Case Studies
People United
Learn how a small charity in Kent is promoting the value of kindness in schools and communities and measuring impact along the way. This is an audio case study – download the podcast and enjoy! Read more
Amnesty International UK
Learn how Amnesty’s network of volunteer trainers are spreading best-practice throughout the grassroots network, and how the head office team and volunteers collaborate successfully. Read more
Waste Watch
Learn how Waste Watch has redefined their work to start crossing sectoral-boundaries, encouraging self-direction from the communities they works with, and develiped a framework that enables them to measure the impact their work has beyond the number of glass bottles that have been recycled. Read more
The Otesha Project
How a small sustainability education charity has moved to a flat hierarchy – sharing responsibility, building resilience, and putting into practice their organisational values. What have they learned? What does this mean for us as change-makers? Read more
City of Sanctuary
What can we learn from a network of cities who are building a culture of welcome and sanctuary for asylum seekers and refugees? By focusing on inclusion, empowerment and independence, City of Sanctuary initiatives are working with a values-approach to improve how new arrivals can become part of a community. Read more
Original Common Cause Case Studies
Below we outline a number of recent episodes that exemplify how – from the environment to social justice to gay rights – choices about values and frames can often underlie major public policy and campaign decisions.
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
The Stern Review (Stern, 2007) represents a contribution to the climate change debate that undeniably helped to create political traction. However, this traction was achieved, in part, through reliance upon elements of unhelpful deep frames. How might civil society organisations … Read more
Instrumentalism in countryside protection
Changes in UK planning policy over the course of the last few decades have highlighted the limitations of basing arguments for conservation on the coincidenceof conservation concerns with other, more instrumental policy priorities. This case study presents an example of … Read more
Advertising and bigger-than-self problems
This case study presents a possible campaign for a change that could have generic benefits in promoting concern about a range of bigger-than-self problems– for example, environmental challenges, development challenges and inequalities– at a ‘cognitive’ level. There is not space … Read more
Policy feedback in UK land use planning policy
This case study explores some of the possible ways in which UK land use planning policy may have helped to strengthen the common-interest frame among UK citizens, with implications extending beyond public attitudes towards planning issues. Although untested empirically, it … Read more
Trade-offs in the gay rights movement
This case study explores the strategies deployed by the gay rights movement in the course of campaigning for same-sex marriage – and in particular, the position that gay rights organisations have taken on whether sexual orientation is biologically determined. Accepting … Read more
The Jubilee 2000 debt campaign
The Jubilee 2000 campaign serves to underscore the importance of how a campaign is framed. This example illustrates the possible costs of failing to deploy frames that could have come to underpin widespread support for systemic approaches to tackling debt. … Read more