Building Coalitions for World Pneumonia Day

Published July 07, 2009 @ 07:09PM PT

By Ailian Gan

There are a lot of causes out there that fight for our attention. Think of all the causes you know about, the ones that you personally support. Imagine all the others that exist but remain unknown to you. What would it take for a cause to get on your radar?

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a full day planning session for World Pneumonia Day (Nov 2). In a small lecture room in the semi-basement of the NYU medical campus, I got to be part of a group of 36 people representing 16 different organizations, from UNICEF to the Center for Disease Control to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to the GAVI Alliance. We were there to advance the fight against pneumonia. Pneumonia is the number one killer of children, killing more children than AIDS, measles and malaria combined.

We began the day by discussing our goals for the session. As we went around the room and people offered their goals, I was honestly overwhelmed by how we were going to accomplish all that was put forth. Create awareness. Put a human face on pneumonia. Engage the private sector. Leverage networks. Take advantage of the Obama administration’s focus on global health. Communicate a clear message. Have the day. All great goals, but I could not imagine how the session would not just descend into utter chaos if each organization tried to advance its own agenda.

I know nothing about forging partnerships, but I got to witness how it works that day. With the help of a skilled facilitator, we attacked what needed to be done. People asked questions, explained their struggles, shared campaign stories, offered great suggestions, and piggybacked on each other’s ideas.  The facilitator moved the discussion along but let the group take the lead. People from organizations that are so different in size, scope and agenda came together and built consensus.

We had so much to learn from each other. I had a tremendous amount to learn from everyone else in the room. These points on how to build coalitions for change stand out:

1. Have a consistent message. If you want to convince millions to join your cause, you need a message that is clear and easy to communicate. Everyone needs to be saying the same thing. For a long time, the pneumonia campaign has stalled on this front. Even calling the disease “pneumonia” was an issue; previously, it went by many names, most of which involve long words describing the respiratory system. Today, there is still some debate on what are the most effective measures to combat the disease. Dr Renee van der Weerdt (UNICEF) pitched a message that was distilled into 3 easy boxes:

Prevent – with breastfeeding Protect – with vaccines Treat – with antibiotics

Proof that her message works? Everyone else started using it. I didn’t even have to check my notes to repeat it here.

2. Be inclusive. We can’t be a group of 36 people trying to save 2 million children from dying of pneumonia every year. We need to be hundreds of thousands. We need to build partnerships with a broad reach across organizations and sectors. Allow each group to own their piece of the campaign. Let people contribute resources in whatever way they can. Let it go viral.

David Rubenstein (founder of Best Shot Foundation) shared his experience running the Save Darfur campaign. One of their key successes was getting lots of student groups to organize local events. Over 4,000 websites eventually linked to the Save Darfur website. Politicians and celebrities, notably George Clooney, joined the cause.

Once we agree on #1 consistent messaging, the challenge is to reach as many people as we can. For World Pneumonia Day, the groups in the room volunteered publicity in internal newsletters and public websites, links to government officials, contacts at global health organizations, commitments to bring more partners on board. The list goes on.

3. Failures can be great successes. Lance Laifer (founder of Hedge Funds vs. Malaria and Pneumonia) told us about the spectacular failure that was Dunk Malaria. The idea was to get people to dunk a basketball through a net as a way of showing support for the fight against malaria (basketball nets, malaria bednets, get it?). The event turned out to be a failure: no one showed up. So what did Lance do? He took the basketball and spent an entire day walking around New York City asking random strangers, would you dunk a shot to support the fight against malaria? He eventually got over a thousand people to dunk that day. This was in 2006.

Despite Dunk Malaria’s failure, the idea was adopted eventually by other organizations and became Nothing But Nets, a campaign against malaria that counts Sports Illustrated and NBA Cares among its partners. Chances are, today in 2009, you are aware of the campaign against malaria (along with AIDS and TB – now add pneumonia to your list). As much as we love successes, sometimes they grow out of failures.

We started the session as a loose group of organizations who were dedicated to the fight against the forgotten killer that is pneumonia. At the end of the session, each organization pledged what their group would commit to the cause. We had an action plan, next steps, that we as a coalition of organizations would take. Our facilitator took us through our list of goals from the morning once again. I was amazed by how we had integrated practically all of them into our action plan. We had set in motion steps to take to make these goals happen for World Pneumonia Day and beyond.

Of all the causes out there that vie for my attention, I admit I write off some because they don’t inspire in me the belief that something can actually change. We must do something to stop children from dying from pneumonia. Being part of a dedicated coalition armed with the tools to stop the disease persuaded me that we can. To borrow a participant’s words, “the train for pneumonia is moving”.

Read more on Ailian's blog:

http://causeforthought.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/building-coalitions-for-world-pneumonia-day/