Senators and governors. And if we did that, we could flip the Obama administration. Executing this methodical plan led to the Obama administration reversing its initial support for offshore drilling in the Atlantic. Ultimately, our campaign was able to pass more than 120 local resolutions, resulting from and garnering the lasting support of hundreds of thousands of people, 40,000 businesses, 200 Members of Congress, a thousand local elected officials, and half a dozen governors. The Administration cited our work building strong local opposition as one of the crucial reasons for changing course. The grassroots movement we built transcended political parties and geographies, which prevented the victory from being reversed even when the Trump administration named opening the waters up to offshore drilling as a top priority. The politicians may have come and gone with each election, but the people are still there and they still oppose offshore drilling.
“The grassroots movement we built transcended political parties and geographies.”
We started New Fundamentals because the country needs more people-powered campaigns. Our team of expert campaigners has analyzed why the campaigns we run succeed and others fail. We have identified the fundamentals of winning effective campaigns, no matter what the subject area is. And we are continually finding new ways to organize and win, with new technologies, new social awareness, new lessons, new interests, new people, and new reactions to win faster and make those wins even more durable. If we want to make progress, we must replicate what works and be disciplined enough to not fall through the same trappings that have stalled progress for decades.
So, what are we talking about? Let’s look at the environmental movement as an example of stalled progress. Since 1990, no new major pieces of environmental legislation have passed Congress and been signed into law. This is despite the increasingly clear scientific evidence that we are on an unsustainable path, one in which each generation will be worse off than the one before. More importantly, we have not had new environmental legislation despite the fact that the majority of Americans- even in red states- acknowledge global warming is happening. But no campaign has organized and harnessed this people power. The Trump administration made clear to many Americans that the government plays an important role in their lives, that elections matter, and that things can and will get worse if we are not engaged at every level of government.
At New Fundamentals, we think that with a grander vision, a new way of thinking, and a more inclusive process we can win together and at scale. Losing is not an option. So, we have brought together a network of people that knows how to maximize your impact from high level strategic thinking to on-the-ground tactical execution. All this work matters and we always need to be leveraging it for the next big thing.
“At New Fundamentals, we think that with a grander vision, a new way of thinking, and a more inclusive process we can win together and at scale. Losing is not an option.”
A common issue within campaigns is that too many decisions are being made without a full understanding of the entire landscape, reacting to others’ moves rather than proactively shaping the debate. When a campaign fails to proactively plan, it is unable to integrate and leverage all of its stakeholders, assets, and limited resources. We see this happen in siloed organizations that do not align their departments for a long-term strategic goal and in coalitions made up of diverse partners. As experienced campaigners doing this work, we have also seen this done really well, quite poorly and everything in between. We bring together and manage siloed organizations and coalitions to ensure strategic alignment for campaign goals and tactical planning. In our campaigns, we listen and plan with all departments and organizations to ensure all components are reinforcing each other and working towards a common, long term goal to ensure maximum return on investment.
We work with organizations, businesses, trade associations, coalitions, and movements that are looking to create a more sustainable and just world. Whether you are looking to create or reassess your strategy, or to build from scratch or improve your existing campaigns, we’ve got the expertise you need. Perhaps you want to introduce new tactics but don’t know how or you need to maximize the impact of the tactics you’re already implementing. Campaigns aren’t just about doing things and checking items off a list; they are about setting and achieving goals.
When people come together and build power, we do not have to settle for incremental changes on a single issue. We can make sweeping change on multiple fronts. And that is why we started New Fundamentals. We provide institutions with strategic and practical guidance to realize short-, medium- and long-term change by re-envisioning what is possible through people power.
“When people come together and build power, we do not have to settle for incremental changes on a single issue.”
We will continue to post blogs regularly to let our readers know more about how we think, what we are up to, and who we are reading and listening to. If you or someone you know is looking to make a bigger impact, contact us to learn how to campaign to win.
