Results – what we decided to focus on next

The results are in.

Over the past week, tens of thousands of 38 Degrees members have been deciding what we should focus on next.

To start the process thousands of us shared ideas on Facebook, the blog and Twitter. Next, the 38 Degrees staff team – David, Hannah and I – together with Pete and Sean, two 38 Degrees volunteers carefully worked through tens of thousands suggestions, comments and ideas to find out the most popular ones. Then thousands of us voted on the most popular campaign suggestions.

Here are the results. If you hover over the results you’ll see the full question.

Question: Here are some of the big issues that 38 Degrees members have been talking about. How important is it for us to campaign on these issues?

Here’s a list of the top results

1. NHS: Make sure the NHS isn’t run down or privatised (83.37% voted “a lot”)
2. Forests: Stand up for our forests if they’re in danger (79.28% voted “a lot”)
3. Banks: Push for banks to pay their fair share and clamp down on huge bonuses (78.08% voted “a lot”)
4. Tax dodging: Demand a clamp down on tax dodging (70.97% voted “a lot”)

38 Degrees can do more than one thing at once. But we can’t do everything all the time, and these results will help shape where we put most of our efforts over the next few months. Where the bulk of 38 Degrees members have said we shouldn’t campaign on an issue, as in the case of the high-speed rail project, we obviously will not be running a campaign.

Right now, looking at the top priorities, it makes sense to quickly ratchet up our work on the NHS. The government is currently pushing through the Health Bill, which is the focus of many 38 Degrees’ members concerns. We could have only a few weeks to amend or stop that piece of legislation, so it makes sense to launch an urgent petition right now. We can deliver the first batch of signatures in the next couple of weeks – to key coalition MPs who are currently sitting on a committee looking at the legislation.

On some of the other prioritised issues, we already have campaigns on going. For example 38 Degrees members have already clubbed together to raise thousands of pounds to run adverts about tax dodging on the day of the budget, in a few weeks time. We will be delivering our petition to the government demanding they join European efforts to tackle Human Trafficking in a couple of weeks. We’ve obviously already got a lot going on about forests, we also need to find out who is on the new investigation panel which the government announced at the same time as announcing they were scrapping the sell-off plan.

Finally, on issues where we haven’t yet done any campaigning, the 38 Degrees staff team will need to start reaching out to other organisations already running campaigns, to find out how 38 Degrees could help. For example others have already started campaigning about library closures or cuts to disability living allowance. If you are connected with one of these organisations, please get in touch.

Here are the results to the second question:

Do you think 38 Degrees should put pressure on politicians and challenge them on the issues we care about during the local, Scottish and Welsh elections in May?

An overwhelming of 38 Degrees members think we should put pressure on politicians during the local, Scottish and Welsh election in May. So we will all need to start thinking together about the best way to do this.

What do you think of the results? What do you think we should do next? You can share your thoughts in the comments below.