Activism Campaign Appraisal, Developing Homeless Strategies - Case Study Example

ACTIVISM CAMPAIGN APPRAISAL By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Table of Contents Vote Home Campaign 1.0 Executive Summary Homelessness has no specific definition but is a social problem that goes beyond not lacking safe shelter and rooflessness. Australians facing homelessness include those under makeshift dwellings or sleeping rough on the streets. Homelessness is caused by scores of health-related, economic and social factors. Normally, people become homeless after experiencing mental health, poor relationships, poverty, or alcohol and drug issues. Occasionally, Homelessness affects individuals who have been living well, but become homeless after stressful episode like a job loss, relationship break-up, or demise of a loved one. For that reason, a national alliance has initiated ‘vote home campaign’ to reduce housing crisis in Australia by 2025 by addressing affordability. For the campaign to be successful, they must create value for their communities, customers and stakeholders. Integrated strategy maps are the suitable tool for the alliance to describe strategies that would help create value. 2.0 Background to the Issues 2.1 Identifying the Problems/Issues the Campaign Aims To Address In 2016, a national alliance of housing initiated a campaign with the aim of reducing housing crisis by 2025. The alliance is made up of National Shelter, Homelessness Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service as well as Community Housing Industry Association, which together initiated an online election campaign with the aim of making homelessness and housing affordability an election issue. Therefore, the alliance established a digital Vote Home petition necessitating a national strategy that would help end the homelessness and housing crisis by 2025. According to Caneva (2016), over 105,000 Australian are 105,000; and 40% are young people aged below 25. Clearly, if the crisis of affordable housing availability is not addressed, Australia cannot handle the unacceptable problem entirely. In 2015, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology study established that a staggering 12.5% Australians have at one occasion been homeless in their lives (Russell, 2017). As mentioned by Butler (2015), the homelessness has exceeded the concept of sleeping rough outdoors, which is a conventional ideology of a homeless person. Homelessness can be defined a when people lack suitable alternatives of accommodation in case inadequate dwelling is their present living arrangement (Butler, 2015). Therefore, Vote Home Campaign was introduced with the aim of address these issues.  2.2 Defining the Campaign Goals/Objectives The alliance is utilising the Federal election as a chance to make the Australian Government come up with a strategy that would help make housing more affordable in Australia. The alliance aims to draw all the political parties into the campaign with the intention of ending the crisis of homelessness and housing by 2025. The alliance is running a petition and presently it has over 15,000 supporters. Goals To reduce housing crisis by 2025 To make sure the Australian Government come up with a strategy that would make housing more affordable Objectives To increase affordable housing for all Australians, especially those with low-income and cannot afford to own a home. To come up with a renewed National Homelessness Plan and Strategy to reduce homelessness To ensure the tax settings on rental properties are reformed To boost the Commonwealth Rent Assistance To address the insufficiency of affordable and appropriate housing disabled people (BEING, 2016). 2.3 How the Campaign Establish Credibility as an Activist To enhance the credibility of Vote Home Campaign, the alliance has mobilised and involved various institutions through amplification of authentic voices and real-life experiences. This has helped the alliance demonstrate to the Australians and other parties that the public opinion is behind them. The alliance is working with various homelessness activists that support the campaign and other organisations that are lobbying targeted actions. The alliance has made sure that supporters’ actions are part of the overall campaign strategy and is targeting to realise its key campaign goals. Although voting is yet to happen to determine whether the campaign is successful or not, the alliance has established a sense of rightness and truth as well as credibility in the manner they conduct their activities. The ideas and people all appear to be professional, feasible, reasonable, trustworthy, and very competent. For that reason, it has become easier for people to accept what the alliance says as fair and it is challenging to accuse them of deception or lying. Furthermore, the message promoted by the campaign is aligned carefully with popular opinion as well as day-to-day problems that the homeless Australians face. The alliance has put new spins onto messages with the aim of making them appear innovative, but have not attempted any serious shifts or reversals of public opinion. More importantly, messages have been targeted particularly at those individuals who credibly will communicate them to others. 