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Power Analysis Template

The diagnostic worksheet run at the start of a campaign (and refreshed quarterly / after a major AAR). It maps the actors around the campaign’s primary target: who has power, who can pressure whom, where the base sits, who the allies are, who the opposition is. The matrix is the input to strategy choices — who the campaign moves is the first question, how is the second.

For the method, see power-analysis. For the campaign-level context this feeds, see campaign-plan-template.

Frontmatter (copy verbatim)

---
title: Power Analysis — <CAMPAIGN / TARGET>
status: stub
languages: [EN]
categories: [strategy, organizing]
license: link-only
updated: 2026-MM-DD
template_for: power-analysis
---

1. The primary target

  • Who can grant the demand:
  • Their formal power: <the formal authority they hold — elected, regulatory, fiduciary, market>
  • Their informal power: <the relationships, reputation, coalitions that extend their formal power>
  • What they fear: <the costs they want to avoid — electoral, reputational, regulatory, financial>
  • What they want: <the goals they are pursuing — what we’d have to offer to make the demand easy>

2. Secondary targets (the influencer map)

For each of 3-7 secondary targets — the actors who can move the primary target — fill in:

  • Name:
  • Relationship to primary target (advisor, funder, coalition partner, regulator, base, opponent):
  • Pressure point (what we can offer or threaten that matters to them):
  • Accessibility (how reachable they are — direct contact, indirect via media, only via intermediaries):

3. The base (who already agrees with us)

  • Who is already in the base (named constituencies, with rough size):
  • Who is almost in the base (one or two conversations away):
  • Who is not in the base (and is unlikely to join — the anti-audience):

4. The allies (who moves with us when we move)

  • Allies we have (named organisations, with their stake in the demand):
  • Allies we could have (if the cost-benefit of allying changes):
  • Allies we should not try to have (the ones whose brand association would cost us more than their support gains):

5. The opposition (who blocks or pushes back)

  • Active opposition (named, with their stake in blocking the demand):
  • Passive opposition (will quietly block if asked; not organising against us but won’t help):
  • Neutral (uncommitted — the winnable middle of the political spectrum):
  • Sympathetic (would help if asked, but isn’t currently):

6. Where we sit

  • Our organisation’s leverage (the resources, relationships, constituencies, reputation we bring):
  • Our vulnerability (the things that could be used against us — internal conflicts, financial fragility, reputational risks, key-person dependency):
  • Our strategic posture (inside-out: we build base then escalate / outside-in: we apply public pressure first / both):

7. The map (visual)

                    ┌────────────────┐
                    │  Primary target  │
                    └────────────────┘
                       ▲          ▲
            influence  │          │ influence
                       │          │
            ┌──────────┴─┐      ┌─┴──────────┐
            │ Secondary A │      │ Secondary B │
            └──────────┬─┘      └─┬──────────┘
                       │          │
                  ┌────┴──────────┴────┐
                  │     The base      │
                  └────────────────────┘

(Replace with your own map — for each actor, what direction does the arrow go, and what is the relationship labelled?)

8. The first decisions

  • Who in the secondary-target list do we move first, and why:
  • What do we offer / threaten to each one:
  • What is the decision rule (if the secondary target responds, what do we do; if they don’t, what do we do):