Background

A couple of years ago, the Fairtrade Foundation realised that although we had come a really long way with the Fairtrade Towns scheme there were a number of issues coming up more and more in our interactions with campaigners, including:

• campaigner fatigue,
• the lack of challenge and scope for development after achieving Fairtrade Town status,
• a lack of opportunity to engage with the Fairtrade Foundation.

We consulted widely to try and get to the bottom of these issues and to help us develop a vision for the future of the Fairtrade Towns movement.

This resulted in the report ‘Building the Fairtrade Towns movement’, which outlined some of the issues and suggested ways we could deal with them. There were three key areas for review:
1)    Structures – are the goals and systems fit for purpose?
2)    Movement – what are the best ways to support and develop groups?
3)    Democracy – involving supporters in decision making

The report led to various changes, including the consultation on Goal 2 and the renewals process. This has resulted in the development of a revised goal two and renewal process; linking in more to other campaigns on trade justice, wider sustainability and the food agenda; exploring ways to better support emerging regional networks and county campaigns, and more.

The Campaigner Advisory Group

The main change was to involve campaigners in decision making and helping to tackle some of these issues and develop that vision. Thus the Campaigner Advisory Group (CAG) was formed made up of 10 campaigners from across the country with a range of experience and expertise.

The CAG first met in June 2010. One of the first things the group did was to submit a motion to the AGM, asking the current members to create a sub-group of the Board to explore membership of the Fairtrade Foundation for campaigners. This was in view of the Fairtrade Foundation strategy 'Tipping the Balance' objective ‘to work closely with the thousands of Fairtrade supporters and their networks who have been so vital to the growth of Fairtrade, giving them more say in shaping its future and holding it to account’.

Consultation process

This motion led to a consultation process about expanding membership of the Fairtrade Foundation to campaigners. The consultation took place over several months and consisted of the following:

• Online survey (almost 300 respondents) open to all campaigners
• Facilitated staff session
• Facilitated discussion with the Campaigner Advisory Group
• Phone discussions with national campaigns and employed staff in regions (e.g. Wales, Scotland, Bristol)
• In-depth interviews with a cross-section of campaigners
• In-depth interviews with other membership organisations
• In-depth interviews with existing member organisations of the Foundation
• Regional Crowd Wise events

You can read the blog that tracks the whole consultation process here.

Final report and next steps

Download the final report here.

An action plan for phasing in the recommendations from the report during 2012 and 2013 is available for you to view and comment on here .

If you have any comments or queries, please email campaigns@fairtrade.org.uk. 

With thanks to all those who gave up their time to participate in the consultation and to Rhizome for their support in the process.