This is one of those times when dressing room wisdom applies to movement building: one size does NOT fit all.  Your organization is unique and so you are going to need a unique approach movement building.  Here are a few of the first questions you will need to consider when beginning to plan a movement:

What is our mission? Most fundamentally, a movement is a tool for achieving your organization’s mission.  Consequently, your mission is the starting place for movement planning (and now is a perfect time to revisit it).

Who is our audience? To achieve your mission you will need to communicate with others outside of your organization.  Be as specific as possible here.  Don’t let yourself off too easily with a simplistic answer like new customers, community members, or donors — outline demographics, location, and even names if you can be that specific.

What does our audience care about? The more specific you were with the previous question, the better prepared you will be for this one.  Building a movement means interacting with your audience’s passions and using these passions to generate excitement about your movement.  So take the time to carefully answer this question through research, surveys, or even organizing a discussion group.

How do our mission and our audience’s passions overlap? This overlap is where the magic will happen.  Notice that we are not talking about how your mission meshes with your audience’s mild interests.  Rather, you need an offer that will improve your audience’s lives in a remarkable way.

What is our Big Idea? The Big Idea is the concept that will unify your movement.  It is the rallying cry, the value proposition that your audience members will pass among themselves.  It needs to appeal to your audience’s passions, be simple and easy to communicate, and be fully in line with your organization’s mission.

After identifying your Big Idea it is time for some coffee.  The next step of the planning process will address how implementing that Big Idea will impact your organization and how it will achieve your programmatic or sales goals.  From there we can tweak the Big Idea before developing a marketing or outreach plan.  But for now, sip some coffee and jot your thoughts on the planning process below.