NEWSLETTER No. 10

KRAGUJEVAC

Theme: Improvement of NGO image (V) - Campaigns

Campaign (Fr. campagne and Ital. campagna), in social terms, represents all the work necessary for the accomplishment of a social or political task. Campaign as a term can  be simplified to a struggle for or against something or someone. There are military, political, social, media, civic, NGO and government campaigns. Each public group can run  a campaign for the accomplishment of its goals, that is, search for support of methods that can help achieve those goals.

From the civil sector perspective, where by nature of their work, that is, mission, NGOs are focused on this kind of communication, campaigns in most cases tally with an also well familiar concept - advocacy. In order to confirm this, you can simply try to make up an internal "Top 10" list of the best civil sector campaigns and you will see that they are all, in fact, classic advocacy campaigns.

The best example are, of course, the so called GOTV campaigns ("Go to vote") which NGO sector realized on the national level during the elections 2000, which was truly a promotional springboard for our "third sector". The main problem, which many people perceived with this kind of advocacy, referred to the fact that regardless of the definition (of non-party-oriented or non-political organization) you did not simply invite the citizens to vote but you also indirectly recommended who they should vote for, and thus, in the "prism" of opponents you were taking sides. However, since one cannot escape politics, especially in a society like ours, it is necessary to underline that it is precisely politics that NGOs are involved in  such cases, but not politics in the classic sense - the one that arouses a negative reaction in most citizens, but the so-called socially responsible politics.

If we look on a campaign as on an active search for support, then we need two basic segments for its realization: 

• Expert support (sociologists, lawyers, PR and marketing experts, media, other NGOs)

• Experience (research and direct information from participants in previously realized campaigns)

The basic campaign elements, from the  "third sector" perspective, can be presented as:

1. Animation (of volunteers, media, public opinion, local authorities, donors)

2. Organization (building a team and decision-making systems, division of work, setting up timeframes, coordination, devising and making propaganda elements - message, message form, message carriers)

3. Activities (media activities, "door to door" actions, distribution of propaganda material, public presentation)

4. Instruments (human resources, finance, technical equipment)

Then we get to the preliminary plan of the campaign, produced through team work, naturally. As opposed to profit campaigns, literally all associates participate in creating NGO campaigns, so that it is necessary to organize a greater number of small meetings, so that literally everyone would be acquainted with the details. The main difference is that in classic campaigns  there are "message carriers" as the most visible part of the team whereas in "third sector" campaigns the promoters, i.e., "message carriers" are literally all participants - from volunteers to associates and those directly present in public through the media. For NGO sector it is important that everyone should be present in public.

A baseline preliminary plan should comprise the following elements, which are, I need to emphasize, conditional and cannot be bypassed. They are:

1. Set up concrete campaign goals, derived within the framework of the main goal

2. Determine target group(s) - there are usually more of them

3. Define message (s) for certain target groups

4. Modify channels and means of message transfer

5. Determine "message carrier" 

6. Define campaign timeframe

7. Search for possible partners and ways of forming "advocacy network"

8. Draw up precise budget

9. Determine indicators and methods of evaluation

One of the models for evaluation of the successfulness of a campaign is a questionnaire used in evaluating GOTV campaigns in Slovakia in 1998:

1. How did the campaign develop, what were its key moments for success and what its most problematic moments?

   • What was the original idea for the campaign?

   • What aspects of the original idea for the campaign related to campaign management and structure were crucial for the success of the campaign?

   • What were the contingencies that the campaign had to face?

2. Who were the actual participants in the campaign?

   • Who were the campaign participants?

   • What was the role of certain participants and what was their interrelationship?

   • Based on the experience from the campaign, what should the relations within the campaign structure be like?

3. To what extent was the campaign decentralized or organized from the centre?

   • What should be the status of local committees (partners) in the campaign?

   • How should effective communication in the campaign be achieved between the centre and regions?

4. What problems related to the campaign management occurred in communication among participants?

   • What conflicts occurred and why?

   • How were problems and conflicts solved during the campaign?

   • How should conflicts that could not be solved during the campaign be ended?

   • How can similar conflicts be prevented in the future?

5. How should the campaign activities be financed?

   • Could other (and what) sources have been used for financing the campaign?

   • Was the campaign budget (method of financing) "visible" enough?

6. What was the attitude towards the media during the campaign?

   • What are positive and  negative experiences related to the media?

   • Based on these experiences, what recommendations can be offered related to the media campaign?

7. To what extent can the experiences from the campaign be used in other towns (regions)?

   • Which experiences are universal, and which environmentally specific?

   • To what extent have experiences from the previous campaigns in our country or abroad helped the organizers of your campaign?

Training titled "Development of PR campaign"

Taken from the forthcoming study " NGO PR " by Vladimir Paunovic 
NGO MillenniuM Copyright Í MillenniuM 2003

Theme: My vote makes a difference - Elections in Serbia

December 2003, the year that can freely be referred to as the ''test year'' for the electoral body of Serbia, showed, as well as proved for the second time, the reverse side of frail democracy in the territory of the new-founded state union. Rare cases have been recorded throughout history that the so-called ''young democracies'', mostly related to countries in transition, should fail such tests, and there are even fewer such cases if circumstances that the country is in are considered. Poland left the dictatorship behind much earlier, although it can barely be compared to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, with its geopolitical surroundings considered. Its electoral body shows far greater enthusiasm for voting in elections.

