Building and Sustaining Coalitions

1. Building and Sustaining Coalitions Patricia Riley, Ph.D. Director, Global Communication Program Director, USC Annenberg Scenario Lab (www.uscscenariolab.com) Carola Weil, Ph.D. Director, International and Strategic Partnerships, USC Annenberg

2. Objectives Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 To focus on the communication actions required for building coalitions To determine the barriers to long term success of these coalitions To look at communication styles of coalition leaders To take a deeper look at coalitions in Frelaria

3. Building Coalitions • Forming coalitions with other groups of similar values, interests, and goals allows members to combine resources and become more powerful than when they act alone. Spangler, 2003 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

4. Advantages of Coalitions Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 Can win on more fronts and increase the potential for success Bring more expertise and resources to bear on complex issues Creates openings for new leaders More people have a better understanding of the issues Each group gains access to the contacts, connections, and relationships established by the other groups Coalitions raise its members' public visibility Can build a lasting base for change as it becomes more difficult for opposition groups to disregard the coalition's efforts

5. Challenges of Coalitions Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 Members can get distracted from other work and non-coalition efforts may become less effective Only be as strong as its weakest link--organizations that provide a lot of resources and leadership may get frustrated with others To keep a coalition together, it is often necessary to cater to one side more than another, especially when negotiating tactics(e.g., high-profile confrontational tactics versus subdued tactics) Democratic principle of one group-one vote may not always be acceptable to members with a lot of power and resources−must carefully define the relationships between powerful and less-powerful groups Individual organizations may not get credit for their contributions to a coalition—those that contribute a lot may think they did not receive enough credit.

6. Consensus Process • Facilitated through appreciative inquiry. • Takes longer to come to decisions but easier to implement. • Have to agree on change/reform, find words that are agreeable to all. • Understand that you won’t always get your way. Key to Success Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 A successful coalition figures out how each group and its representatives can make their different but valuable contributions to the overall strategy for change through consensus building. This helps avoid duplication of efforts and improve communication among key players.

7. Coalition Message Development Strategy Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 Start with common ground—learn the words and meanings that partners agree upon at the start Japanese strategy of “future needs” announcements – sent/timed a few months apart Move towards a new understanding incrementally with a strategic word plan that morphs

8. The Big Shift: Why? Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

9. Research on Sustainability Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 • Meta-analysis of 16 reforms indicates thatthey shared: • Purposes and direction • A focus on building collaboration, consensus, and long-term commitment • Activities and relationships formed important building blocks for long-term change • Leaders emerged who were good at facilitating and cross-cultural brokering • Mechanisms for sharing funding problems

10. Coalition Sustainability:Goals Derived from Lessons Learned Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 • Need to create a culture that is more collaborative than individualistic • The work is intentionally more integrated than divided • e.g., High use of multi-organization teams run by co-leaders • Coalition structures should look more like social movements than like organizations • Room for lots of leaders to emerge • Passion and emotion are good

11. Coalition Sustainability:Goals from Lessons Learned, cont. Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 • Make use of volunteers and have constant communication with supporters • Get the young involved • The leadership is more facilitative than directive (act more like coaches) and encourages multiple perspective thinking • Asks many more questions versus giving answers • Values that are both context-specific and generalized • Constructive disagreement is allowed

12. Flexible Activities, Responsive Structures Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 • What are the communication actions that enable flexibility? • What are the communication behaviors that enable responsiveness? • What are the barriers? • Use handout to assess threats/barriers for coalition and network building in the Frelaria Reform case

13. Threats/Barriers Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

14. Encourage: Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 • Growth of new meetings/forms (cross-role groups, dinner meetings, study groups) when they seem appropriate and, • Create a hybrid culture that embraces the best of each partner group and focus on continuous appreciated inquiry to find new skills across the groups • Replace prescription and compliance with involvement in problem posing, sharing, and solving; discussions that concern actions and consequences

15. Encourage: Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

16. Witness Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 WITNESS, the international organization that trains human rights advocates worldwide to use video in their campaigns for change. Founded by Peter Gabriel, WITNESS' mission statement is: "Using video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations.“ Slogan: See it. Film It. Change It! Working to create a network of communication NGOs but over the long-term probably need new kinds of partners.

17. Discussion Goals: • You have 30 minutes for discussion. • Craft a goal for the network that will interest potential partners and outline a plan for the development of the network. Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 What are the possible opportunities for video communication advocacy? What other kinds of organizations would be good partners? What are possible threats/barriers? What would a sustainable network be able to accomplish?