The flipchart usually looks worse before it becomes useful. Sticky notes climb the wall: mayor, school office, transport company, landlord, press, parents, Verwaltung, finance committee, “the state?”, “someone at the district?”, and one note that says “the public” with heroic optimism and no phone number.
This mess is not a problem. It is the beginning of a power map. The point is to stop treating “the city” or “the system” as a single actor. Institutions are made of decision-makers, implementers, budget holders, advisers, blockers, allies, and people who are affected but not invited. If you mix them up, you can spend months applying pressure to someone who can sympathize beautifully and change nothing.
Use this guide before choosing a petition, protest, meeting, media push, Bürgerbegehren, or legal route. If your issue is discrimination, Equal Voices Initiative can help with the rights and incident-response layer. If your issue is housing insecurity, Shelter & Stability Network handles the housing substance. Here we are mapping power: who can change what, and what might get them to act.
Master checklist
Before you launch a tactic, fill in these eight lines:
- Desired change: What exactly should be different?
- Formal decision-maker: Who has the legal or official authority to say yes?
- Implementer: Which office, department, contractor, school, provider, or agency would carry it out?
- Budget holder: Where would money, staff time, space, or procurement approval come from?
- Influencers: Who can persuade, embarrass, advise, pressure, or reassure the decision-maker?
- Blockers: Who benefits from delay, fears the cost, dislikes the precedent, or controls the timetable?
- Affected communities: Who lives with the consequences and must shape the demand?
- Current moment: Is there an agenda item, Ausschuss meeting, Haushaltsplan debate, consultation, permit process, contract renewal, or election that changes the leverage?
If three or more boxes are blank, do not panic. Do research before theatre.
Deep dive 1: Define the change before naming the target
Power mapping starts with a sentence, not a person.
“We want safer crossings near the primary school” may point to traffic planning, school administration, the road authority, police accident data, the transport committee, and the municipal budget. “We want a zebra crossing installed at the east entrance before the winter term” narrows the map. “We want the administration to present crossing options and costings to the next transport Ausschuss” narrows it further.
Different demands reveal different targets:
- A rule change may need the Gemeinderat.
- A budget allocation may need the finance committee and final budget vote.
- A timetable adjustment may involve the transport provider, municipal administration, and an existing contract.
- A building access problem may sit with the property office, not the public-facing service using the building.
- A harmful administrative practice may be changeable by the Verwaltung without a council vote, unless it needs new resources.
Do not map power around your anger. Map it around the decision you need.
Deep dive 2: Find the formal decision-maker
The formal decision-maker is the person or body with authority to approve, reject, amend, or place the matter on a path to decision.
In a German municipality, possible formal decision points include:
- Gemeinderat or Stadtrat: the elected council, often responsible for major policy, budgets, statutes, and politically significant decisions.
- Ausschüsse: committees that prepare or sometimes decide matters in areas such as transport, social affairs, planning, schools, environment, culture, or finance.
- Mayor or Verwaltungsspitze: the mayor or senior administration, especially for administrative leadership and proposals.
- Fachamt: the specialist department, such as youth, planning, environment, housing, social services, or roads.
- District, Landkreis, Land, or federal level: the real authority may sit above the municipality.
- Private or semi-public provider: sometimes the municipality influences through contracts, permits, subsidies, ownership, or seats on a supervisory body.
Ask boring questions. Boring questions are underrated because they produce usable answers:
- “Which body is legally responsible for this decision?”
- “Is there an existing council resolution, contract, statute, or budget line?”
- “Which committee receives this item first?”
- “Who can put it on the agenda?”
- “When is the next decision point?”
If the answer is verbal, write it down with date, office, and name if offered. If a formal legal decision, a Bescheid, is involved, Justice Access Centre is the better sibling for deadlines and appeal routes. A campaign can support a legal route, but it should not accidentally miss a deadline while designing posters.
Deep dive 3: Separate influencers from deciders
Influencers matter. They are not the same as deciders.
A sympathetic councillor may raise a question, request information, or persuade a parliamentary group. A school principal may validate the problem but lack authority over the building budget. A local newspaper may make delay uncomfortable. A respected Verein may reassure officials that the demand is not just three people with a printer. A youth council, Seniorenbeirat, disability advisory body, migrant advisory council, or neighbourhood forum may have consultation rights or soft influence.
