In Europe, NGOs have helped bring about landmark environmental and climate laws. A combination of campaigning and deft lobbying has taken an idea for progressive change and delivered it through EU law and policy.
In Brussels, I have had the honour to work with Lesley O’Donnell at IFAW and then Tony Long at WWF. They were a rare breed of consummate lobbyists who helped their campaigning NGOs deliver legal and policy change across Europe.
I’ve been fortunate to witness many times how a small group of dedicated people and Pandas can move political mountains.
Your campaigning and public support may have brought your issue up, but will it lead to the policy and legal change you want? This is where you need to mix your campaigning with lobbying. If you ignore this final part of the journey, all hard work will likely be for nothing.
Caveat
Stop reading if you think that the best way to bring about change is getting a celebrity/Royal to endorse your campaign, think that a supermarket will change the world, or a dinner with a CEO and your former roommate at prep school/Ivy League will stop the destruction of a pristine nature reserve. The same goes if you think chaining yourself to an office building is an act that alone will lead to change.
41 things you can do as a NGO to get what you want in the EU
If you were starting lobbying in an NGO, these are 41 things I’d recommend you do. Done consistently, they’ll help bring about progressive policy and legal change.
- Make sure your theory of change is based on political reality, not wishful thinking. Self-actualisation won’t get you a proposal tabled and the votes you need to get what you want into law.
- You need to be very patient. If you are diligent and do most things right, it takes 5 to 10 years to get your issue taken up and adopted into a new law or policy. Change does not happen fast. Most major changes in society are what some call “generational change” and take more than one EU policy cycle.
- Have a lobby plan that is part of your overall campaign plan. Change does not happy by chance. I know if a campaign will fail just by looking at the campaign and lobby plan or the lack of one.
- The easiest way to be taken seriously in Brussels is to be trustworthy, credible, and in it for the long haul.
- It helps to have an office in Brussels. It does not have to be fancy. See it as the political embassy of your organisation. When you can walk outside and bump into the officials and politicians who decide on the issues you work on, your work is a lot easier.
- It helps to be seen as an “insider”, someone who is part of the furniture, who is playing the lobby game and not changing the rules of the game.
- Make sure your office is led by someone who understands how politicians and officials think and work. A person who can translate what your organisation wants into the language of officials and politicians. You want that rare person who can move between those two worlds.
- Build long-term and genuine relationships with officials and MEPs. Don’t just contact them when a proposal is in front of them. As a rule of thumb, provide them with ten useful pieces of information for every ask you have.
- Recognise the importance of legislators’ staff and group staff. Treat them with respect rather than as skivvies.
- The Brussels bubble is small. You will meet someone years later in a position of influence, so don’t be rude to them when they are a junior
- Just because you are saving the world does not give you the right to be rude to people. If you do, you’ll find your positions are mysteriously blocked.
- The best NGOs I know are jam-packed and full of leading technical and scientific experts on staff or on call at leading universities. Your case must be based on the best evidence that is available.
- Have your policy solutions, legal language, and campaign plan filed away for the day when the policy window opens for a brief moment to bring your solution to the table.
- You need to see bringing about policy, legislative, and regulatory change as part of your mission. If you do not know, there is little to no point in lobbying.
- You need to work across Political Groups and 27 nationalities. If you find a cross-party and European approach to lobbying, you are in the wrong place.
- It helps if your organisation has offices or coalition partners in as many EU capitals as possible. This is what your opponents have too. The ideal is to have good working relationships with Ministers, MPs (governing and opposition), and civil servants so that you can meet them weeks before every Council meeting.
- A lobbyist helps people bring the right case (evidence, information, and solution), to the right decision-maker(s), at the right time and in the right way, so it lands with the decision-makers(s), and a decision is taken that goes in their favour.
- You need to make sure your lobbying is focused on bringing about change and not spent in internal meetings. I rate internal meetings as the biggest risk to success for any NGO.
- Avoid discussing arcane issues that only your most zealous members care about.
- Have a policy solution that works, preferably prototyped beyond North Korea.
- Have clear legislative language and supporting justification from the gods support this solution and have on hand real people demonstrating the solution. Ideally, demonstrate this solution is profitable in the real world.
- Have a practical best alternative solution to your ideal position in your back pocket. Know when to use it. You never get everything you want, and you need to have the best alternative ready for when the moment comes. It will come.
- Take your case and convert your language to the value groups of your audiences – Settlers, Prospectors, and Pioneers.
- Read, digest, and apply Chris Rose’s ‘How to Win Campaigns’. It is the NGO campaign bible. Don’t just read five pages and think you know what you are doing.
- Keep your colleagues who dislike politicians and civil servants away. Make sure no preppy Americans or Brits come over and start hectoring officials and politicians. It will see you in the wilderness for a few years.
- Train your people to work with politicians, civil servants, and the media. These skills don’t come naturally. Use the trainings and resources that your opponents also use.
- Have the long-term funding you need to bring about policy and legal change (5-10 years) If you don’t, you will likely fall flat just before the victory.
- Don’t forget that even after the adoption of a piece of legislation, the battle for technical standards that determine how the law is applied in practise can go on for several years.
- You’ll need to fundraise. Lobbying is not cheap. Be respectful of your donors’ generosity and goodwill. Make sure they don’t dictate your policy.
- Set realistic goals. Claiming you can get a law to be put forward by the Commission and agreed to by the Council and EP in 12 months is a fantasy.
- If you think lobbying is some inane tweets and LinkedIn posts, stop. I’ve known too many groups claiming kudos for success, only to discover that the inner circle who took the proposal through did not know of their existence.
- Don’t throw a public tantrum because you don’t get what you want. You need to get used to that. It is normal. It is also a useful feedback loop- you did something that did not persuade people.
- Have an excellent media and communications team. Working with media across Europe is a great vehicle to increase your chances of success. This team is worth its weight in gold.
- Work closely with the academic and specialist press – decision-makers and politicians read them.
- Have on call a few great creative designers and lawyers to help you and your team out.
- Have the agility of mind, flexibility and resources to harness unexpected opportunities. The window of opportunity opens up at the strangest time. But don’t move beyond your core mission.
- Don’t get taken over by a management consultancy. They don’t know how to campaign or lobby.
- Don’t count success in terms of newspaper column inches. Instead, see the laws and policies you changed and whether they get implemented as your only KPI.
- Understand what your role in your network is. Some NGOs are more activist; some are insiders who mimic the team setup, working groups and outreach methodologies of the industry. You will need both in a coalition to win a campaign, but the stretch between the two is often too much inside one single organisation.
- Working in formal and informal coalitions is powerful. If you agree but can’t work in a coalition, make sure you’re not coming along with really different positions from others in your sector. This just gives people a reason to dismiss you.
- Thank those who help you. You only get the laws and policies you want because of the help of officials and MEPs who usually go out of their way. Thank them in private or in public, as appropriate. Have a good photographer on call for events to allow politicians to re-use the image back home. Thank your team and volunteers who have likely worked tirelessly.
Further Reading
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Primer for Realistic Radicals
Chris Rose, How to Win Campaigns
Chris Rose, What Makes People Tick
Hahrie Han, How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century
Bill Moyer, Movement Action Plan