Ensuring beneficiary voice in campaigning

"We should be working towards being facilitators of the voices of affected people." Member of Bond Southern advocacy quality group.

Involving those who you represent and placing them at the heart of your campaigning is not only positive and desirable but a can be a source of legitimacy and accountability that strengthens your campaigns. This guide produced jointly by Bond and NCVO looks in detail at how to fully involve beneficiaries in all stages of a campaign from: selecting the issue, deciding how the campaign should be implemented, involved in the delivery and have the power to hold the campaign to account. It's full of practical case studies from the Ramblers Association, Unearth Justice, Trading Visions, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Oxfam, Witness, PhotoVoice and EveryChild.

Download Beneficiary Voice guide (PDF)

What is beneficiary voice?

Beneficiaries are people directly affected by an issue who stand to benefit from the outcome of the campaign. We use the term beneficiary voice to mean the extent to which beneficiaries are involved in the campaign decision making and directly represented or visible in campaigning activities.

Many people object to the term beneficiary because it can imply that beneficiaries are passive subjects, rather than active agents of change. there a number of possible alternatives, however few are applicable in all contexts and all have pros and cons. While recognising the short comings we use the term beneficiary voice because it is short and simple.