In the face of a rapidly changing world, even the savviest nonprofits and foundations needed a boost to keep up and win their issue campaigns. Recognizing this, in 2008 we set about gathering insights from dozens of strategists, who knew more than a thing or two about winning campaigns, and packed as many real-life lessons as we could into the Just Enough Planning Guide.® Since then, hundreds of nonprofits have used this roadmap to put successful campaign strategies in place.
Fast-forward six years, and we’ve entered a brave new world.
Facebook can now turn red across the country as the Supreme Court upholds marriage equality. Extreme partisanship requires new thinking to build bridges and move issues. Social and traditional media offer unprecedented ways to share information and mobilize people – but, if misused, also carry a risk of making people tune out. Campaigners are increasingly turning to sophisticated research and scientific insights on how people think and make decisions to inform successful engagement strategies.
With all of these new factors affecting what it takes to design and run winning campaigns, our campaign planning tool needed an upgrade. The newly titled Planning to WinTM offers a more streamlined process than its predecessor and is packed with new insights and examples to help you navigate today’s campaign playing field. We’ve designed the tool as an online resource and organized it so you can either move through it quickly or dig deep, depending on your needs. You can even access the tool via your tablet and choose the level of detail you want to export, from a top-line document for your board to a detailed tracking system for your campaign team.
Use this tool to achieve your next policy win, get a lot of people to do the right thing or motivate corporations to adopt policies that help make things better. Whatever your ambitions, Planning to Win will take you from vision to reality.
It took an incredible amount of help from some of the best campaigners around the country to put this campaign planning tool together. We are incredibly grateful for the wisdom, insight and from-the-trenches stories they shared to bring this guide to life. We want to extend a special thanks to the people who contributed their valuable time and expertise.
To ensure this remains a living tool that is continuously updated and improved, we need your help. As you use the guide, please share your tips, resources, campaign outcomes and case studies. We’ll feature them on the site so others can learn from those who are on the ground making change happen.
We look forward to hearing from you and seeing your many successes.
Kristen Grimm, President, Spitfire Strategies
Barry Gold, Program Director, Marine Conservation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
