What will the future of campaigning look like in five years time?

NCVO Third Sector Foresight helps organisations to understand how the world is changing around them and use this knowledge to make better decisions.

On their website you can access a free bank of 'drivers' (trends and forces in the external environment) and a short guide to how to make sense of your environment through strategic analysis. Visit http://www.3s4.org.uk.

We ran two joint events with NCVO's Foresight team in October 2010 exploring the possibilities social media brings for involving people in creating and shaping campaigns. Common topics that emerged during the session were:

• Competition and coalitions between campaigns and campaigning organisations, particularly in light of funding uncertainty.
• 'Clicktivism' the growth in online activism replacing 'real' action and / or donations.
• Effective use of new media, and managing the shift from traditional top-down campaigns to "flatter" social-media lead campaigns.

The seminars covered the topics:

The role of co-creation in online campaigning

Amy Sample Ward, Global Community Development Manager for NetSquared explored

What co-creation means and why it’s important What’s changing online for you and your supporters Threats and opportunities for co-created campaigns

Watch Amy's short film exploring these issues
Have a look through Amy's presentation the role of co-creation in campaigning.

Social media and campaigning

Rachel Beer gave us some examples of effective campaigns that integrate campaigning and fundraising to make the most of new technologies, and illustrate their potential.

She also looked at campaigns that create deeper engagement with supporters through their use of social media. She's written her own blog post about the day, where you can also see her presentation slides.

Ecampaigning in a leaderless world

Liam Barrington-Bush, Concrete Solutions explored 

• Why Twitter is serious campaigning tool
• Why traditional organisations need to think about new ways of working online
• How to 'plan' a ‘leaderless’ campaigning strategy

Have a look at Liam's short film.

Marginalisation of dissent

Dan Glass talked about the growing trend towards more fluid activism and single issue campaigns. He also discussed how the policing of direct action was likely to change, and the importance of understanding the relationship between "formal" campaigning, and direct action methods.

What will campaigning be like in 5 years' time?

This guide by Third Sector Foresight, NVCO, looks at the main drivers impacting on campaigning and influencing, including: how it might evolve over the next few years, the growth of new technologies, professionalisation of the discipline and the growth of consumer activism. The concise guide breaks down these issues into accessible chunks and has tips and suggestions that you can build into your organisational planning.

Download your free copy of the Future Focus guide.

Advocacy in 2020 – Guest blog by Tom Baker

What will advocacy or campaigning look like in a decades time? Our guest blog from Tom Baker looks into a number of recent reports that explore future trends and highlights some common themes that we should all be thinking about now.

Read Tom's blog.

Future foresight planning tools

There are a range of tools and techniques to help organisations with strategic planning. In fact, there’s so much choice, it can be quite daunting to decide which ones to use, and when.

The strategy tools section introduces some of the tools most widely used by voluntary and community organisations. We’ve suggested which parts of the strategic planning process they could be used for and list some pros and cons to each one.