To answer these questions, MobLab and 13 other organisations embarked on research, consultations and a global survey to learn how social change practitioners and leaders across the globe currently grapple with these questions. In this report, we have surfaced the key trends and learnings emerging from our scan of existing research and the inputs of 500 respondents from around the world.
Executive Summary
How we're measuring people power today—and how we can go forward. Key takeaways:
- For changemakers, if you’re not already measuring depth of supporter relationships and engagement (vs total numbers, or breadth), this report highlights a few ways to get started. Tracking how committed people are to your mission and to one another, and facilitating deeper relationships can be a big step forward.
- For organisational leaders, this is an urgent call to support and invest in cultures that are curious, innovative, and people-centred. A majority of respondents found that the very effort of measuring people power helped them identify points of failure, evaluate new approaches, and resulted in tangible changes in their work.
- For funders, the results underscore the need to both invest in sustained organising, supporter relationship building outside of short term programme objectives, and in ongoing development and experimentation in power building or “depth” metrics. These likely don’t come with the same attractive metrics that we typically see in fundraising and digital advocacy.
What is people power and why should we get better at measuring it?
- We know that people power encompasses at least three things: (1) the breadth of a campaign or organisation’s reach, (2) the depth of sustained engagement and leadership, and (3) the impact these factors have on achieving the mission.
- In the 2010s, people-powered organising and campaigning disrupted the status quo and produced change across the world. Yet as we enter a new decade, thought leaders, emerging movements, community organisations, and established NGOs alike all struggle to accurately measure the power and impact of people-powered campaigning.
- Without these metrics, or even a shared understanding of what power is or what it looks like in the world, decision-makers are holding back from investing in people-powered strategies to build deeper and broader power.
Tracking online metrics is now the norm — but those metrics are imperfect
- In the early days of digital campaigning and organising, convincing practitioners to pay attention to key metrics was a significant hurdle. Decades later, this is no longer the case.
- 91% of respondents reported tracking list size and open rates of email sent to membership lists.
- More than 50% of this segment indicated that this was already being done “enough or too much” in their groups / organisations
- “Vanity metrics” like these measure overall numbers but fail to capture the value of relationships or the more complex value of people power.
Most respondents measure the breadth of their efforts, but fewer adequately track depth or progress toward mission.
- We found a widespread adoption of metrics like list size and total petition signatures—and that’s a good thing! But these metrics primarily capture the breadth of efforts to engage more people.
- Fewer respondents reported measuring the depth of people’s relationship with an organisation, with one another, or with a cause.
- And almost all respondents struggled to measure how breadth and depth interplay to produce progress toward fulfilling an organisation’s goals.
Measuring supporter engagement and network strength is the most obvious opportunity for improvement
- A number of respondents are looking at ways to quantify the “depth” of relationships: how engaged and connected their supporters and allies actually are. These approaches try to measure people’s capacity, energy, network ties, and level of engagement with a cause. They take the focus off vanity metrics and put it on the relationships, network ties, and distributed leadership that are essential to people power.
- Most can be replicated without significant new research or technology. If more organisations and movements adopted these measurements, it would mark a significant leap toward effectively valuing people power.
- One word of caution: these measurements all rely on the theory that strong networks and deep engagement results in more power. That’s a sound assumption, but it means these approaches are still more of a proxy for people power than an actual measurement of people power.
A few approaches are worthy of more investigation
- There are potential new avenues to measuring people power, albeit ones that need more investigation. These approaches either tied people power directly to progress toward an organisation’s mission or captured the value of people power in a way that decision-makers can readily understand.
- Unfortunately, only a few respondents noted experimenting with such approaches, and there is more work to do before they can be easily adopted across the globe.
There are barriers—both practical and conceptual—to better measuring people power
- The challenge of measuring people power isn’t for lack of effort. Respondents identified common barriers to effective measurement. Some are practical, like simply capturing data in people-powered contexts. Others require more thought, such as deciding whether qualitative or quantitative approaches are the best way to measure people-powered strategies. The report includes our own set of research questions that could point the way forward.
A strong global cohort is thinking about measurement
More than 500 individuals participated in the Measuring People Power survey, offering many rich, long-form answers. They represent more than 170 organisations measuring contributions of time, energy and engagement — from grassroots groups to global NGOs. (Notable ‘blind spots’ include mainland China and Russia, as well as certain conflict zones, where reporting publicly on people-powered campaigning carries serious risks.)
Survey Participants
- 3 Bridges
- 350.org
- ACETRED
- Action Aid
- Advocacy Accelerator
- AgentsC Inc
- AHSOSA
- AIPL
- Almajiri Child Right Initiative (ACRI)
- American Civil Liberties Union
- American Friends Service Committee
- Amnesty International
- Angaza Initiative
- Animal Place
- Apondo C Water and Sanitation Project C.B.O.
- Association Mauritanienne pour la Transparence et le Développement (ATED)
- Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
- Atmashakti
- Awareness, Courage & Love Global Project
- Badlaav Foundation
- Banjul YiCS
- Bay Rising
- Baybay ti Norte Kooperatiba
- Be Human First
- Bend the Arc Jewish Action
- Bending the Arc Strategies
- Boardbrain
- Bola Tinubi Volunteer Movement
- British Columbia Government & Service Employees' Union
- Campact e.V.
