Top 10 campaigning videos

1)    Climate Name Change (environment)

2)    Fidelity (LGBT rights)

3)    Hole in the Bucket (debt cancellation)

4)    What has aid ever done for anyone  (global poverty)

5)    I Know You Care (Syria)

6)    Life Story (child abuse)

7)    A Task Without End (Holocaust education)

8)    Equals (feminism)

9)    Bad Romance (voting rights)

10) Don’t Judge My Family (marriage tax allowance)

So far in these political top 10s I’ve been recommending a lot of reading and the occasional bit of listening, but this one is entirely devoted to the art of visual campaigning. Here you’ll find 10 short, brilliant videos, all with a clear sense of what the organisations behind them want you to know, feel or do. None of these are from political parties – we will return to great party political broadcasts in a future blog – they are just 10 of the best attempts to make complicated issues accessible and compelling for everyone who wants to change the world.

For starters, I’m a little sad there’s no Hurricane Nigel Lawson in this, but if you like your political accountability rough and in-your-face, you’ll love Climate Name Change. Our US progressive friends took a somewhat more inclusive approach in Fidelity when trying to stop California’s same sex marriages being invalidated. It’s not just beautifully romantic but also squarely inside the frame that works in the battle for gay rights: winning means shouting fewer slogans about rights and sharing more stories about love.

Over in the field of international development, two films really stand out. Anthony Minghella’s provocative Hole in the Bucket helped make the issue of poor country debt relevant in the British living room, while the IF campaign’s What has Aid Ever Done for Anyone is worth a thousand hefty reports in communicating all the good British aid has done. If you ever sent a Drop the Debt postcard or wore a Make Poverty History wrist band you can be very, very proud: this stuff works.

But tragically, one of international development’s great success stories is unravelling as we speak. Polio – once on the brink of eradication – has broken out in Syria. Since the civil war stopped being a domestic political issue it has dropped way down the news agenda but aid agencies are still facing a daily battle to save lives amidst the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the century. Save the Children’s I Know you Care is distressing viewing, but it only takes four minutes to download, donate and show we haven’t forgotten.

The issue Save the Children have clearly wrestled with in making it is how to make viewers feel powerful and positive, even when thinking about the most horrific issues. That dilemma is one Barnados have consistently dealt with brilliantly. Their adverts have long been controversial but Life Story works because the tale it tells of how children can recover from abuse speaks to the most powerful instinct we have as narrative animals: it doesn’t have to end like it began.

The only other fundraising video I’m including here is this collection of Holocaust survivor testimony from the Holocaust Educational Trust (disclosure – I’m on the board), because it shows that it is possible to be uplifting, even when asking people to contribute to “a task without an end”.

The final videos here are very different to the last three, because they try to use humour to make serious issues easier to discuss. If there’s ever been a more gratuitous attempt to go viral than putting Daniel Craig in a short skirt I’m yet to see it, but this from the Equals coalition manages to make violence against women something people want to talk about with their friends, while the makers of this film on voting rights clearly subscribe to my own worldview that most things in life get better with Lady Gaga.

And finally, it wouldn’t be a LabourList column without a tiny bit of scrutiny of our own Prime Minister, so do check out the film from Don’t Judge My Family on whether it really is time to get back to back to basics.

Kirsty McNeill is a former Downing Street adviser and a strategy consultant for campaigning organisations. She tweets @kirstyjmcneill and is speaking next week at #LWN13 Foundations for Victory.