By Kristiana Papi and Chloé Salmon
The new year presents new challenges and opportunities for organisations operating in the social impact space. In a world where progressive policies and politics feel increasingly under threat, impactful and strategic advocacy on the issues that matter is more valuable than ever.
From grassroots movements to global initiatives, the last 12 months saw non-profits across different sectors harness the power of creativity, storytelling, and digital innovation to drive change and build support for their causes. In this blog, we highlight some of the standout campaigns of 2024 — those that made us stop and think, and those that made decision makers act for a better world. We take a look at what made these campaigns resonate, how they achieved their goals, and the lessons they offer for the future of advocacy.
Campaign area: Children’s safety online
Standout campaign: ‘Thanks’ by the Caméléon Association
This powerful digital campaign was produced by French charity, the Caméléon Association, an organisation that exists to tackle the causes and effects of sexual violence towards children and teenagers. The Caméléon Association is part of the French coalition advocating for the protection of children from online sexual abuse, whose work was supported by Future Advocacy in 2024. Released in October 2024, the organisation’s latest campaign was designed to raise awareness of the dangers of sharing personal information about your children online.
What they did: The campaign video centered around a hidden camera film, in which a mother shares images of her daughter with strangers on a busy street, highlighting people’s comfort with sharing images on social media.
This campaign took what feels like an innocuous action – sharing a picture of a child on their way to school or during holidays – and brought it into a visibly public setting, illustrating, in a confronting way, the risks parents/caretakers take when sharing images online. The video is accompanied with powerful images of four individuals saying simply, ‘Thanks’, sending a clear message – sexual predators often don’t look like we might expect, and sharing content online opens a door to them.
Why it worked: This campaign worked because it… A) tapped into the legitimate desire of parents to protect their children, but also into an area which is often overlooked in a growing digital world. B) It was visual. One confronting video and a handful of images did what no press statement could – it brought the topic to life, showing in real-world terms the realities of an issue that can feel quite conceptual.
Campaign area: Housing
Standout campaign: Before Our Eyes: This Isn’t Drama
Human rights charity Amnesty International took on the critical issue of temporary housing in the UK, using a movie trailer format to bring the issue of domestic human rights abuses to light in a powerful way.
What they did: ‘Before Our Eyes’, by Amnesty International UK, tells the story of Anna, a young mother who, suddenly homeless and struggling to survive, tragically watches her daughter die as a result of the shocking standard of accommodation they have been placed in. Presented to the viewer as an upcoming movie release, it gradually becomes clear that it is in fact a representation of real life.
Starring Amnesty ambassador Olivia Coleman and actor Adrian Lester, the short film was shown in cinemas and on screens across the country, with the aim of engaging and educating the public on the very real threat to human rights in the UK.
Why it worked: The film brought to life an issue that has long been a target of advocacy and communications – homelessness and underfunding for temporary housing. Few campaigns addressing domestic human rights last year attracted as much attention as this one. Featuring high-profile stars, this smart, creative concept brought the issue of temporary and sub-standard housing to life in a fresh way, drawing an estimated 1.4 billion viewers. Importantly, the film ended with the key messages of the campaign, including: ‘At least 34 homeless children have died [this year] in temporary accommodation’ and a link to BeforeOurEyes.co.uk where viewers could find a clear breakdown of the statistics behind the issue.
Campaign area: Men’s Health
Here at Future Advocacy, we are rather chuffed with our work with Movember to put men’s health on the government agenda. Together, we transformed uncomfortable health statistics into genuine political momentum, which played a big role in the UK government announcing its very first Men’s Health Strategy in November.
What we did: We worked with the brilliant men’s health charity Movember to roll out a campaign marrying hard data with real stories: we released eye-opening health data about British men’s health through the Real Face of Men’s Health report, we presented regional inequalities in men’s health outcomes through heat maps, and we worked with parliamentarians to engage the government on holding a Men’s Health Summit at Arsenal Stadium with Movember, where the Secretary of State for Health announced the UK’s first Men’s Health Strategy. We also took families affected by men’s health to No.10 to meet the Prime Minister and share their lived expertise.
Why it worked: The advocacy campaign created a perfect storm of advocacy. Together, we turned stark figures – men dying before 75, suicide as the leading cause of death for young men, and how the UK compares to other G7 countries – into something Westminster simply couldn’t ignore. The heat maps generated headlines, family stories struck a chord, and Movember’s supporters provided grassroots momentum. Movember shared powerful evidence at the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s inquiry on men’s health. At party conferences, we invited politicians to Movember’s ‘barber shop’ for cuts and conversations with real-life barbers, which was a key moment for driving home why action on men’s health is so urgent. The campaign’s intentional sequencing – from report release to media coverage to high-level government and parliamentary engagement – has transformed many months of advocacy into tangible policy change.
Campaign area: Climate and Nature
Standout Campaign: Undercover Names
As Florida faces rising seas, the CLEO Institute found an ingenious way to connect climate-skeptic politicians to the cities they’re leaving underwater – by revealing how their names are hidden in the very places at risk of disappearing.
What they did: CLEO took aim at Florida’s climate-skeptic politicians through their own backyards – literally. They created 13 targeted radio spots that gradually erased letters from Florida city names to reveal the hidden names of policymakers who could save them (Marco Island → Marco Rubio, Scottsmoor → Rick Scott). Each spot aired in its respective city, turning local geography into a pointed message about political responsibility.
Why it worked: The campaign broke through Florida’s political gridlock by making climate denial personal. Rather than fighting skepticism with statistics, it used clever wordplay to show how policymakers’ legacies are literally embedded in the places they’re failing to protect. CLEO’s hyper-local approach transformed abstract policy battles into community stories, while their strategic use of radio reached both urban and rural voters. It’s a masterclass in using creative constraints – the simple act of erasing letters – to make a complex crisis feel immediate and actionable.
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Looking ahead to 2025, these standout campaigns offer lessons for the best that campaign and advocacy has to offer. The most impactful work didn’t just raise awareness – it made the invisible visible. From CLEO Institute revealing politicians’ names in disappearing cities to Amnesty reframing systemic failure as cinematic tragedy, successful campaigns transformed abstract problems into visceral, personal stories.
They also show that effective advocacy isn’t always about shouting louder – it can also be about shouting smarter. Whether through the Caméléon Association’s confronting take on public awareness raising or CLEO’s hyper-local radio spots, these campaigns succeeded by understanding exactly who needed to hear what, and when.
The future of advocacy isn’t just about speaking truth to power; it’s also about speaking truth through channels that resonate, with messages that stick.