Reimagining social and environmental concern
Love for our fellow humans and other living beings isn’t a finite resource that depletes with use, and for which different groups must compete. It grows stronger as its focus is broadened.
Social and environmental concern isn’t a zero-sum game. Strength lies in building on shared values to establish solidarity across diverse causes. Building linkages between causes multiplies our commitment to address these challenges. In this way we become more than the sum of our parts.
This year, we’re launching a new conversation to help build deeper connections between groups and networks that are engaged on issues which may currently seem unrelated. This blog outlines some initial ideas, and hopes to encourage you to want to join this conversation to improve on these ideas, and to help to take them to the next stage (there’s a bit more on how to do that at the end).
The next big change in environmental campaigning – the opportunity of our shared ‘compassionate’ values.
Our work on Common Cause grew, at outset, from conversations among people working in the environment movement. These conversations shaped my report Weathercocks and Signposts, which was published by WWF-UK in 2008. And that report, in turn, led to wider conversations and collaborations.
My cause is your cause – wedded to compassionate values for Australian marriage equality vote
Recently Australians were asked via a non-compulsory postal survey “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”
Grassroots campaigning at MIND
One year ago, I signed up for the Common Cause ‘Action Learning Process’ and started a journey with a group of campaigners from across the charity sector. Although we were all working on different issues (disability, international development, climate change) we shared a hunger for new ideas on how to campaign in a way that […]
Satirising the sell off: creative campaigning through intrinsic means
On Thursday the 6th December 2012, as part of Oxfam’s weekend of action on the land campaign, we co-organised a well attended auction in Bristol city centre. The auction wasn’t selling antiques, vehicles or even animals, but Bristol’s very own landscapes, neighbourhoods and monuments. Staff from ‘Grab, Grab & Profit auction house’ went to town, selling off Clifton […]
Do we have time to shift values?
“Do we have time to shift values?” This is a question that is often asked when people respond to Common Cause. Clearly, we don’t have long to bring down greenhouse carbon dioxide emissions very markedly before we hit devastating levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – with profound, effectively irreversible, effects upon our climate. […]
What about people for whom extrinsic values are particularly important?
A great deal of the research that we have brought together on this site points to the advantages, on aggregate, of appealing to intrinsic values in communicating to people about social and environmental problems – and the potential costs of appealing to extrinsic values. But, of course, people aren’t all the same, and it may be […]
Launching the Common Cause Handbook
Tomorrow sees the launch of The Common Cause Handbook at Action for Children in London, along with the Values and Frames website. We hope you find them both useful resources. The Common Cause Handbook was basically designed to be a slimmer, lighter version of the original Common Cause report published by WWF. In it we […]