Make Poverty History: Campaign Evaluation

31st March 2006

We’ve just completed the evaluation report for the MakePovertyHistory campaign in the UK in 2005.

We conducted over 70 interviews with politicians, special advisors, local campaigners, activists, campaign managers, journalists and academics. We asked them what made a difference and why. We also looked at other research that has been done on the campaign.

The message for future coalitions is the size of the coalition, the coherence of the message and the portfolio of things they did were the most important factors.

This portfolio of popular communications, activism and advocacy was unprecedented in its size, ambition and reach. It was also largely complementary.

We found that popular things like the brand, the wristbands and the TV ads energised a new group of supporters and because of their reach, had real influence with policymakers. Importantly, those communciations had credibility because they were underpinned by serious policy research.

However, there’s far more in the report that can be covered in a short post, so I’d encourage you to download the report, leave feedback and get in touch.