Research is a key first step once your team decides on a focus area. It is important to support your campaign with facts, statistics, stories, and resources so that you will be taken seriously. Lulit, a member of our Design Team, explains how research has been so important to her team, including collecting their own data (more on that in Stage 4):

Throughout this stage, take clear and detailed notes and always include your sources—you will need it for later! To make sure you're on the right track during this stage, you can follow this checklist below (which you can also print). That way if you miss details in the Guide to Change or if you prefer to do things a different way, you know what the end goals of this stage are!