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đ Why hasn't your policy change happened?
Alison Griffin, Director of Politics, Participation and Campaigns at Save the Children, talks to Tom Hashemi.
Tom Hashemi
January 30th, 2025
Ask yourself why the change hasnât happened already
Change makers often don't ask themselves âWhy haven't I got the change I want?â I've worked in this sector for at least 10 years and in that time I've seen some amazingly crafted campaigns, with strong routes to influence, and creative tactics, but nobody asking why that change hadnât already happened. You have to look at the opposing forces and what they are doing in the space to stop you from winning. You have to look at that wider ecosystem and really understand it in granular detail.
Understand the barriers to change
We start with five barriers to change.
Decision-makers don't know about the problem youâre trying to fix. The response to that is to build your research and evidence base and support your advocates to advocate. So often we skip to tactics like developing a petition - where what is far more effective is building out an innovative, useful policy solution thatâs built by people who have lived experience of the issue.
Decision makers know, but they don't care. So build your political incentive for action. Maybe thatâs constituency-based campaigning or it can be strategic political media. Whatever you do, itâs about creating pressure in the right places to force the issue.
My favourite - that vested interests are too strong in the other direction. This is the hardest I think, and the one that can take years to realise, but the strategic response is to toxify those vested interests with PR and media.
Maybe thereâs just no bandwidth to make the change happen, like when the government was dealing with COVID. So the strategic response is to join coalitions and make your voice stronger together, and hit the target in loads of different directions with different kinds of arguments.
Or perhaps your analysis is wrong, and you need to go back to the start, do your evidence, your research, work with people who have lived experience, bring in think tanks and universities and policy makers and reevaluate.