Campaigning and mobilisation

LGBTI organisations all over Europe are campaigning and mobilising to win public support for one common goal:  achieving positive political, legal and social change for LGBTI people.

Are campaigning and mobilising just different ways of describing the same thing? ILGA-Europe see campaigning as a series of activities to win support for a specific aim. On the other hand, mobilisation is the action of getting people actively engaged in a cause that they are willing to support.

This could be people within our own communities, allies or supporters from wider society. Successful campaigning and mobilisation activities raise awareness of and public support for LGBTI issues. All of this ultimately puts pressure on policy makers to enact legal protection for LGBTI people.  Activities can also be organised in connection with other political events, elections for example.

While the European LGBTI community started to build up their campaign and mobilization skills relatively recently, there is undoubtedly a massive wealth of excellent campaign knowledge out there. Lots of civil society movements have been figuring out how to mobilise people beyond the LGBTI movement for years – learning what works, and what definitely does not!

This rich campaigning experience is a goldmine for LGBTI activists. It is important to value these experiences and share these lessons in the LGBTI community. We need to learn (both from the wins and the mistakes) in order to fill in the gaps in our own knowledge. Only then can we support our member organisations in their campaign activities in the most effective way. ILGA-Europe are mapping and analysing these experiences, so they can be benefit our peers.

As well as this rewarding exercise, we actively support mobilisation and campaigning activities through our Creating Opportunities programme. It allows ILGA‐Europe to consolidate our knowledge, skills and resources. In turn, this experience can leverage the efforts of groups operating on the ground through strategic planning, community mobilisation and social change influencing efforts.

ILGA-Europe mainly engage in campaigning and mobilisation in support of our members, by collecting best practices, sharing knowledge and providing strategic and financial support.  In addition to that, ILGA-Europe develop our own public campaigns on certain strategic issues. You can read more about the current campaigns here.