I’ve been passionate about working for a safe environment, a stable climate and a better society for many years. My interest in wildlife extends back to when I was five years old.
In the past 12 months, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and working on the way that we as change-makers communicate and campaign for what we want.
A body of research shows that people hold a whole range of values – some of them geared towards the environment and a better society, some of them towards personal satisfaction and achievement, power and wealth.
The progressive movement in the UK can help to build the most helpful of these values in the long-term through its campaigns and messages. By strengthening these values (and avoiding unintended consequences of reinforcing less helpful ones) NGOs could build a society more geared towards the kind of change we want to see.
Strong peer-reviewed evidence shows that values are like muscles and that the more they are flexed, the more people prioritise them in their daily attitudes and behaviours.
Common Cause theory examines this research and looks at how to apply it to NGO work. To find out more, I recommend the Common Cause handbook.
In 2012, I took part in a series of workshops with a group of 18 other NGO campaigners who, over the course of six months, became good friends. These workshops looked at how campaigners can apply these ideas to their work.
In 2013, I was a research on the Common Cause for Nature report, focussing in particular on childhood connection to nature and putting together an essay on the subject.