Rebecca Gowland, Executive Director, Patriotic Millionaires International
How to deliver change – what levers can we pull?
There are around a million people working in the voluntary sector in the UK. So many of us are engaged in a mission to change the narratives and policies delivered for our society and I’ve done a bit of everything: from dressing up as a shark outside Number 10, to writing research reports and lobbying former Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State. You might think this ‘diverse’ portfolio would give me conclusive experience of how to deliver change but, honestly, I still don’t know. There is so much we don’t control and the world moves fast, so being ready to adapt your approach gives an advantage: it allows you to continuously try new things, welcome alternatives, and recognise that you need partners to make things happen. There are principles that we should remember but the most important thing to know is that this might all be irrelevant in five years. Retaining the ability to change as our context evolves is the best way to create the possibility of a better future. Here’s how I think we need to respond to our context right now.
Have an honest and emotional voice
When people say don’t get emotional, they are wrong – the state of politics, and our (social) media should have proved that by now. But many of us still seem addicted to the idea that eventually statistics will change people’s minds. They won’t. The truth is that people are influenced by those that they know, or by voices that they trust and can relate to. People are busy listening to their own personal facts more than anything else. While I might know that 30 percent of kids in the UK live in poverty in this country, I don’t experience that as a parent on a day to day basis. Those that do are also searching for answers to the problems they face, and easy ones are more persuasive than the reports I might have the luxury of spending my time reading. Voice is critical in changing people’s minds – a voice that can be trusted, that speaks with emotion and feels honest, is the most important way to convince anyone of anything. The reason why someone like Gary Stevenson has so much cut through on the economic debate is because he’s an expert who speaks like a normal human being, on a topic that is perceived as the preserve of clever and untouchable economists somewhere in an office in London. Making issues accessible through voice is essential in creating public conditions for positive change.
Be disruptive
As much as voices that people trust is important, so are those that disrupt norms. Patriotic Millionaires UK is a perfect example of a disruptive and jarring voice. When people think of rich people and higher taxes on wealth, they tend to equate them with ‘exodus’ or fighting to protect as much wealth as possible. The establishment of Patriotic Millionaires as a public voice – in comms, media and with political leaders – has allowed for a very different case on wealth and taxes to be presented to both the public and decision-makers. No one expects a millionaire to say ‘tax me more’ so when they do, a small window of curiosity is opened for the listener – including those in positions of power. At this point you’ve created the space needed for others with greater knowledge than you to come in and present evidence and arguments to help move change forward.
Partnerships
Which brings me to partnerships. Those of us involved in change are operating on a very, very small budget compared to actors who might be arguing a counter case. Vested interest is probably the biggest challenge we face in making change happen because preserving the status quo is good for those that currently feel they benefit from it. In the UK, eight in ten of the most frequent lobbyists of Government are from FTSE 100 companies, and there’s no clearer case in point for political capture than the billionaires currently running and ruining the United States. Our political representatives hear most often from the wealthiest and most powerful people who want to stay wealthy and powerful. In sharp contrast to this, a few years ago a colleague ran the numbers for people working on progressive taxation in the UK and discovered there were only 11 of us, operating on a miniscule budget.
This tells us we are nothing without community and partnership – change comes from combining our effort. If your expertise is in comms then you need to make sure you’re working within a network that also consists of research and policy capabilities; and if you’re an academic trying to get new research out there you need to make sure you are operating in a network that includes comms agencies and advocacy experts. Without partnership and community, we amount to very, very little. And life is much less interesting.
Evidence in order to experiment
Experimental approaches to our work are critical in meeting rapidly changing media and political contexts. I’m not saying throw the baby out with the bath water because there are some things that should be repeated again and again. Oxfam’s annual inequality report, issued for the last 11 years in time for the World Economic Forum, continues to be a brilliant and massively useful piece of work. Arguably it is the single most important product to change the nature of political conversations on inequality in the last decade. What makes it so useful is the consistent presentation of evidence of a problem we are trying to deal with and then laying out recommendations for what must be done to deal with the problem. Products like this provide the foundation of any decent campaign because the value of our work must continue to be based on evidence. This does not need to be dispassionate or unbiased – nothing ever is – but knowing your work is grounded allows you to present your own honest argument.
Don’t get stuck on one strategy: take risks and do it all (or as much as you can)
We have a running joke in our team about the number of ideas we have and how much we want to do. While we’re conscious not to turn this into overwork and burnout (we don’t always succeed at this) we’re also conscious that ideas turned into activity means consistent noise for the change you want to make. Narrative and news influencing, especially with the dominance of social media, is about ‘flooding the zone’. Lots of ideas executed and published means lots of products out there in the world which, at a time when AI is collecting up all those stories, videos, bits of research evidence, and churning them out to present to people as facts, is imperative. Say the same thing ten different ways; try the crazy ideas you always wanted to, like renting a bus for a week and driving it across the country. Do not wait, do not worry about failing. Just get on with getting your ideas out there – as genuinely and with as much fun as you can.
When change comes it is not really the result of one plan or a rigid approach. No matter what we all like to tell ourselves change often happens without our say because so much is out of our control. There are things to try, things that seemingly help ‘shift the needle’, and basic principles to stick to. Sometimes we get what we want, and we steer policy, narrative, and practice to where we want it to go, and sometimes we don’t but we keep pulling the levers regardless. In my two decades of experience all I can really tell you is that change takes a long time and it’s rare to feel it happen. We need to be honest about what we do, what influence we have, and be committed to imbuing as much partnership, disruption, emotion, and fun as we can into our work. Without these things, just as in life, we lack the joy needed to build the world we want.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of the University of York