Happy New Year! In 2012, 38 Degrees went from strength to strength. And together, we’ve laid solid foundations for the year to come.

We’re starting 2013 with nearly 5000 members of 38 Degrees chipping in regularly to make sure we can cover our core costs. And we’ve also just reached an extraordinary, people-powered milestone: 38 Degrees members have taken over 10 million actions together!

That’s hundreds of thousands of us coming together to sign petitions, email our MPs and bosses of companies, chip in for ads in national newspapers, and meet up face-to-face to protect our NHS and our woodlands.

So we can afford to think big about the things we can achieve together in 2013. Protecting our NHS and tackling tax dodging are already big priorities for 38 Degrees members. But what other issues should we focus on? And what’s the best way to make the change we want to happen?

Can you suggest a campaign for 2013? Or a new way to hold powerful politicians and companies to account? It could be something big, but it might also be something smaller, or a local campaign that you care about.

Click here to see and vote for the campaign ideas other 38 Degrees members have suggested. You can also share your own idea for a campaign. It only takes a few minutes.

One last thing, have you joined the 38 Degrees community on Facebook? It’s a great place to join in with conversations and help decide on campaigns. All you need to do is click LIKE here.

38 Degrees members have consitently prioritised tackling tax dodging.  As a member-driven organisation, official 38 Degrees campaigns are only launched with the support of 38 Degrees members.

Recently over 45,000 of us responded to a poll specifically about taking up tax dodging as a major campaign, and here are the results of that poll:

Should campaigning to stop tax dodging be a major focus for 38 Degrees over the next few months?
Yes – 95.62%
No – 2.11%

Do you agree that although we may target individual tax dodgers on the way, our main aim should be to make the government fix our broken tax system so that it’s much harder to dodge tax?
Yes – 97.22%
No – 1.22%

Should 38 Degrees aim to get businesses who pay tax on board with the campaign?
Yes – 95.33%
No – 2.65% 

Which other demands would you like to see in the campaign?

Other suggestions of demands from members fell into several categories:

Change laws, close loopholes

Shame the dodgers

Publish a list of dodgers

Boycott google, amazon, starbucks

Simplify the tax system

Tackle the avoidance schemes

Example quotes from members are:

“I’d like to see a tax-dodging company blacklist published. The Government/HMRC need to change tax law to close tax loopholes.”

“Simplify the whole tax system to make it impossible/difficult to dodge tax.”

“A clear and graphic demonstration of the correlation between companies avoiding tax and our hospitals, schools and public services suffering as a result.”

“Raise awareness of the seriousness of big businesses versus cutting public services and personal  ’belt tightening’ – by TV campaigns  and  press coverage.”

How would you like to get involved?

There were lots of great comments from members which fell into the following categories:

Produce a Christmas guide

Social media vía Facebook, twitter and more

Window stickers in shops

Public Boycotts

Direct Action

Example quotes are:

“‘I pay my tax’ car/window stickers for businesses and individuals?”

“It would be great with an online version of the ‘Christmas shoppers’ guide to avoiding tax dodgers’ as these could go viral on Facebook/Twitter, etc..”

“I love the campaign by small shop owners “I pay enough tax to fund a nurse.”

“National media campaign to name and shame extremely rich tax dodgers. Publish the names of major companies who don’t tax in national newspapers, billboard signs, etc. ”

“Creative direct action towards tax dodging businesses.”

“Name & shame them in the news papers they use for their adds”

Further comments members added were as follows:

“I think you should target individual tax dodgers too, it’s crazy that I pay all my tax through PAYE but the rich can just avoid it as they can afford to.  That’s not fair!”

“I don’t want to sound or be hypercritical, but I think we all dislike paying tax. If there’s a way we can honestly pay less tax then there’s nothing wrong with that. However, what I am adversed to is large and wealthy companies who are setting the wrong example, and are able to pay their accountants big fees just to avoid tax. When the country is in financial need they shouldn’t be dodging this issue.”

“I don’t know much about corporation tax, but rather than tax profits, which businesses can manipulate easily, why not levy tax on the gross sales/turnover?”

“Tax foreign companies on ALL their turnover irrespective of where it is earned, as the USA does.”

