“Idle No More Seattle OLB”, picture of Backbone Campaign, march 2013. (Flickr link).

(Read in French) Idle No More is an indigenous rights movement and campaign started in late 2012 in the province of Saskatchewan. Largely through the effective use of social media, Idle No More quickly gained a large amount of traction and support across Canada and, subsequently, the United States.

However, Idle No More lacked the necessary structure to ensure that this short-term popularity became long-term, sustainable growth.

For many social campaigns, such as Idle No More, a key goal for the use of digital tools is to raise awareness and attract attention to their cause. Given the amplificatory potential of tools such as Twitter, the ability to successfully spread campaign content via these mediums can be extremely influential in helping a campaign grow quickly. However, campaigns should be aware that gaining popularity and attention at such a quick pace does not necessarily translate to long-term support and development. Campaigns must ensure they are able to leverage short-term, digitally-enabled spikes in popularity to enable long-term and sustainable growth. Examining the structural deficits of Idle No More may provide insight into how similar campaigns can make changes and avoid an inability to leverage short-term popularity for the future.

Idle No More possessed a central group of founders, but it did not have a definite organizational structure to coordinate resources and set a clear and cohesive strategic direction for the campaign. Its digital presence similarly lacked the requisite structure to support long-term growth. From its outset, Idle No More grew at an incredibly fast pace through social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook. However, the campaign lacked a central digital platform to manage its communications and coordination. For example, its initial website was relatively simple and not designed to facilitate the recruitment and coordination of volunteers, supporters, and other resources. This lack of structure also allowed Idle No More’s brand to be co-opted by entirely separate organizations and individuals, creating legitimacy challenges for Idle No More. As such, Idle No More stands as a primary example of the importance of structure for scaling.

A key component of capturing this short-term growth for long-term success is developing proper structures at the outset of a campaign. A proper structure, both organizational and digital, will ensure a campaign has the capacity to grow as rapidly as digital tools allow. In this sense, an organizational structure refers to having a core part of the campaign that is responsible for making strategic decisions, coordinating campaign resources, and overseeing campaign communications. At a digital level, a proper structure refers to having an effective platform, for example a central website, which is managed by the campaign and can facilitate the transition from interest to commitment. As digital strategist Mark Blevis puts it, “without these structures, a campaign stands the risk of becoming like a bonfire stoked with gasoline. They will burn bright and strong for a short-period of time, but without a proper underlying structure, they will not burn for long.”

Special thanks to Mark Blevis (his website) of the Ottawa-based firm Full Duplex for his insight.