Power and Relational Outcomes
Definition
Power and relational outcomes are the things that outlast the campaign — new leaders developed, relationships and trust built, organisational capacity gained, a base that can be re-activated — captured alongside the campaign’s policy wins in the MEL framework.
They are the part of the MEL plan that prevents a win-on-paper from leaving nothing behind: a campaign that wins its demand without developing leaders, building relationships, or gaining organisational capacity has won a battle without changing the balance of power.
Practitioner guides (the People Power Manual, the New Tactics in Human Rights outcome-harvesting guide, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation logic-model literature) treat them as the strategic outcome layer — the change that future campaigns will inherit, regardless of whether this one won.
Full page: [[power-and-relational-outcomes]]. [source: power-and-relational-outcomes] [source: people-power-manual]
FAQ
What are power and relational outcomes?
Power and relational outcomes are the things that outlast the campaign — new leaders developed, relationships and trust built, organisational capacity gained, a base that can be re-activated — captured alongside the campaign’s policy wins in the MEL framework [source: people-power-manual]. They are the part of the MEL plan that prevents a win-on-paper from leaving nothing behind.
Why are power and relational outcomes strategically important?
A campaign that wins its demand without developing leaders, building relationships, or gaining organisational capacity has won a battle without changing the balance of power [source: people-power-manual]. The discipline is to measure these alongside the policy win rather than treating the policy win as the only thing that matters.
How do practitioner guides frame them?
Practitioner guides (the People Power Manual, the New Tactics in Human Rights outcome-harvesting guide, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation logic-model literature) treat them as the strategic outcome layer — the change that future campaigns will inherit, regardless of whether this one won [source: people-power-manual]. The framing makes them the layer the MEL framework most needs to defend from being squeezed out by easier-to-count output indicators.