“Tax avoidance is endemic amongst those people and organisations in power and there is little incentive for them to change.  Set up an off-shore haven to employ all the ordinary folk (contracting us out to our original jobs) and so avoid tax. Then see how fast the government moves to close the loop holes.”

The results of this poll will determine how we focus our efforts on tax dodging over the coming months.  What do you think? You can leave a comment to discuss with other members using the form below.

Last week, thousands of us voted on what the next set of campaign priorities for 38 Degrees will be – and now the results are in! For more information on how the team sorts this data have a look at this blog.

First up the poll asked members their views on the campaigns which 38 Degrees is currently running.

It’s clear from the results below that the NHS campaign remains the top priority. Reining in irresponsible bankers and tackling tax-dodging also scored highly. Protecting internet privacy had less strong support but still nearly half of members felt it was something we should campaign on ‘a lot’.

Below is a graph of these initial poll results:

The poll also asked about potential new campaigns that members would like to see.

Campaigns to protect bees from pesticides and to stop companies like G4S taking over our police forces were both very popular with members. The 38 Degrees office team will be looking for opportunities to campaign on these issues.

The percentage of members interested in each campaign is shown below:

Some of the questions in the poll – like “If 38 Degrees had a dream, what could it be?” – gave members an opportunity to express their ideas in more detail, with some great responses! These will be analysed in the coming weeks – so watch this space for an update.

What next?
The results will determine where we put most of our efforts over the coming weeks and months. Sometimes the best opportunity for a campaign takes a while to come along, but these results mean the office team have a clear direction to follow when researching future campaign ideas.

What do you think?
What do you think of the results? Are there any other campaigns you think should be on the list? You can share your ideas in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.

Photograph by 38 Degrees

It’s been a long time since over half a million of us originally came together to defend our NHS from politicians who threatened to destroy it. But ever since the health bill went through, 38 Degrees members have always voted to prioritise protecting the NHS.

When we asked what people wanted to see next in the NHS campaign, several strong priorities emerged: fight privatisation, support local campaigning, and work with supportive senior GPs.

These priorities, voted for by 38 Degrees members, have determined where the office team focuses their time and effort.

And while you may not have had so many NHS emails from the 38 Degrees office recently there’s been lots going on behind the scenes. Every day members get in touch with information about what’s happening where they live, and to share their ideas. Volunteers are busy scanning the media for NHS stories and keeping a constant eye out for new threats and for opportunities where people power can make a difference.

Actually, one of the best chances turned out to be over almost before it began. Despite that, it’s fair to say that 38 Degrees members indirectly scored a campaign win.

You might have heard about the privately-run (but NHS funded) walk-in centre in Sheffield that was charging £25 for the treatment of whiplash injuries. Emergency NHS treatment is meant to be free. The office team rang the centre to get more details, and explained who we were and why we were interested. Soon after we got in touch, the centre suspended the charge. Just the idea of a people-powered 38 Degrees campaign seems to have helped change their minds!

38 Degrees members have been making their voices heard in other ways too.Across the country GPs are holding public meetings on the setup of the new NHS, and 38 Degrees members are showing up in large numbers. After attending a meeting in Buxton, 38 Degrees member Beryl said, “The organisers were intrigued as to what 38 Degrees was… there were 43 of us there compared to 6 non 38 Degree-ers!”.

One final thing. Do you remember the member-sponsored reception held for senior GPs? As well as showing that together we could match big corporate money, it led to some important relationships. Several of the doctors who came along have been helping to develop a plan to reach out

Over the next few weeks, there’ll be important work to do on our NHS campaign. Some of it could be easy. Some of it will be among the most ambitious we’ve tried. But one thing will knit it all together – the fact that there are now more than a million of us who know that by working together, we can help make sure we don’t lose the things that are most precious to us.

People power saved our forests. It helped stop some of the worst of the NHS changes. Now, as the government forces through more changes at a local level, we need to use it again to defend our health service from the damage that could be done.

Read the rest of this entry »

Asda, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Adidas, VISA… In the last couple of weeks we’ve taken on some of the most powerful companies in the world – and won! Our petition to Asda helped pressure them to increase the price they pay farmers for their milk. And together, we’ve forced them to pay their fair share of tax during the Olympics. All of the companies we targeted have now said they won’t be using the tax break open to Olympic sponsors. Read the 14 statements here.

