When it comes to planning a campaign, it’s obviously important to make it as easy as possible to join and contribute to that campaign. One way to do so is an campaigning/activist toolkit which provides your campaigners with tools, strategies, material and information. A great example is the ACLU activist toolkit. What’s so good about it? It’s aimed clearly at its target audience (American civil rights activists), it gives ideas, tools and checklists for the most important activism classics. It features information on how to get media coverage and allows for feedback, so that successes can be shared (as Success Stories) on the ACLU website, too.
While I’m missing a stronger online campaigning element, there is one thing I find particularly worth noting: One whole section covers the problem of stress management and burnout prevention. That’s great, and most of the time this is forgotten. Activists and campaigners of all sorts face massive stress, which affects both themselves and their friends and family. The ACLU activist toolkit covers burnout and stress management from symptoms to strategies for managing stress. They even provide a little quiz to find out about your level of burnout. Excellent stuff!
