All blogs
A close up of a brightly coloured bullseye on a yellow background.
Using Organise

Who should you address? Picking the target of your petition or open letter

Congrats on writing your petition or open letter! If you’re not sure who to send it to, our short guide to picking the right campaign target has got you covered.

Zainabb Hull
November 21, 2022

The target of your petition or open letter is the person, people, or organisation with the power to make the change you are calling for.

Calling for change at work 💪

If you’re calling on your employer to do something different, your campaign target could be the organisation you work for, your CEO, or even the board.

  • If the issue is something that might be new to your company, you might want to target the CEO or the company generally to bring attention to the issue. 💡
  • If the issue is known and you're frustrated with the company’s lack of action, you might want to target the company’s board or shareholders instead. 👩‍💼

You'll know your company and the problem best, so pick the option that’s most likely to win the change you’re pushing for!

Calling for a change in the law ⚖️

If you’re calling for the law to change, your petition or open letter target will usually be your government or a specific industry. While you can choose "the government" as a target, it’s often more effective to target a specific decision-maker.

  • If the issue is high in the news, the President or Prime Minister of your country is often a good target. 🗞️
  • If the change you want requires the government to spend money, the head of the Treasury Department could be an important campaign target. 💸
  • If you're calling for a change in policy, look up which government official is in charge of that area. Here’s a list of US Federal Government Departments and Agencies’ contact details, and here’s a list of UK Government Ministers. 💼

Remember that you can target more than one person or organisation.

So if you're trying to change how your workplace does something, you may want to target both the CEO and the shareholders who help decide what the company does.

Or if the change is something several different companies should make - like if you’re asking all supermarkets to give staff Labor Day or Boxing Day off - you might want to target them all.

Or if you want to see a policy change that costs money, you could target both the government official in charge of that policy and the head of the Treasury.

If you're not 100% sure who to target, go with your best bet - your first instincts will generally be right and the Organise team can talk it through with you once you’ve set up your petition or open letter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Zainabb Hull

Zainabb supports Organise members and helps organisers tweak campaigns to increase their impact.