The most pressing issues facing the world today are big, thorny challenges with consequential impacts on billions around the globe. Winners of the Skoll Award for Social Innovation will present their ...
Nicola Reindorp
Nicola Reindorp is Chief Executive Officer of Crisis Action. She has been campaigning to protect people in crises for more than 15 years and has been associated with Crisis Action since 2006, when she joined as a board member.
At that time, she was the first Head of Oxfam International’s New York office, leading Oxfam International’s advocacy on conflict and humanitarian action across the world. Nicola’s prior roles included being a policy adviser on the Great Lakes for Oxfam GB, and one of Oxfam International’s representatives in their Washington DC advocacy office. Nicola also had periods as a consultant for the UN in Rwanda and a fellow at the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group in London. From 2008–2010, she was the Director of Advocacy at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and in 2011 was an adviser to online campaigning organisation Avaaz.
Crisis Action’s idea of how to organise for impact was born out of failure. In 2003, the anti-war movement in the United Kingdom mobilised one million people from all walks of life and political persuasions to march against the invasion of Iraq. And yet, despite the largest public demonstration recorded in the country, the UK government was undeterred. They invaded Iraq anyway. In the eyes of one brilliant young campaigner, Guy Hughes, this had been an outpouring of opposition and emotion without the calibrated strategy for collective action that would cut straight through to the heart of decision-making. It was mobilisation without smart organisation. And so Guy founded Crisis Action. It was deliberately a small outfit that would work solely behind the scenes to bring together a range of organisations and individuals to influence power. It would build coalitions that would not be based on consensus, something he believed to have a malign impact on ambitious goals and clear purpose. Crisis Action would instead utilise a new ‘opt in’ model of organising. With the support of Amnesty International UK, Oxfam GB and other founding partners, Crisis Action began to grow and develop its unique model of clever coalition building.
In 2005, tragically, Guy died in a mountain climbing accident. But his vision of world class clever coalition-building and campaigning continued: he left the blueprint and foundations for the organisation Crisis Action is today, and the methodologies we share with you in this video and our Handbook for Change here.
