Clare Lucas, Mencap

2. What I’m going to talk about…
1. What the campaign was about
2. What made it different
3. What it achieved
4. What we did next
5. What we learnt

3. Setting the scene: why did we
launch an election campaign?
Because of statistics like these…

4. Campaigns objectives
1. Engage people with a learning disability
and their families in the election; getting
them to vote and getting their voices heard
2. Educate candidates on learning disability
and get us more supportive MPs in the
next Parliament
3. Highlight the issues that are important for
us and people with a learning disability and
place them on the election agenda
4. Recruit more Mencap activists!

5. What was the campaign?

8. The phases- campaign timeline
Phase 1
May- Aug 2014
Introducing the
campaign and
warming people up
internally and
externally
May 2014 September 2014 January 2015
Phase 2
Sept- Dec 2014
More focus on
manifesto issues
and introducing the
candidate pledge
Phase 3
Jan- May 2015
The last push-
putting pressure on
key candidates
and those who
haven’t pledged
May 2015
The election!

11. Hear my voice: getting
campaigners to share
their stories (publically
or privately) with their
local candidates and
asking them to support
the campaign.

12. I’m listening:
candidates
publically
expressing why
they support the
campaign.

15. Hear our voice:
Mencap’s manifesto,
talking about the
changes we wanted to
see on key issues,
illustrated by case
studies.

16. Influencing offline…

24. • Over 5,500 people contacted their local candidates,
including 1,000 personal stories.
• 58 local hustings events were held across the country.
These enabled nearly 2,000 people with a learning disability to
hold 170 MPs and local candidates to account on the issues
that mattered to them.
• 75% of candidates had an email about the campaign.
• 832 candidates publically signed up to say they were
listening.
• 151 of these candidates went on to be elected in May; 1/5th
of the current Parliament.
Reasons to be cheerful…

32. • We thought we would get 300 people to
send a personal message to their MP on
benefits
• But over 2,500 people have sent personal
messages to date
•Thousands more have engaged with our
softer online asks (e.g. pre written emails to
target)
Sometimes the reality is better…

35. Goodbye…Hello…

37. Key lessons…
• Trust your campaigners
• Invest in the journey
• Combine online and offline
• Getting personal with your
target

38. Want to find out more?
www.hear-my-voice.org.uk
clare.lucas@mencap.org.uk
@mencap_charity or #HearMyVoice

39. Any Quest i ons?