1. Preparation
🎯 Stage objective: set up everything needed for the workshops
Creating a powerful campaign together starts with good preparation! There are three things for organizations to tick off before starting to collaborate digitally on a campaign:
1. Have a plan! 📝
2. Set up communications! 🗣
3. Do your homework! 📓
📝
1. Have a plan!
A clear project plan will guide you all
the way through the campaign development.
It should include:
- Overall objective for the project
- Required steps to get there
- Aims and contents for each online workshop
Having a clear objective is your starting point: determine what you want to achieve and why you are working together.
Our tip:
Share this plan early on with all participants!
This helps set expectations and builds a shared understanding of requirements (and timings).

🗣
2. Set up communications!
Collaborating in workshops is a great way to create a campaign together! But it’s just as important to set up effective communications channels in between each workshop.
This is especially important when working with a larger number of organizations in different countries and using multiple languages.
You should decide on:
- Who is responsible for organizational decisions, and how do they communicate?
- How is information spread? e.g about dates, tasks, and developments? You could use regular project lead conference calls; a cascade system where one person in each organization shares information back internally; a news board; or a messaging service such as Slack.
- How are materials shared? An online platform solution such as Sharepoint or Dropbox works well for working across multiple organizations. This way, documents can be shared in a central location. Especially for campaigns developing visual material, sending large files by email is not a practical solution.
- Which platform to use for the digital workshops – such as Zoom, Teams, or Jitsi. Platforms with breakout room functions are ideal for larger workshops with smaller group works. Digital whiteboards are also a powerful tool for collaboration. Some platforms like Zoom have integrated functions for this, or you could use a separate tool (e.g. Google Jamboard, Miro).
📓
3. Do your homework!
A small amount of homework from participating organizations can help you kickstart the campaign development – and make sure you develop a focused and relevant campaign.
One way to do this: project posters. Ask organizations to fill in a simple template with information on:
- the work of each organization
- their cultural and social context (especially for transnational campaigns!)
- expectations and aims
- initial ideas for the campaign
Each organization and each participant brings a unique set of experiences and skills: Use this potential to design the workshops and help develop the campaign!