- Campaign for Australian Aid
- Canadian Freshwater Alliance
- CanDo Action
- ChangeMakers Podcast
- Christian Aid
- Citizens' Climate Lobby
- Climate Reality Project Canada
- Come Alive Initiative
- Common Cause
- Comunalia
- Conservation Voters of South Carolina
- Content Carnivores
- Cosega Business Concepts Limited
- Kanndo Consulting, LLC
- Deeksha Creation Society
- Delibera Brasil
- Double Denim Ltd
- Efficient Network
- Emerging Leaders Task Force
- Enactus Covenant University
- Forward Thinkers Foundation
- Friends of Franbarnie International
- Friends of the Columbia Gorge
- Friends of the Earth
- Fusion Nigeria
- Girlguiding UK
- Giwa Youth Council
- Global Call for Climate Action
- Global Campaign for Education
- Global Catholic Climate Movement
- Global Health Strategies
- Global Voices
- Gokul Prakalp
- Greenglobe Ghana
- Greenpeace
- Haiyya
- Haryana Gyan Vigyan Samiti
- Healthy Gulf
- Help
- Humanistic Bright Future Initiative
- Unlock Democracy
- Ibtikar for Empowerment and Social Entrepreneurship
- Igbo Youths Initiative
- ImpACT
- Influence the Cause
- Inroads
- Instituto Alana
- Instituto Atuação
- International Accountability Project
- Jefferson Center
- Kalango Stanley for Governor Bayelsa State
- Kano Transformation Forum
- Jubilee Party, Kenya coast region
- Kenya Railways
- Kenyans for Tax Justice Movement
- Khairpur Rural Development Organization (KRDO)
- Komons
- Kwena
- Lapai Legend Youths Association
- Le Next Level
- LEADERSHIP-by-DESIGN Academy
- Legacy Peace Foundation
- Make Our Rights Reality
- Micochinito.com
- Mill Valley Community Action Network
- Mindworks
- MOLI
- MountainTrue
- Musawah
- NEC - Education Enterprise
- Neighbourhood Community Network
- Netcentric Campaigns
- Community Organisers
- Nigeria Youth Advocacy for Good Governance Initiative
- Nigeria Youth SDGs Network
- Nonviolent Conflict Workshop
- Noor for Need Trust
- Northern Plains Resource Council
- NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association
- Ogba Educational Clinic
- Olkon NG
- Our Democracy
- Oxfam
- Parkinson Canada
- Participedia
- Partners Worldwide
- PKPPS
- Plan International Australia
- Policy Alert
- Positive Women’s Network USA
- Progress the Ultimate Way for Development
- Providence Student Union
- PTM
- Rajputana Society of Natural History
- Rapid Response Team
- Reprodrive CBO
- Resilient Cebu Network
- Riparte il futuro
- Rotary club
- RRDS
- Sail Africa
- Samaritans Stand Up
- Save the Children UK
- Sierra Club
- Silver Spring Community Based Organization
- Singing Footsteps Foundation
- Smartstart
- Socialdemokraterna
- Sojourners
- Solidarity Uganda
- Start.coop
- Stop Funding Hate
- Students for Society
- Sunrays Management Consultancy
- Sunrise Movement
- Support. Don't Punish
- Syham Unique Foundation
- Tearfund
- Terra Conscious
- The Art of Living
- The Boon
- The Change Agency
- The Change.org Foundation
- The Humane League
- The ONE Campaign
- The Years Project
- Tipping Point
- Tomala.Mx
- Tunatazama
- Community Monitors Network
- Bench Marks Foundation
- UnionsACT
- United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
- University of Jos
- Unlock Democracy
- Virginia Organizing
- We Want to Live
- Women of Wolverhampton, UK
- World Animal Protection
- Yes We Can: Columbus Working Families
- Youth for Human Rights International, Nigeria Ondo State Chapter
- Helpkids Initiative
- Walbuk International
- Youth Initiative Against Societal Menace (YIASM)
- Youth Initiative for Change and Development
Case Studies
These case studies are examples of organisations experimenting with innovative ways of measuring people power. Hopefully they provide some inspiration for how you might value and measure not just breadth, but also depth of engagement, relationships, and collective power building.
The value of “time donated” by supporters
with Geneviève Puskas, Équiterre
What happens when an organisation commits to logging all the time and effort that volunteer supporters pour into a campaign and adding up its equivalent in staff time? Équiterre, a Canadian environmental NGO, did just that—and discovered a novel way to calculate the value of people power.
Read MoreRefocusing on cultivating leaders
with Joep Karskens, Friends of the Earth Netherlands Digital Organiser
Friends of the Earth Netherlands traditionally focused on growing their supporter base by recruiting for one-off events—for instance, petitions or single actions—while neglecting longer-term leadership development and the creation of enduring local teams. But as they engaged more people than their staff could manage on their own, and with a desire to build long-term power across the ups and downs of individual campaigns, they began a process of refocusing their work—and what they measure.
Read MoreLinking measurements to goals
with Rachel Collinson, co-chair at Unlock Democracy
The Transformational Index (TI) is a process for creating a bespoke measurement system that starts with the overall objectives an organisation is trying to achieve and uses them as reference points for creating performance indicators. This approach was presented to us by Rachel Collinson, co-chair of Unlock Democracy, an organisation that works for a more accessible and representative political system for U.K. citizens.
Read MoreGet the report
Key Survey and Research Findings
Partners
We are deeply grateful to the following organisations which contributed time, money, labour, and love to this project. We also thank our research advisors Hahrie Han (SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins), Adam Levine (Cornell University), and Dave Karpf (George Washington University).
