A movement is a group of people who come together to work towards a shared goal or cause. Movements can take many different forms and can be focused on a wide range of issues, from politics and social justice to consumer and cultural trends.
Movements can organically coalesce individuals from different walks of life who are united by a common interest or passion, or they can be organized and led by individuals or groups who are committed to achieving specific objectives. Movements sometimes involve collective action that can have a significant impact on society.
Examples of large scale movements include the the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement in the United States, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the LGBTQ+ rights movement and the environmental movement.
Though movement-building requires persistence and patience, and is not one-size-fits-all, the following steps are almost always useful.
- Passion: Find your passion and build your initiative around your strengths and what you love.
- Research: Understand your idea from all sides and make yourself the absolute expert in the field. Don’t shy away from learning about controversies, don’t take anyone’s position at face value and ask the questions that need to be asked.
- Leadership: Exhaust all opportunities to help lead by supporting existing champions. Don’t re-create the wheel. But if there is a gap in leadership, be that voice.
- Goal: Know your objective and what success looks like to you.
- Empathy: Understand why someone might not agree with you and find opportunities to learn from them and build empathy for their position. Most importantly, remember that there are rarely true enemies in an issue. It’s important to be thoughtful about the words you use and the positions you take.
- Message: Create a simple, core message that everyone can understand and come back to it again and again.
- Urgent Positivity: If your issue is urgent, convey it as urgent, but frame it positively so that people feel there is hope for success and realistic action that can be taken.
- Solution: Don’t campaign against something, but rather for something. If you’re trying to address a problem, suggest a possible solution. Even if it isn’t the right solution, you’re being proactive and helping start the conversation.
- Easy ask: If you need help to succeed with a goal, make it easy for people to support you. Develop only one to three ‘asks’ or requests of your audience, so those you’re targeting understand clearly what they need to do to help.
- Narrative: People respond to stories, and a well-told story will help make your pitch more accessible.
- Storytelling: Across multiple platforms, tell your story and do so with strong visuals where possible. But always keep your story crisp and to the point – less is always better.
- Context: It’s critical to offer context to an issue, but not so much that it bores or confuses or alienates those you want to reach.
- Audience: Understand who you need to reach and how that audience will react to your message.
- Relatable: If your issue is obscure or niche, find ways to make it relatable to the average citizen.
- Dream big/start small: Don’t be afraid to reach for the impossible dream, but start where you can succeed quickly to build momentum. No movement succeeds without momentum.
- Celebrate success: Crossed an item off your ‘to do list’? Celebrate! Accomplished a minor goal? Celebrate! Finding ways to appreciate small joys sustains momentum both personally and professionally.
- Focus: Have a laser focus on your goal and avoid issue-creep by expanding your agenda in ways that can distract, alienate or dilute your message.
- Partnerships: Do what you do best and if you don’t have a certain skill, augment your weaknesses through strategic partnerships that help both parties.
- Unusual suspects: Get out of your comfort zone and have conversations that make you uncomfortable. By talking to people you don’t agree with, you have the ability to win over non-traditional allies or, at the very least, minimize opposition.
- Innovate: No challenge is insurmountable. When you encounter an obstacle, work to find innovative ways to overcome it – a tool best achieved by reaching out to those you respect and trust to troubleshoot a problem.
- Moments: Have perspective. Not every issue is dire. Pick your moments to act and know which hills are worth dying on and which aren’t.
- Be humble: We’re all human and we all fail. Though it’s obvious, it’s critical to avoid being righteous or absolutist, lest you make a mistake yourself.
- Honourable and open: Keep your word. Follow through. Give people a chance. Accept criticism. Learn from mistakes. Ask for advice. Essentially, be an honourable diplomat and an open, accountable leader – even if it’s harder to do both in our social media age.
- Demand better: Balance is better than compromise. Rather than watering down any issue’s bottom line for the sake of expediency or ease, be patient and work toward a balanced solution that meets the needs of all parties.
- Politically sustainable: Fifty-plus-one is never a long-term victory. Ensure your success is one that will endure politically, socially, economically and environmentally, so that once you succeed you don’t have to re-litigate the issue again and again.
Questions to think about: