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

Objectives  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Building Coalitions Definition of coalition A coalition is a temporary alliance or partnering of groups in order to achieve a common purpose or to engage in joint activity. Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 Why build a coalition? 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

Advantages of Coalitions  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Challenges of Coalitions  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. Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Key to Success  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. Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 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.

Coalition Message Development Strategy  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011 Global warming Climate Change Quality Problem Improving Quality Quality Benefits Cost of Quality

The Big Shift: Why? Coalitions are temporary Coalitions need to be sustainable Need to network the sustainable coalitions Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Research on Sustainability  Meta-analysis of 16 reforms indicates that they 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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Coalition Sustainability: Goals Derived from Lessons Learned  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Coalition Sustainability: Goals from Lessons Learned, cont.  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Flexible Activities, Responsive Structures  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Threats/Barriers GOALTHREATDATAANALYSISCOMMU- NICATION ACTION ACTIONEE/ TIME FRAME (SD-ED) Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Encourage:  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 Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Encourage: Members to be active participants rather than passive observers Networks don't spontaneously know how to do this Leaders and facilitators must support, broker, and link professionals together to encourage their participation What does this look like? Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Witness  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. Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011

Discussion Goals:  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? Coalition Sustainability Riley & Weil 2011