.png)
October was a mix of urgency and imagination. From union halls to Westminster, campaigners used digital tools, data and lived experience to demand something better. Goals ranged from fair pay, dignity in dying, access to medicine, representation and equality. Each story shows how you can use strategy and storytelling to drive progress.
1. UNISON – organising that delivers
UNISON members in Dorset scored a major victory this month, halting plans to move 1,700 NHS facilities staff into a private subcontract that threatened their pay, pensions and conditions. Porters, cleaners and caterers mobilised quickly holding meetings, protests and using our Email to target, sending over 1,500 letters to MPs. When posters were removed, they went straight back up. As general secretary Christina McAnea put it: “There was no way we were accepting it. Dorset’s victory is a brilliant example of how organising works.”
Despite management’s distractions, from free cake to alpaca visits, new activists emerged, and morale rose. The creation of the subcontract is now paused, and Dorset campaign has become a blueprint for others resisting backdoor privatisation across the NHS.
Lesson: UNISON moved at lightning speed to win this campaign, sending large scale communications and organising in-person meetings to get members onboard. This enabled workers to tell their own stories and were then encouraged to share them directly with MPs using our email to target tool. It was a succinctly put together campaign. Proof that momentum is often better than perfection when it comes to fighting roll-backs in rights for workers. Work at pace, refine as you go.
2. Dignity in Dying – power in lived experience
At Westminster, in the first week of the Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying Bill, Dignity in Dying urged peers to put autonomy at the centre of the law. Witnesses including Kim Leadbeater MP and healthcare leaders told the committee that compassion and safeguards can coexist, while overseas evidence showed that assisted dying can be delivered safely and ethically.
Chief executive Sarah Wootton called for lived experience to guide the debate, warning that too many inquiries have focused on abstract fears rather than real suffering. With 120 hours of debate already behind it, the Bill continues to face resistance, but the message from supporters remains that true safety lies in respecting patient autonomy.
Lesson: Your moral arguments gain force when they’re rooted in real human stories. Campaigns that foreground real lives not just policy language make Parliament and the public pay attention. This is where tools like Email to Target can be so effective in collecting stories, not only for sharing them directly from supporters to decision-makers but also to be collected and told more broadly in your communications.
3. 38 Degrees – digital mobilisation at scale
Last month, campaigners from 38 Degrees and Just Treatment marched to the Department of Health carrying a petition signed by 259,142 people, demanding the government reject Big Pharma’s pressure to hike NHS drug prices by 25%. With negotiations underway between ministers and pharmaceutical companies, the campaign warns that giving in would funnel millions from patient care into corporate profits and push the NHS closer to breaking point.
Behind the numbers are human stories. Patients like Raj, who depend on lifesaving medication, fear “unpredictable changes in drug availability” if costs rise, while Liz, who lives with diabetes, has seen the US system’s “catastrophic” consequences when profit trumps patients. 38 Degrees says the message is that this isn’t just about budgets, it's about lives.
Lesson: Another case of using personal stories to contribute to your campaign on a broader level. 38 Degrees’ fight against big Pharma continues but their ability to collect a quarter of a million signatures and stories to show how the real impact of these price changes, shows fast and effective organisation.
4. Prospect – celebrating identity, defending rights
As Prospect marked Black History Month 2025, members came together under the theme “Standing Firm in Power and Pride”, a call to unity in an increasingly polarised political climate. With racism and misinformation on the rise, long-standing activist Alan Gooden and NEC members urged the trade union movement to stand shoulder to shoulder with allies, challenge divisive narratives, and tell the real stories of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic workers. From the 1.5 million soldiers from the Indian Subcontinent who fought in the World Wars to the Windrush generation who rebuilt post-war Britain, Prospect reminded members that Black British history is British history.
Solidarity is both a moral and strategic imperative. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any,” one speaker quoted Alice Walker.
Lesson: Campaigns that nurture identity and representation build resilience in movements as much as they do in individuals. Standing firm also means knowing that equality work is not a one-month commitment, but the daily act of making workplaces and movements reflect the real Britain.
5. UK Music – rewriting the rulebook
In an impassioned call to arms, UK Music Diversity Taskforce Chair Ammo Talwar MBE urged the music industry to “rewrite the rulebook” and deliver foundational change through the organisation’s new Five Ps framework. People, Policy, Partnerships, Purchase and Progress. “Imagine a UK without Reggae, without Grime, without Punk,” he wrote. “It is unthinkable.” Talwar argues that while Britain’s sound is rich with the legacies of migration, resistance and creativity, the industry behind it still lags in representation and equity. The new guide is designed to embed inclusion at every level, from hiring and leadership to procurement and accountability and to move diversity from rhetoric to reality.
The Five Ps, building on UK Music’s earlier Ten-Point Plan, mark a decisive shift from pledges to practice. Talwar warns that diversity cannot remain a side project: it must be woven into the fabric of how the sector operates.
Lesson: Lasting cultural change requires structure as much as sentiment. It’s not enough to celebrate difference; systems must be redesigned to sustain it. As Talwar concludes, “Diversity is not just the sound of our future it is the strength of our present.”
Takeaway
Across sectors, campaigns succeed when they are fast, grounded and human. Data gives credibility. Stories create empathy. Strong positive cultures build endurance.
And in every case, digital infrastructure from petitions and surveys to WhatsApp groups and live dashboards turns those convictions into collective action.
If you'd like to talk to us about improving your campaignt tech, from email to target, to donations, to WhatsApp mobilisation, book a call here.