3.0 Analysing the Policy Environment 3.1 Power-holder Maps Without a doubt, a map capable of charting the territory between the intended change objectives achievement and the current position of the alliance could enable them to realise their purpose and steer clear of the sense of being besieged that habitually accompanies environmental as well as social activism. For this reason, a power map could be a shared analysis and valuable reference at the time of ‘Vote Home campaign’. Basically, power-holder map is considered as an important tool for identifying where the key stakeholders (constituents, targets, allies, as well as opponents) stand with reference to the campaign objective and also the relative influence levels. With the view to the above power-holder maps, it is evident that there are many groups with more power/ influence supporting the change than those opposing the change. Some of the institutions supporting change and have more power include the homelessness peak bodies such as National Youth Coalition for Housing, Council to Homeless Persons Victoria, QLD Shelter, Homelessness NSW/ACT, and many others. The national peak bodies include CREATE Foundation, Mental Health Council of Australia, Women with Disabilities Australia, Network of Immigrant and Refugee Women (NIRWA), and many others. The federal government is more influential in this campaign, especially the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and many others. Government funded research institutes will include Australian Institute of Family Studies in addition to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare while Clearinghouses would include Australian Homelessness Clearinghouse, Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse, and many others. Environmental lobby groups, urban planners, and human rights groups will largely support the campaign, but not in entirety. The environmentalist believe for all homeless people to get affordable housing the environment would be affected negatively since large pieces of land would be cleared to create room for construction of new houses and emissions will be increased. On the other hand, urban planners believe that construction of more houses in the urban areas to accommodate homeless people would reduce overcrowding but will lead to increased energy consumption and green gas emissions. Human rights groups, on the other hand, argue that every person has a right to proper housing but nobody should be coerced to accept it. Groups with more power and oppose the change include organised resident groups, homeowners, local communities, schools and individual residents. They would probably oppose the program because of various concerns such as crime and security. Most of the homeless people are jobless and ex-prisoners; therefore, insecurity is likely to increase. Many local groups would oppose the program because they fear that crime and would increase and the sense of safety will decrease. Besides that, there are concerns about environmental impacts, school impacts, and traffic. For instance, the schools impacts’ have turned out to be a major concern when communities operate believe that households that qualify for affordable housing have a high percentage of school-aged children as compared to the development of non-subsidised housing. As mentioned by Iglesias (2002), opposition from local groups is deep rooted in fear, classism, racism, ablism, as well as the increasing antidevelopment reactions. 4.0 Developing the strategy 4.1 Integrated Strategy Maps A strategy map, as mentioned by Intrafocus (2015) offers the business strategy’s visual foundation and the means through which the business strategic plan could be communicated to stakeholders, employees as well as customer. The strategy map is considered as a crucial communication tool which when correctly constructed it becomes possible to see the links from the resource level through to the needed process changes. In consequence, this would affect the customers and eventually the financial results. According to Ronchett (2006), strategic planning brings forth a unique challenge to the majority of organisations in the contemporary world, whether they are non-profit, public, or private entities. In Baptista and O’Sullivan (2008) study, they observed that there is evidence of changes in the way homelessness is understood amongst the key stakeholders and how the local and national strategies are developed. The authors observed that the social homelessness image in the public is that of personal pathology. As evidenced by Vote Home Campaign strategy map, the most suitable way of building a strategy maps is starting with the destination as well as finding the routes which would lead there. The alliance leaders should first review their core values and mission statement. This would enable the alliance to develop a strategic vision, which would clearly create a picture of the overall goals of the company; making sure all Australians can afford safe housing by offering a stabilising base for homeless people to transition back into the community by 2025. The strategy defines the logic of how the alliance would get to that destination. The first aspect of the strategy map is the financial Perspective whose objective is to increase the shareholder value. In the financial strategy, the alliance will have two basic levers, the revenue growth as well as productivity. Revenue growth would involve building the organisation with revenue from various sources such as donations, fund raisings, schematic projects, mass media campaigns, service providing, newsletter publication and so forth. This would help the organisation to increase value to the homeless people by improving relationships with them. On the other hand, the productivity strategy involves improving the cost structure of the organisation through the reduction of expenses and efficient utilisation of assets by lessening the fixed and working capital required to support the program. As mentioned by Kaplan and Norton (2000), the strategy map is crucial for identifying the opportunities that would help improve the financial performance by means of revenue growth, not only through reduction of cost but also improved utilisation of asset. The financial perspective for the alliance would involve maximising funding from outside sources rather than profit and maintaining fiscal stability. The customer perspective is considered to be the core of all business strategies, which highlights the exceptional mix of corporate image, customer relations, as well as service attributes which the organisation would offer (Kaplan & Norton, 2000). It is imperative for the alliance to identify the end users and must select from among product leadership, customer intimacy, and operational excellence. More importantly, the customer perspective would enable the alliance to identify the outcomes from delivering a value proposition that is differentiated. The Internal Process Perspective is where the organisation determines how it will accomplish the productivity improvements as well as differentiated value proposition in order to realise its financial objectives. The internal process perspective for the alliance would involve increasing the customer value by improving the relationships with the homeless people and other concerned parties as well as achieving operational excellence and becoming a good corporate citizen by ensuring that its relationship with the external stakeholders is effective. Learning and Growth Perspective is the last strategy map’s foundation, which outlines the core skills and competencies, the corporate culture, and technologies needed to support the strategy. According to Martello et al. (2008), learning and growth perspective have to be aligned with the strategies in the other three perspectives so as to offer the organisation linkages amongst the four perspectives. 5.0 Implementing the plan 5.1 Campaign calendars Without a doubt, a successful inbound campaign needs critical thinking all through the whole process, from introductory phase, which normally involves education materials to the last stage.   Phase One: 2017 - 2019 Phase Two: 2020 - 2024 Phase Three: 2025 Campaign Theme: Australian for Affordable Housing Audience Homeless people, Domestic Violence victims, Low-income earners, and poor families Homelessness peak bodies, national peak bodies, clearinghouses, the federal government, and state governments. All stakeholders Stage One: Awareness Content White paper, television advertisements, brochures, social media ads. White papers, introductory eBooks, tips sheets, and how-to articles Advertising channels such as printed newspapers, television, radio, social media sites and other online platforms. Stage Two: Useable Content for Early Engagement Issues associated with homelessness, temporary solutions to housing problems, improvement toolkit. Checklists, Worksheets, case studies, templates, and advanced eBooks Case studies Stage Three: Problem Solving and Consideration Content Management of homelessness issues at national level. Product solution sheets as well as problem/solution papers Affordable homes that have already been constructed Stage Four: Evaluation Content Guide to overcoming the homelessness problem. Calculators, homeless selection guides, benefits guide, testimonials from homeless people Testimonials Stage Five: Hand-off to Sales Content Temporary, affordable makeshift homes Live demonstrations Already existing affordable homes for homeless people’ As demonstrated in the campaign calendar above, the plan will be implemented through a five-stage process in three phases. The first phase will take place between 2017 and 2019 and will involve homeless people, domestic Violence victims, low-income earners, hospitals, and poor families. In this phase, the alliance will create awareness through white papers, brochures, television advertisements, social media sites, especially Facebook and Twitter. To engage these groups of persons, the alliance will highlight the issues attributed to homelessness and would suggest temporary solutions to these problems by offering improvement kit. The second phase will take place between 2020 and 2024, and would involve the most powerful bodies such as homelessness peak bodies, national peak bodies, clearinghouses, the federal government, and state governments. Given that this phase would be the most important part of the campaign, the alliance would utilise white papers, introductory eBooks, tips sheets, and how-to articles to create awareness. The last phase of the implementation will happen in 2025, whereby all stakeholders will be involved and the advertisement agency will run the campaign in all the advertising channels such as printed newspapers, television, radio, social media sites and other online platforms. Without a doubt, social media will be a crucial component of the Vote Home Campaign. The alliance is seeking to reach as well as interact with everyone, especially the young people since they account for the largest percentage of homeless people (see appendix one). The young people have invested heavily in social media and online communication. This group will be targeted in the first phase of the implementation process since they will significantly benefit from the program. In addition, the Internet would enable the alliance to communication to the businesses and public regarding the significance of the campaign with the aim of reducing opposition. Other technologies that would play a crucial role in the implementation phase of Vote Australia campaign would be Wiki sites and YouTube, which offer excellent tools for educating and advocating for affordable homes. Before the campaign is implemented entirely, the alliance would have taught the target population of the importance of having affordable homes in Australia. More importantly, the campaign will have increased awareness power-holder groups supporting or opposing the program. 