Changemakers' Toolkit/Introduction to changemaking/Understanding Power and Influence

Understanding Power and Influence

Introducing the tool

Many campaigns are designed to bring influence to bear on a particular target – a person or group with the power to make change. Common campaign targets include company CEOs, politicians, senior decision makers in large organisations, a public figure or possibly a whole sector or professions.

In these campaigns, it's important to understand what influence you already have, and who else you can work with to increase your influence.

As a first step, you should ask a few questions to decide if your campaign is a good idea.

Are you the right person or group to be pushing this solution?
Do you represent the people affected by the problem? If not, who can you partner with?
Does the campaign help you to achieve your broader goals?
Is it the right time to campaign about the issue? Does it already have some public momentum?

Then it's time to analyse the situation and figure out what action you need to take.

An influence map is a tool to help identify all the players involved with a particular issue and the influence they have. Mapping can help you to:

understand your existing power as a group or organisation;
neutralise campaign threats;
identify gaps in your campaign; and
define the specific role that you’re equipped to play.

The tool will help you to apply pressure on campaign targets from different directions. Use it creatively to fill gaps, build partnerships and generate public awareness.

Case study

In 2022 the UK Government put forward a new Online Safety Bill, which aimed to better protect children and adults online. However, side effects of its impact, if implemented, would challenge the use of Wikipedia in Britain, for both readers and for editors. Specifically, new rules would require Wikimedia to gather age and location data, breaking Wikimedia’s commitment to privacy for users.

To challenge the impact of the Online Safety Bill (OSB), the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK worked to establish cross-party support for changes to it in the House of Lords. These changes included a potential exemption for public interest platforms like the Wikimedia projects to it.

To demonstrate wider support from the open knowledge community, Wikimedia UK invited people to sign an open letter. This letter expressed concern over the content of the bill and was signed by over 800 organisations and individuals from across the world.

Although an exemption for Wikimedia projects did not get adopted by the revised bill, this campaign was successful in raising awareness of the bill's serious defects in the House of Lords. It also raised public awareness of the bill significantly, with articles in The Independent, the Guardian and the BBC.

Sources

Griffin, Andrew (28 April 2023). "Wikipedia could soon be banned in UK over upcoming age verification rules". The Independent.
Milmo, Dan (19 June 2023). "Online safety bill: changes urged to allow access to social media data". The Guardian.

Homework exercise

You're involved with a campaign to encourage people to use greener modes of transport. Your aim is to improve air quality and reduce pollution.

Use the influence map to identify some natural allies for your campaign. These will be people, celebrities or organisations who you know will be on your side, and who could help you to achieve your goal.

Looking at your map, are there gaps in your influence? How can you fill these creatively?

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