Everyone’s With Us. Why Are We Losing?
Over the last twenty years (😳) working in this field, I’ve noticed a pattern in progressive organisations.
It usually goes like this. The campaign launches: the website goes live, the media release goes out. The petition is racking up numbers faster than a Tasmanian summer. The social post gets shared by all the right people.
And yet the decision makers we are trying to influence don’t seem to notice.
Congratulations, you have achieved the progressive sector’s highest honour: a very technically correct campaign that didn’t actually achieve anything.
Validation vs impact
I say this with love. We have all seen this. Sometimes we have lived this. I have. Here’s what I think happens: many progressive organisations are subconsciously looking for validation instead of impact.
The message, so collaboratively crafted, was designed to bring everyone along, offend nobody, and reflect the values of campaigners back to the audience. It worked as designed. This generally all starts with a failure to ask basic strategic questions: who are we actually trying to move, what are we moving them towards, and what does it take to get them to move?
Instead of asking these questions, we often chase consensus. We write for the donor who already agrees with us, but wants to see their ‘contributions’ reflected in our message. Or for the staff on our teams who want to see their politics reflected through their organisation.
The impact of fear
It’s important to name why this happens. It isn’t because progressive leaders don’t understand strategy. And it isn’t because they think this is working. They do, and they know it isn’t.
Most of the time, it happens out of fear. Take a clear position, create a contrast, and you might make enemies. Aim your message at a specific audience, and you risk ignoring others. In the progressive movement, that can feel like exclusion or a lack of collaboration. Those are pretty serious charges in our circles. And because the sector is small and close-knit, it can be personally difficult for leaders to make these calls.
Audience or constituency?
But here’s the thing: a message strong enough to move someone is going to be strong enough to lose someone. There’s no way around that. But that’s where the difference between an audience and a constituency comes in. Your audience is everyone who follows, signs, and shares. Your constituency is the specific person or institution whose behaviour has to change for you to win. They are not the same thing.
The answer isn't to antagonise your supporters or pick fights with movement allies. That’s cheap theatre and it doesn’t build power over time. Your audience still matters. A loud, engaged audience creates pressure you can direct towards your constituency of decision makers. But the message, the ask, the strategy, all of it should be designed backwards from one question: what does it take to move the person who can actually deliver this?
Your audience is a lever. Your constituency is the decision maker you're trying to move. Keeping those two things straight is a necessary, but sometimes difficult, task for progressive and NGO leaders.