Social movements often struggle to determine how much effort and resources to invest in shaping public opinion, despite its critical role in achieving policy change. Some movements see clear returns on opinion campaigns (like marriage equality), while others either underinvest (gun control) or invest without comparable results (anti-abortion). This suggests a gap in systematic knowledge about what makes public opinion campaigns effective—knowledge that could help movements allocate their limited resources more strategically.

A Framework for Strategic Decision-Making

One way to address this gap could involve creating a comprehensive analysis of US social movements over the past 30 years, focusing on their public opinion strategies. This could include:

• Cataloging resources devoted to opinion-shaping versus other tactics (lobbying, litigation, protests)
• Measuring corresponding shifts in public opinion and policy outcomes
• Identifying patterns in messaging, targeting, and timing that correlate with success

The output might include both an academic report and a practical toolkit for activists, helping them assess whether and how to invest in opinion campaigns based on their movement's specific context.

Key Stakeholders and Challenges

The primary beneficiaries could include social movement organizers, philanthropic funders, and political strategists—all of whom need to maximize impact with limited resources. However, aligning incentives might be challenging, as some stakeholders could resist findings that contradict their current strategies. For example:

• Movement leaders might hesitate to deprioritize opinion campaigns if they're emotionally invested in them
• Funders might have ideological biases about what constitutes "success"

To address causation challenges, methods from political science (like synthetic control) could help isolate the effects of opinion campaigns from broader societal trends.

Execution and Differentiation

A phased approach might start with building a dataset of 20-30 major movements, followed by leader interviews and case studies of particularly successful/unsuccessful campaigns. An MVP could focus on post-2010 movements to reduce scope.

This approach would differ from existing work by combining three elements rarely brought together: academic rigor in measuring impact, practical tools for activists, and cross-movement comparisons. Unlike organizations that focus solely on messaging techniques or opinion tracking, this framework could help movements decide whether to attempt opinion-shifting at all—and if so, how to do it effectively given their specific context and resources.

By bridging the gap between academic research and activist needs, this type of analysis could help movements make more informed decisions about one of their most resource-intensive—and often most uncertain—strategies: shaping public opinion.