Campaign

By this stage you have been campaigning for weeks. Living, breathing and loving your campaign. Hopefully your campaign has achieved fantastic results; perhaps you managed to stop your local park being destroyed, or maybe you are still waiting in desperate anticipation for an outcome. Now is the time to evaluate all your hard work – all the positive and most important, the negative aspects so you can improve on future campaigns.

Cheerleaders at the End Child Poverty rally in London in 2008.
UNICEF UK/2008/Jessica Wright

Evaluation

Sometimes, seeing results from your campaign may take longer than you hoped and expected. Don't give up! Unfortunately, campaigning usually comes with an enormous amount of red tape – lots of ferrying of ideas between departments and needless amounts of paperwork. Hang tough, be patient and evaluate what you've done so far. Sometimes, waiting is part of the process – a challenge to see if you are really committed to your cause.

Here are some questions that can help guide your evaluation:-

• What have you done so far?
• What was good and bad about your campaign?
• How can you overcome this next time?
• Are enough people involved?

Try and think positive and decide what might help you work better for next time.

Saying Goodbye

There comes a point where you will not want to be involved anymore. Maybe it's exam season and you're too busy. Maybe you've decided to volunteer with another charity and don't have enough time. Whatever your reason, it doesn't mean the campaign needs to end. Is there anyone else who can take it on?

There will, however, eventually come a time when a campaign will need to end. The reasons to end a campaign are different for different people. Whatever they may be, here are a few tips that you can follow to make the campaign end on a high!

• Write a thank-you letter to all those who have been involved. Explain why you are calling the campaign off and the current status of the problem (like no youth club). Remind them of everything that you have achieved!
• Throw a party. Celebrate your achievements and have bit of a laugh!