What is Community Organizing

Chart for Success: Working with a Strategy Chart to Plan your Campaign Strategy

December 2004

We hear it from county staff and coalition leaders regularly… “We don't need a strategy chart. We know what we're doing, we've done this before.” Granted, the Midwest Academy's strategy chart, by itself, seems rigid and it does demand a lot of time and effort. We agree. And merely filling it out to meet a TCS requirement is a waste of time. But organizers working for change on other issues swear by the strategy chart. This is not because there is a miracle in the strategy chart itself. It's not a silver bullet. It is simply a tool. And, used with care and purpose, you can get real benefit from it. Your policy campaigns will be stronger and your strategies more focused.

Veteran tobacco control advocates seem to be the most resistant to using the strategy chart. By definition, veterans have “been there, done that” and decisions on strategy may seem obvious to them. But what about the non-veterans, the folks who are just getting involved in your campaign, such as new allies? And what if conditions are different today than during the last local policy effort? Maybe a fresh approach is needed. The strategy chart will help veterans and new advocates alike and should not be viewed as a crutch useful only for those who don't know what they're doing.

Filling out a strategy chart might feel like needless work particularly if you're in the middle of your campaign. However, there is still real value in filling one out with your coalition. Count the work you've done up until now as research, as laying the groundwork. The strategy chart needs to be constantly revised based on new information anyway. (Supervisor Smith said he'd be your champion? The Student Senate said they couldn't endorse your campaign? Youth purchase results came back with a 25% sales rate?) Report the results of your efforts so far and let them influence how the chart is filled out. That knowledge will make your strategy better and your tactics and messaging more accurate. Here is a more in depth look at several ways that the strategy chart can help your coalition with its campaign strategy:

1. The strategy chart can help you develop the strongest & soundest strategy.

While you may think you have a clear campaign strategy, we have found that when coalitions actually start talking about the plan in one room, not everyone understands or agrees with the plan. Filling in a strategy chart is a good exercise to bring out concerns and discuss them. Getting input from a variety of people can only strengthen and refine an already good strategy. In addition to getting input from all of your coalition members, the strategy will be more appropriate if you talk to others in your community, e.g., political consultants, former elected officials, and potential allies. Invite them to your strategy session or take them to lunch to get their input. Using the strategy chart to seek and include these additional perspectives from your coalition members and others will ensure your strategy is strong.

2. The strategy chart allows you to communicate your strategy & recruit new people.

One of the weaknesses of the tobacco control movement is that we don't have enough of the RIGHT people involved. We need new passionate volunteers, politically-minded community members, and powerful allies. We need to revitalize our coalitions to build power in our communities where we face an unfavorable political environment. If we're going to do that, we can't decide the campaign strategy in a room with just 3 county staff members present. A good way to get these new people committed and invested in the campaign is to include them right from the start on forming the strategy.

Additionally, once the strategy is planned and written out in this simple chart it can be quickly explained to new people. This makes it is easier for the non-veterans to become involved in to your efforts and understand how their actions fit in to the bigger picture. And, as mentioned above, showing the strategy chart to other supportive and knowledgeable people in your community to get input will make your strategy more accurate. The strategy chart is a tool for laying out a campaign in a clear way so that people can quickly understand it and feel comfortable with what otherwise might be a vague and scattered explanation.

3. The strategy chart is the storehouse of your knowledge.

Often veterans think they know their community and the key people. And they are correct. However, they don't know everything or everyone. Each member of a campaign naturally knows a different niche of the community. Everyone knows different people, knows different segments of the community, and knows different tidbits of gossip. This diversity gives your campaign and your strategy its strength. The strategy chart allows you to put all this information down in one place so that the whole campaign has access to the information. This way it can all be part of one coherent picture of the political environment that can be evaluated by the group. This also allows the information to be accessible even if someone misses a meeting. You can decide to ask Roger to call his friend at the 4-H club as the next strategic step even if Roger isn't at the meeting. This storehouse of information allows your campaign to always move forward.

4. The strategy chart is a management tool.

It's hard in the middle of a campaign to remember to look up and evaluate the big picture. Perhaps your opponents start attacking you. It is easy in this case to turn your energy into jumping to a quick defense or attacking them back. However, the strategy chart will remind you that you still should be focusing your efforts and directing your tactics towards the decision makers. This focus is important to keeping the campaign moving forward in the right direction. The strategy chart gives you a timeline and a path. The information written on the chart can be altered based on new information, but the strategy chart helps you judge the impact of the new information. For example, does this new information about your supervisor change your tactics? Having all your plans in the strategy chart allows you re-evaluate the overall progress of your campaign forward. Have you talked to all those allies you brainstormed? How many of those tactics have you done? In this way the strategy chart can help you manage a campaign that can seem complex and unwieldy.

A Multifunctional Tool

Your coalitions may have passed policies before and you may have a reasonable plan to do it again. But if you've ever worried about the fact that no one in your coalition is participating, wondered why a decision maker was not swayed by your reasoning, or settled for a weak ordinance because you didn't think the stronger would pass, perhaps you need to rethink your approach. Try using the strategy chart as a way to think more strategically, include others, make a strong plan, communicate your plan, and to assure a successful campaign.