Your role as the strategic convenor is like wiring an electrical circuit: you make the connection between diverse elements into a circuit that maximises the voltage surging through them. As well as having the savvy strategic sense to design the most efficient, powerful circuit, you also need to have access to the right elements to make the circuit work.
For instance, if you need to build a coalition of doctors, you will need to have connections to the medical world. If legal or military voices will have influence, then you will need connections with people in those sectors. The greater the size, diversity, and commitment of your network, the more impact you will have.
Organisations from your network that opt in to a specific coalition will be involved in its success, building their commitment to this model of organising for impact. By the very nature of clever coalitions, though, not every member of the wider ecosystem needs to or will opt in to every tactic or even strategy you work on. Some may not opt in because their priorities lie elsewhere at that moment. Others may not opt in because they do not agree with the approach you’re proposing: that is inevitable and perfectly legitimate. People have different views on how to make change happen, and your goal is not to get everyone to agree but to have impact.
Left untended, relationships can sour due to a sense of exclusion or being ignored. Yet at some point down the line, you may need to work together because your collective impact will be less if you don’t. So you must constantly nurture relationships so they can endure periods of disconnection and withstand specific disagreements.
Crucially, we seek buy-in. Literally. Crisis Action’s partners – the foremost human rights, humanitarian, and peacebuilding organisations in the world, sharing the goal of civilians in war zones being safe from harm – pay a small contribution to Crisis Action as their partnership fee (we do not seek any contribution from organisations from the Global South). The total partnership contributions from all our partners come to less than 10% of Crisis Action’s income: the value is more about securing commitment to collaboration than it is a source of revenue.
The partnership must be win-win. In our case, on top of the impact partners contribute to in any specific coalition, the benefits they gain include:
As the Syria Case Study shows, the usual good people saying the usual good things is not usually enough to change hard political calculus, especially in matters of war and peace. Think of a school playground: when the goody-two-shoes says, ‘play nicely’, or even shouts it, or even writes it in a strongly-worded letter, the bully won’t necessarily put the stick down.
To have impact, the strategy will probably need complementary coalitions. And to build those coalitions means being able to activate connections beyond the usual voices. This can be tricky when you’ve got a big public brand behind you; it might sound impossible when you’re behind the scenes (see Component 3). But far from it. In fact, being behind the scenes means you can build relationships in a way that others may find harder. Below are some more pointers for building relations with three categories of potential allies. These should give you a sense of how to approach others you might need to engage.
One overall tip for building a fantastic network: be generous with your connections. Link people together, suggest potential allies. By being helpful to your allies you will become important glue that connects distant people and organisations together. You will create new, powerful collaborations but also goodwill, so new recruits become connectors for you, introducing you to new people. Be helpful in turn to them, and they can become allies and connectors, too. And so your network grows.
Although you shouldn’t be quoted in the media or be quoted in political debates, you have a lot to offer journalists and politicians. Some of them will be surprised or confused about you saying, ‘We are seeking no public profile’. ‘Why don’t you want credit for what you’re doing?’, they may ask. ‘What are you hiding?’ But...
You can build trusting collaborations with journalists because you:
Each time you provide another authentic story to journalists they will be reminded: you are valuable because you do not seek public profile for yourself.
To get a sense of political opportunities and moments, to inform what coalitions would be most influential, and to learn from what approaches have or haven’t worked in the past, connections with policy-makers are invaluable.
You can build trusting relationships with policy-makers because you offer:
You should be up front, though: you don't work for governments.
There may well be times when you coordinate approaches that criticise the Government when they are acting counter to the goals of the coalitions you organise. You will triangulate the information they give you. You can be useful; but you will not be used.
Most likely, you’ll need some financial support to sustain your role as a strategic convenor. You can be an attractive partner for donors because supporting you means they are: