How do we choose our campaigns?

There are two different kinds of campaigns at ActionStation:

1. Campaigns started and led by members of our community;

2. Campaigns started and led by our campaign team staff.

In May this year we launched OurActionStation, a vehicle for members of the ActionStation community to start their own campaigns. The goals for this new project were to:

• make it easy for ActionStation members to run - and win - their own campaigns on issues that mattered to them and to others in our community;

• give more autonomy and leadership to members of our community, by removing the requirement for someone on our staff team to set a campaign up on our site;

• develop campaigning skills within our membership and amongst progressive community groups, grassroots activists and individuals;

• achieve more positive change in New Zealand, by supporting members to run and win more campaigns.

When someone starts a campaign on OurActionStation, one of our staff checks it quickly and makes an initial assessment as to whether or not it meets our community standards (which are set out here), and then sends the campaign to our Member Review Panel for them to make a more considered assessment and decision about the campaign. You can read more about this process here.

Our core campaigns are led by ActionStation staff, and are chosen based on regular surveys of our members. We aim to have at least one core campaign in each of our four priority areas

Within each of those areas we chose our core campaigns based on a set of criteria that include:

• Support: Will it help the ActionStation community achieve its goals?

• Power: Will the campaign motivate, inspire and grow our community?

• Resources: Do we have the resources to run this campaign?

• Impact: Will our campaign make a difference to the outcome?

• Evidence: Do we have a position that understands and reflects the best available evidence and thinking on the issue?

• Allies: How will the campaign impact our relationships with allies?

• Balance: Given our other campaigns, how will this campaign provide balance?

• Urgency: Is the campaign timely?

The decision to launch a core campaign is made by the Director of Campaigns, in consultation with the other team members, and on the basis of input from our members (in the form of surveys, online discussions and other engagement) and consultations with experts and allies.