6.0 Critical Discussion of Campaign Outcomes The existing studies, as cited by Baldry et al. (2006), have demonstrated that there is a strong relationship between lack of social integration, poor accommodation and ex-prisoners. The majority of ex-prisoners lack adequate accommodation after they are released from prisons. As mentioned by Baldry et al. (2006), poor pre-release arrangements have led to unsupported and inadequate accommodation for the majority of ex-prisoners. In addition, individuals with intellectual disability or mental illness, single mothers and young people are principally vulnerable to poor housing after they are released from prisons. Baldry et al. (2006) emphasises that lack of close coordination between agencies have resulted in housing problems for ex-prisoners. In Cebulla (2016) study, the observed that the many young people, especially learners are struggling to find affordable houses due to lack of rent allowances that could help apprentices to get stable housing. Cebulla (2016) argues that retention of such allowances and making their existence known to all Australians could be cost effective and simple means of helping struggling young people. As pointed out by Mercy Foundation (2016), Australia is currently facing a housing crisis, with house rents and prices increasing rapidly. People are forced to pay much for housing, which consequently results in financial hardship. For this reason, it has become imperative to find sustainable solutions that would help ensure housing affordability and reduction of homelessness. The alliance launched the Vote Home Campaign whose aim is to demand a national strategy to that would help end the housing crisis in Australia by 2025. Sontag-Padilla et al. (2012) posit that thinking more creatively regarding the fundraising strategies as well as taking into account the non-traditional philanthropic organisations role is one of the promising techniques for non-for-profit organisations to manage overreliance on the limited external funding sources. This can be achieved by giving circles, whereby resources are amassed and then directed to a specific objective. Still, the not-for-profit organisations have begun espousing business-like methods utilised in the business sector since they have started facing market pressures such as competition for funding (Dolnicar & Lazarevski, 2009). 7.0 Conclusions In conclusion, this piece has demonstrated that nearly 12.5% of Australia’s total populations are homeless because of lack of affordable housing, poverty, discrimination, drug and alcohol abuse and many other factors. For this reason, vote home campaign was launched to reduce housing crisis in Australia by 2025 by addressing affordability. As demonstrated in the report, power-holder map is crucial for identifying where the key stakeholders stand with reference to the campaign objective and also the relative influence levels. On the other hand, integrated strategy maps are crucial because they allow for better implementation of the strategy and provide the organisation with a sustainable plan. Furthermore, for an inbound campaign to become successful, it needs critical thinking all through the whole process. 8.0 References Baldry, E., McDonnell, D., Maplestone, P. & Peeters, M., 2006. Ex-Prisoners, Homelessness and the State in Australia. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, vol. 39, no. 1, pp.20–33. Baptista, s. & O’Sullivan, E., 2008. The Role of the State in Developing Homeless Strategies : Portugal and Ireland in Comparative PeThe Role of the State in Developing Homeless Strategies : Portugal and Ireland in Comparative Perspectiverspective. European Journal of Homelessness, vol. 2, pp.25-43. BEING, 2016. Vote Home: A National Campaign to End the Housing Crisis by 2025. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://being.org.au/2016/06/vote-home/" http://being.org.au/2016/06/vote-home/ [Accessed 16 April 2017]. Butler, J., 2015. Australian Homelessness Problem Far Bigger Than Expected. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/10/02/australia-homelessness_n_8229848.html" http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/10/02/australia-homelessness_n_8229848.html [Accessed 16 April 2017]. Caneva, L., 2016. Housing Alliance Campaign to ‘Vote Home’. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2016/05/housing-alliance-campaign-vote-home/" https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2016/05/housing-alliance-campaign-vote-home/ [Accessed 16 April 2017]. Cebulla, A., 2016. Learning in a rich country: the normalisation of homelessness among apprentices in Australia. Journal of Youth Studies, vol. 19, no. 8, pp. 1061-1076. Dolnicar, S. & Lazarevski, K., 2009. Marketing in non-proft organisations : an international perspective. International Marketing Review, vol. 26, no. 3, pp.275-91. Iglesias, T., 2002. Managing Local Opposition to Affordable Housing: A New Approach to NIMBY. Journal of Affordable Housing, vol. 12, no. 1, pp.78-121. Intrafocus, 2015. The Integrated Strategy Map. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.intrafocus.com/2015/02/integrated-strategy-map/" https://www.intrafocus.com/2015/02/integrated-strategy-map/ [Accessed 16 April 2017]. Kaplan, R.S. & Norton, D.P., 2000. Having Trouble with Your Strategy? Then Map It. Harvard Business Review, 78(5), pp.167–76. Martello, M., Watson, J.G. & Fischer, M.J., 2008. Implementing A Balanced Scorecard In A Not-For-Profit Organisation. Journal of Business & Economics Research, vol. 6, no. 9, pp.67-80. Mercy Foundation, 2016. Vote Home Campaign: Let's end the housing crisis by 2025. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.mercyfoundation.com.au/latest-news/view_article.cfm?loadref=8&id=232" https://www.mercyfoundation.com.au/latest-news/view_article.cfm?loadref=8&id=232 [Accessed 17 April 2017]. Ronchett, J.L., 2006. An Integrated Balanced Scorecard Strategic Planning Model for Nonprofit Organisations. Journal of Practical Consulting, vol. 1, no. 1, pp.25-35. Russell, L., 2017. “Housing first” takes second place. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://insidestory.org.au/housing-first-takes-second-place" http://insidestory.org.au/housing-first-takes-second-place [Accessed 17 April 2017]. Sontag-Padilla, L.M., Staplefoote, L. & Morganti, K.G., 2012. Financial Sustainability for Nonproft Organisations: A Review of the Literature. Research Report. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Appendices Appendix One: Homeless demographics Read More