The most adequate comparison could perhaps be looked for in our close neighbour Romania, whose socio-economic position has been a subject of thorough analyses by most eminent world experts for years, and frequently an object of derision for the neighbours, where the ruling couple Chausescu remained in power with the help of a slightly different government administration based on Securitatea, a sort of private Pretorian Guard, but basically, they acted in a similar manner. The only difference and the most important basic difference is the manner in which the two ruling couples ended their rule: putsch in Romania brought about the ending of a rule whose main actors ended as in a fairy tale or maybe even a ritual that would more likely suit the middle-ages  ''witch hunt''; whereas the Serbian couple ended split up in different European capitals, i.e., prisons. And of course, in view of all the above stated, it would be quite logical and justified for a bystander who is accidentally familiar with both stories to ask: Who has come out of it better? What is the real impact of different endings of autocratic regimes on the national and historical heritage? ''Will the Romanian people, regardless of their civilization heritage, have greater satisfaction when writing history books?!'' The answer to the question what is better-a bloody feast or velvet revolution is very similar to the hen and egg dilemma!!! It really depends on one’s point of view.

Recent history has also recorded that at the time when Romania entered the transition period, Serbia simply entered a dictatorship period.  Nothing was helping the development of a parliamentary democracy or mature electoral body that would simply meet the demands of the current political reality.  This is probably why lack of understanding of the West often led to colossal delusions; namely,  the political education of the electoral body of Great Britain with 400 years of parliamentary democracy behind is not something that can be artificially grafted on to a weak state and undeveloped civil society. Thus the twofold perception of the West! When an evil dictator who is repressing his people leaves, everything can be easily brought into order by a simple removal of the rotted social tissue and establishment of modern and efficient state institutions. But the outcome of the latest election is a painful proof that this is not really the case.

The history of elections in Serbia is, according to evaluation of analytical research agencies, nothing less fascinating than the manner in which they were carried out and organized. The opposition at the time was actually nothing new but consisted simply of active supporters of numerous dissidents who, back in the time of Tito’s rule, disobeyed Broz and had to pay for it by suffering harassment, pursuit or even imprisonment on the notorious and even legendary island among the people  - Goli Otok. At that time when political parties were founded almost with enthusiasm, anyone supported by a certain number of sympathizers could have their own party, implement their own ideology or shout out slogans, unthinkable until 10 years ago. In that sense, if we want to be honest, it is hypocritical to speak of the initial rigging of the first parliamentary elections by Mr Milosevic, since that is perfectly and obviously untrue and can only serve as an excuse for the surrogate of earlier generations. The whole truth is in fact that Milosevic’s ethics, ideology and political attitude, i.e., style represented a perfectly logical continuation of the earlier governing principle and as such the most appealing for general acceptance! Thus the first victory of Slobodan Milosevic in the elections is perfectly legitimate as well as the repercussions of everything that ensued. During this seemingly stable period, the opposition was frequently not taken seriously and seemed ridiculous and some political parties were assuming the role of instruments popularised by pop-culture or even sub-culture, and they were sometimes a product of individual minor interests. Milosevic obviously learned all the lessons from the past well and took advantage of such clumsy attempts of establishing democracy. A huge number of small parties kept the opposition firmly disunited, and the political leaders’ vanities represented stumbling blocks to possible progress and achievement of firm coalitions - this was the joker card that Milosevic played and won over and over again! He seemed to always be one step ahead, that is, the opposition was two steps behind in each following election! Mr Milosevic undoubtedly always had a new trick, either rigging an election, making his own candidate get in, satellite parties or even the same parties under a different name or even forming various coalitions.

At the presidential election in 1992, out of the total number of voters, which was 4,672,341 according to CESID,  SPS won 2,673,375 or almost 35% more than the second placed candidate, whereas other results were negligible.

As the years went by, the opposition, of course, had to learn a few lessons, very often indirectly, as was the case with 9 March, so all the following victories of SPS were getting smaller and smaller, and the electoral conditions were all but democratic and fair. Manipulations with ballots, ballot-boxes or the number of registered voters were something to be expected until they were really cornered in the presidential election 2000. In spite of everything, the Serbian ruler, who had been so for many years, turned to the same tricks again, since he had apparently used all the others. Even the extreme ones, such as changing the constitution or switching from one to another office, were no longer options that seemed realistic. In the familiar mayhem that ensued, the government changed and then conditions were established for organizing fair and democratic elections. The acute question whether the voters are apathetic due to being dissatisfied with presidential candidates, lack of political education,  general socio-economic conditions or simply due to being masochistic, along with the shattered national identity, will wait for an answer until the elections on 28 December 2003. Then, at best, we shall be writing a completely different story!