Across the EU, political movements with authoritarian agendas are battering progressive NGOs. The extreme right and their media allies use smear campaigns to vilify advocacy organisations that promote causes like environmental protection, humane migration policies, anti-corruption or gender equality. Beset by political hostility that is amplified over social media, it’s no wonder that progressive advocacy NGOs worry that far right efforts to restrict their work enjoy increasing popular support.

But is it true? What do people think about these organisations? Do smear campaigns work and if so, can we counter their impact to (re)build support for NGOs?

Learn more about our communication and campaigning strategies here. 

In 2025 we gathered data on public opinion and carried out message testing to answer these questions. Working with our members in four EU countries (Sweden, Italy, Croatia and Hungary) we focused on how ‘undecideds’ think. This is the segment of the population beyond people who strongly or moderately support us. Undecideds have conflicted views about us and our issues. They could just as easily be won over by us or our opponents. If we want to reach majority support for progressive advocacy NGOs and the causes they work on, we need them on our side.

It turns out that undecideds know very little about advocacy NGOs. They know little or nothing about the causes they promote. And they’re not really aware of how these organisations use advocacy, campaigning and litigation to democracy work properly. Smear campaigns have an impact on their opinions, but a limited one. Undecideds repeat only one or two of the many smears levelled at advocacy NGOs in their country but in vague terms and with little detail. When shown certain kinds of messages and creative content these negative views quickly melt away and undecideds become more supportive of and interested in their work. This was the case even in Hungary where advocacy NGOs have been subjected to over a decade of concerted attacks.

We tested messages both in written form and as images and videos. We found three strands of messaging that stimulate support for progressive advocacy NGOs. First, showing how advocacy NGOs bring people together around a common cause. The images and videos we tested tended to show ‘ordinary’ people coming together physically in different ways, like vigils, marches or demonstrations. Organisations that don’t use these tools should find creative ways to portray other ways people can get involved (donating, volunteering, sharing content, signing petitions) as collective, rather than individual, acts.

Second, pointing to examples in the past (both recent and historical) when changes that improve society have been achieved by ordinary people coming together. If advocacy NGOs played a role, point this out. Examples include helping a country transition to democracy, creating the welfare state, protecting sites of historic or natural heritage or winning paid parental leave. Organisations need to work out which examples resonate best in their particular country and may need dedicated campaigns to raise public awareness about past successes.

Third, talking about the causes we promote in a way that shows your audience how our goals align with their values. Support for an NGO is principally driven by support for the cause they are advancing. But right now advocacy NGOs message in a way that only resonates with their existing supporters.

Advocacy NGOs tend to obscure their meaning with jargon that nobody outside their supporters understands. Undecideds tend to use and appreciate plain, concrete language. Don’t talk about ‘access to education’. Talk about being able to go to a decent school with enough teachers. This also goes for the way we talk about ourselves in public debate. We found that undecideds did not know what terms like ‘civil society organisation’ or ‘NGO’ mean.

Another mistake advocacy NGOs make is to focus on talking about the injustices they are fighting. Undecideds often have their own (incorrect) assumptions which they rely on to explain away a problem you want them to care about. Or they just tune out because they’re fed up with negative news.

It’s not that we shouldn’t point out the harms we’re trying to heal. But to get through to undecideds, we need to add a few other ingredients to our message. One important element that tends to be missing from our messages is an explanation of why the cause we’re pursuing delivers or protects something our audience cares about.

For example, to stimulate support for environmental protection, campaigners need to talk more about how nature delivers things that are important to your audience. Not just the beauty of nature itself, but also how being in nature gives grandparents the opportunity to bond with grandchildren as they pass on knowledge, or how healthy nature protects us from extreme weather, or how it gives us a setting to spend time relaxing with family and friends.

If we want to talk about the rights of marginalised groups, it’s important to stimulate empathy and dissolve negative stereotypes. For example, once your audience sees people who migrate as people like them who move to give their families a better life, and who contribute to and integrate into their new communities, they are much more likely to support fairer and more humane migration policies. This might take repeated exposure to new, more positive (and hence more representative) stories to counter the currently dominant negative frames of people who migrate amplified by (social) media. 

Our new messaging guide unpacks these lessons and more, with detailed do’s and don’ts, sample messaging, guidance on how to react to smears, and sample creative content. 

If you’re interested in learning how to strengthen public attitudes toward NGOs that advance progressive causes such as human rights, equality, anti-corruption, and environmental protection, explore our guide here. 

Related reads

Sweden Learning To Bring A Human-To-Human Connection Into Human Rights Messaging

Hungary: Back To Basics: Finding Common Ground, Despite Political Differences

Croatia: Bringing Back Hope and Optimism to Human Rights Campaigns

Italy: Learning to Find Our Voice in an Era of Rising Authoritarianism

Other Liberties messaging resources

E-learning: Persuasive Messaging Course on Knowledge Hub

This blog story is part of a Liberties project called "Assisting Evidence-based Communication and Campaigning Strategies to Enable Safe Civic Space in Europe" (Project ACCESS).