This campaign was something new. 38 Degrees members are used to taking on the government. But this was the first time we’ve targeted big global companies. We knocked them over one by one, gaining strength with each fresh victory.

This win is more proof that when we work together, we get results. That’s why as 38 Degrees members we choose what we campaign on together. Member polls are an important part of deciding what we should focus on next. Should we concentrate on protecting the NHS and the environment? Should we be cracking down on bankers? Perhaps you have an idea of your own?

Can you take the two minute survey and help set the direction of 38 Degrees?

When 38 Degrees members first saw the tax breaks for Olympic sponsors, exposed in a piece by the magazine Ethical Consumer, it may have seemed unlikely that these heavyweight multinationals could be forced to back down. But we were successful because we used our power as customers. The same strategy worked on Asda.

The sponsors were hoping to get a big boost from their involvement with the Games. But our huge petition and the flood of activity on Facebook and Twitter had them worried. They could see it was safer to back down on the tax break than to risk a PR disaster with the very people who buy their products.

Fixing this particular tax dodge is a step in the right direction and a glimpse of what we can do – but there’s so much more to do. Recent reports suggest that the UK could be losing trillions of pounds in dodged tax every year. Should we follow up our Olympic success by keeping the focus on tax-dodging or should we be prioritising other campaigns? Perhaps we should be concentrating on tackling climate change, stopping the privatisation of the police, or protecting the BBC. Or is there something else you’d like to suggest?

Take the quick survey and help decide what we should work on next together.

The latest banking scandal could be our best chance in a long time to get real change in how banks work. But what do we want to change, and how can we make our campaign as powerful as posssible?

38 Degrees uses people power to decide how to plan our campaigns. That’s why this week over 35,000 38 Degrees member have been voting on what we should do to next to take on the bankers. Here are the questions we answered and the results:

There are lots of suggestions how to fix our broken banking system for the future. Which ones should 38 Degrees members campaign for together?

What should we do together?

How would you like to get involved?

Over the next few weeks, there’ll be lots of chances to make sure the banks are forced to clean up their act. 38 Degrees members will be working together to make sure we’re piling on the pressure on our top priorities from this poll. If you’ve got more ideas for how we could be making sure our banking system is sorted out, then please share them on the 38 Degrees Facebook page, or in the comments section below.

38 Degrees is member driven. Members suggest the campaigns, vote on the most popular suggestions, and take all the action which makes the campaigns effective. You can read more about how that works here.

Overall our people powered approach to choosing campaigns together clearly has a lot of strengths. It has helped 38 Degrees grow in just three years to be a 1 million strong, people powered campaigning force. We’ve made some great and important choices together – to protect the NHS, stop the forests being sold off, challenge the power of Rupert Murdoch, speak up for our right to privacy online, and so on.

But the people powered approach to choosing campaigns has its limitations too. At times the office team have to make judgements about how to implement the results of member polls, and we don’t always get it right. A few months ago we had an important and interesting debate about how our member driven campaigns model was felt by some disability rights campaigners to have let them down. It seems like our work this week on the gay marriage consultation has also raised questions for some people. It would be good to discuss these in the comment section below this post.

When 38 Degrees members have voted on campaign options, (e.g. here, and here, and here) most have voted to campaign “a little” in support of marriage equality. Even-ish numbers have voted to campaign for it “a lot” and “not at all”. Slightly over two thirds of 38 Degrees members wanted to do either “a lot” or “a little” – a clear majority, but by no means unanimity. This wasn’t the most straightforward result for the office team to interpret.

The end of the consultation period, at a time when opponents of gay marriage were most vocal, felt like a time where if we were going to do “a little” it was time to do it. But when the office team is not certain whether 38 Degrees members really want to do something, we apply one final test. Before we send out an e-mail to all 38 Degrees members, we send it to a random sample – and monitor the response. If lots of 38 Degrees members get back in touch complaining, and very few take the action, we conclude that people are voting with their feet and stop the campaign.

