Advocacy and Policy Change
Tierney Ducharme (she/her/hers)
Senior Specialist
International Justice Mission, Delaware, United States
Eileen Campbell, MDiv (she/her/hers)
VP, Global Advocacy & Survivor Leadership
International Justice Mission
Milton, Massachusetts, United States
Vanessa Bautista (she/her/hers)
Coordinator
Global Survivor Network, Pennsylvania, United States
Location: Room 202
Abstract Information: Development and human rights organizations, and their institutional/government donors, are increasingly focused on centering the voices and wisdom of people with lived experience as they design interventions to address human rights violations. In addition, the role of civil society in holding governments accountable for hard-won reforms is well recognized. But how might people with lived experience, and the INGOs and donors that support them, evaluate progress in building the power of community-based organizations to effect long-term policy change?
An international network of survivors of violence, in collaboration with a global human rights organization that supports them, designed a strategy to build the power of the network and its members to effect policy change and protect communities from violent crimes, such as human trafficking and sexual violence. A core element of the strategy is developing the capacity of survivor leaders to exercise ‘narrative power’—that is, using story to build their own power to mobilize others and influence decision-makers. The accompanying MEL plan seeks to support learning and guide innovation and investments by gathering evidence of power building (both individuals’ and the network’s) and the associated impact on addressing systemic challenges in the criminal justice system. This roundtable discussion, facilitated by leaders from both organizations, presents the network’s power-building strategy and evaluative framework and learning agenda and invites participants to share their experiences and explore ways to meaningfully evaluate power building, including the role of story telling.
Relevance Statement: Two global organizations have collaborated to develop a strategy that builds the leadership capacity of survivors, using storytelling as a foundation for building individual agency and organizing power to influence governments. The Global Survivor Network (GSN) is an international group of survivors of violence leading a movement to protect people from violence. It is supported by the human rights agency International Justice Mission (IJM). IJM works in 17 countries to strengthen public justice systems so they protect people who are poor from violence. Many of the GSN’s local chapters have been advocating powerfully for years in their communities. In 2022, inspired by the success of these individual chapters, the GSN and IJM collaborated with the Leading Change Network to design a strategy to build the power of GSN members and chapters to influence governments and organize around shared goals.
Drawing from existing work on evaluating power-building, primarily by John Gaventa and Katie Fox & Margaret Post , the GSN learning agenda evaluates growth in three domains of power: individual (power within), advocacy (power to), and organizing (power with). Because survivor leaders are managing complex trauma histories and vulnerabilities, the learning agenda builds on Gaventa’s description of ‘power within’ as the confidence that is a precondition for action, by evaluating growth in several sub-domains, including health, safety, economic security, and narrative power—the ability of survivors to share their stories in service of their leadership. Public narrative is a discipline developed by activist and educator Marshall Ganz. Drawing from Ganz’ public narrative approach , IJM developed a training course (Advocacy & the Power of Story) for people with lived experience across a broad spectrum of culture, education, and literacy. The trainings, which have been offered in eight countries, equip survivor leaders to share a story of “self, us, and now” that invite others to action.
The GSN power building strategy and MEL plan are in their early development stage. Leaders of both organizations want to share emerging insights from this preliminary work and learn from others that are investing in the power of people with lived experience and trying to learn from these efforts. This roundtable discussion presents the GSN strategy and learning agenda and invites participants to share their experiences and explore ways to meaningfully evaluate power building.
Presenters will facilitate a discussion around live, pressing questions such as:
• What experiences do participants have in defining and evaluating power building?
• How have participants centered and empowered people with lived experience within evaluative practices?
• The Learning Agenda situates narrative power within the domain of ‘individual power.’ How have participants evaluated the power of story in the context of movement building?
John Gaventa, Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis. IDS Bulletin Volume 37 Number 6 November 2006 © Institute of Development Studies.
Katie Fox and Margaret Post, Evaluating power building: Concepts and considerations for advocacy evaluators. New Directions in Evaluation 2021;2021:59–70.
Marshall Ganz, Public Narrative, Collective Action, and Power. Accountability through Public Opinion, Sina Odugbemi, Taeku Lee, 2011