Influencers can help you:
- understand the route
- test whether your demand is feasible
- reach affected people
- show that support is broader than the original group
- make inaction visible
- reduce the perceived political risk of saying yes
But do not let access become strategy. If the only person who replies cannot decide anything, thank them and ask who can.
Deep dive 4: Name implementers and budget holders
Some campaigns win a public promise and then discover implementation has its own swamp. The Gemeinderat may approve something, but the Verwaltung must draft, procure, staff, schedule, inspect, or communicate it. The finance committee may support the idea in principle, but the Haushaltsplan may contain no money. A department may want to act but lack staff capacity.
Add two columns to your map:
- Who must do the work?
- What resource must exist for the work to happen?
Resources include money, staff time, rooms, vehicles, translation, maintenance, data, legal review, procurement, or political permission. “This costs nothing” is a sentence officials hear from people who have not counted staff hours. Sometimes it is true. Often it is not. Count honestly. You will be harder to dismiss.
Power mapping tells you where authority sits. It does not make your volunteer spreadsheet any less mortal, so count group capacity as honestly as you count institutional power.
Deep dive 5: Identify blockers without making them cartoon villains
A blocker is anyone with reason or capacity to slow, dilute, redirect, or stop the change.
Blockers may include:
- a department worried about workload
- councillors worried about budget precedent
- a provider protecting a contract
- neighbours who fear noise, parking changes, or loss of status
- a committee chair controlling agenda time
- a legal office warning about procurement or liability
- a party group that does not want the issue owned by opponents
Do not assume every blocker hates your community. Some are defending scarce resources. Some are avoiding blame. Some are genuinely opposed. Some simply benefit from nobody finding the correct form before the deadline.
For each blocker, ask:
- What do they lose if we win?
- What risk do they think they are taking?
- What evidence would weaken their objection?
- Who can influence them?
- Is public pressure useful, or would quiet negotiation move faster?
Strategic clarity is not politeness for its own sake. It is how you avoid wasting outrage on the wrong mechanism.
Deep dive 6: Put affected communities on the map as power, not decoration
Affected people are often treated as testimony suppliers: useful for a quote, then thanked and ignored. That is bad ethics and usually bad strategy.
Ask who should shape the demand before it hardens. Shift workers may define a transport win differently from office commuters. Disabled residents may know that the proposed “accessible” entrance is technically open and practically unusable. Young people may want staffing, not just a room. Migrant residents may need interpretation before a consultation becomes meaningful.
On your map, mark affected groups by:
- level of direct impact
- current connection to the campaign
- barriers to participation
- risk if the issue becomes public
- what decision they should control inside the campaign
If your campaign speaks about people who are not in the room, slow down. Sometimes the next tactic is not a press release. It is childcare, translation, an evening meeting, a paper flyer, or asking whether the proposed demand is actually wanted.
Deep dive 7: Choose targets by leverage, not visibility
A good campaign target is not always the most famous person. It is the actor whose movement would change the decision path.
Use three categories:
- Primary target: the formal decision-maker.
- Secondary targets: people who influence or constrain the primary target.
- Base: people affected and supporters who can create legitimacy, information, pressure, and persistence.
Then match tactics:
- If the decision-maker lacks information, request documents and submit evidence.
- If the issue is buried, use Einwohnerfragestunde, committee questions, local media, or a public meeting to surface it.
- If the budget is the barrier, intervene before the Haushaltsplan is fixed.
- If the administration agrees but elected members are hesitant, organize visible support in relevant wards or districts.
- If the decision is unlawful or rights-based, seek legal advice rather than hoping a louder chant rewrites procedure.
Some campaigns target the wrong institution because the wrong institution is easier to understand. The office with a counter is not always the office with power. The person at the meeting is not always the person who controls the agenda. The loudest public figure is not always the one holding the pen.
End the mapping session with a sentence: “Our current primary target is X, because X can do Y by Z date, and A, B, and C can influence whether that happens.” If you cannot write that yet, keep mapping. The wall may still be messy. That is fine. It should now be useful.