In the end, the office team did not send the gay marriage campaign to every 38 Degrees member – we sent it to around 20%. That was partly because the results of the final tests weren’t conclusive, but also simply because there were an awful lot of other things going on at the same time, including our campaign to protect the independence of the BBC and our live briefing on internet privacy with David Davis MP.

The response to the campaign was mixed, although probably more positive than negative. Around 10,000 people sent in submissions to the consultation. But around 200 members got in touch to complain, with a further hundred or so unsubscribing. That’s certainly higher than usual – one of the reasons why I’m writing this blog post.

Obviously, as with all 38 Degrees campaigns it was up to each individual 38 Degrees member to opt in. Many who didn’t agree with the campaign simply chose not to take part. Indeed a few members have been in touch to say that they used the 38 Degrees website to send in a consultation response opposing gay marriage.

Of the negative feedback, some people are clearly just strongly against gay marriage and believe that being gay is wrong. As a now ex-38 Degrees member put it: “You can unsubscribe me from your red-fascist, heterosexual hate group forthwith. SCUM!”. Another explained their view that “being gay is against my belief as a Christian. It is one of the signs of downfall of great civilizations in the past”.

Others objected to what they saw in the e-mail as a suggestion that all those who oppose gay marriage are “religious hardliners”. For example one member said “’I am not a ‘religious hardliner’ and I am not ‘anti-gay’ but I do not support this proposal. I do not think that this kind of personal legislation is what 38 Degrees should be concentrating on.”

I’m sorry the way this e-mail was written offended some people, I think we could have written this e-mail a little bit differently and we will learn the lessons from that. We could for example have acknowledged the different perspectives more thoroughly, and maybe included some links to different perspectives from within the church.

38 Degrees is still quite a new organisation, and we’re still learning how to work most effectively. I’d be really interested to hear views on how we approached this campaign. How could we make our polling more effective? Could we have done more to reflect different views within the 38 Degrees membership? Or did we get it broadly right? Please share your thoughts below.

Together, members of 38 Degrees decide what we campaign on. Regular member polling helps to provide a clear picture of what 38 Degrees’ key campaign priorities should be.

Sometimes these polls are sent to smaller groups within the whole membership to minimise the risk of people feeling “over-surveyed”. For example, May’s poll went to a randomised 50,000 members. Don’t worry if you didn’t receive this latest poll – the full membership will be polled regularly too.

If you’ve got a burning issue or a campaign idea you needn’t wait to be polled! Share it on the 38 Degrees Facebook page, Twitter, the blog, the website, or by emailing: emailtheteam@38degrees.org.uk

Here’s how the polling works. 38 Degrees office volunteers start by reading all of the ideas that have been suggested or flagged by members. From these a shortlist is drawn up. (For more information on how the team has sorted this data in past polls have a look at this blog post.)

Once the poll questions are finalised, they’re sent out via email and 38 Degrees members vote on the campaigns they think are most important.

In May the priorities (ranked here in order of “a lot” plus “a little”) are:

• Continue to demand a ban on secret lobbying of government by big business
• Continue the campaign to protect our NHS
• Continue to demand a real clamp-down on tax dodging
• Continue speaking up for our forests and challenge future attempts to sell them off
• Continue to campaign for media independence including protecting the BBC from political interference and challenging the government to distance themselves from Rupert Murdoch
• Campaign against excessive executive pay and bankers’ bonuses
• Campaign against the government’s invasion of internet privacy
• Demand that water companies spend some of their profits fixing leaks during the drought
• Undertake more customer-powered campaigns like The Big Switch
• Campaign against pay-day lenders who trap people in a spiral of debt
• Campaign against plans to privatise key bits of the police
• Oppose the dumping of 650,000 tonnes of asbestos in the Chew Valley near Bristol
• Campaign against the extraction of natural gas by fracking
• Ensure that nobody has to turn down a job because they can’t afford childcare
• Encourage the government to follow through on House of Lords reform
• Support moves to sell cigarettes in plain packaging to protect children from tobacco marketing
• Support proposals to make gay marriage legal
• Campaign against new rules that would make it harder for people on lower incomes to bring non-EU family members to the UK to live with them

Below is a graph of the poll results: