Newsletter #12

A shift in strategy?

Why some flood groups may be lobbying the wrong people, and how to change that.

Dear all,

In such a dynamic project as this one, the team and I need to always be thinking about the course we’re on, constantly evaluating and re-strategising. For today’s newsletter, I wanted to share some of our recent reflections. 

The old approach finds its limits 

It used to be that the main playbook for a flooded community was to get flooded people together to then convene different risk management authorities and lobby them until a solution was found. 

This worked well for a while. But now we know many groups who have been attempting this for years and see no progress. Why is this? 

Power has shifted away from local areas

In our view, it is because securing the support of the risk managers we are talking to is no longer sufficient. As resources have become more constrained and risk more widespread, they simply no longer have the authority to give communities what they need. 

As resources have become more scarce, decision-making power has become more centralised. The people with authority are accountable to larger pools of voters and interests than previously. A small flood group of flooded people is therefore likely no longer enough to make meaningful change on their own. 

In other words, we are lobbying the wrong people! 

Groups are working to gain the support of people who cannot, on their own, give them what they need. We need to find the right people to talk to and win their support.

The first task we are working on to support flooded people now is to take a step back and identify the right person to talk to. The question needs to be: Who has authority to unlock the resources we need to secure a given community?

Once we find that person, the second task is to come up with a plan for how we can get their support. Here, we can ‘reverse engineer’ our past successes with flood groups. What was it that made flood action groups turn risk managers into their champions? What will it now take to secure this result with other decision makers? 

Sound familiar? Reach out to us 

If you or any flood group feel that your approach isn’t working, let’s chat. This is not about ‘rocking the boat’ or ‘shouting’. It is about working together to produce a clear analysis of why an approach isn’t working as it should, and committing to a new one by finding out who has authority to help, and how we can win their support. 

In solidarity, 

L