Engagement is Not a Metric: My Reflections on working with the Fossil Fuel Treaty and the Data Ownership Trap.

When I reflect on my departure from the Fossil Fuel Treaty, my mind immediately goes to the people. I had the privilege of working alongside some of the most brilliant, dedicated, and strategically sharp minds in the climate movement, and witnessing their commitment was undoubtedly the highlight of my tenure. By January 2025, we had reached a monumental milestone: over one million people had officially stepped forward to support the call for a Fossil Fuel Treaty. It was a moment of global validation, and while I helped architect the strategies that pushed us over that million-mark finish line, it would be disingenuous to claim that success as an isolated win.

The reality is that this milestone belonged to a vast, decentralised ecosystem. It was built on the backs of partner organisations who hosted petitions, launched digital actions, and curated online events that met people where they were. It was a masterclass in collective power, yet it also highlighted a growing, dangerous friction in our movement: the tendency for organisations to "play God" with supporter data at the expense of genuine collaboration. I’ve noticed a shift where the administrative desire to "own" a person's information often eclipses the objective of the mission itself. We treat supporters as static entries in a database, a trophy for a central HQ, rather than active participants in a shared struggle.

This fixation on data ownership completely ignores the very real phenomenon of supporter fatigue. We have to recognize that the individual signing our petition is likely the same person supporting three other sister organisations in the same space. When we bombard them with repetitive, uncoordinated asks because we are too protective of "our" list to collaborate with others, we aren't just being inefficient; we are being extractive. Of course, a rigorous data policy and due diligence are non-negotiable for any serious campaign; we have a sacred duty to protect the privacy of those who trust us. But when "data protection" becomes a shield for gatekeeping and ego, the movement as a whole loses its momentum.

I saw this play out vividly during a major campaign in East Africa. The internal friction over who "controlled" the data became louder than the actual mission of the campaign. We spent more energy debating permissions and access than we did providing local organisers with the necessary tools and opportunities to act. This is the "Leaky Pipe" of engagement in its most bureaucratic form. We become so focused on harvesting names to satisfy a funder’s report that we deprioritise the actual impact those people could be making if they were given a clear Ladder of Engagement.

Engagement is not a vanity metric; it is what happens when motivation meets opportunity. If our digital strategy isn't inclusive or participatory, it isn't a strategy, it’s just a broadcast. Most global organisations are currently caught in a "Numbers Game," driven by a systemic pressure to prove impact through raw, often shallow, data points. This creates what I call the "Intelligence Gap." We are data-rich but insight-poor. We have warehouses of signatures, yet we fail to turn that data into a Narrative Infrastructure that empowers local leaders to take the lead. According to research on Collective Impact by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the most successful movements thrive because they share a common agenda and a backbone of open communication, not because one entity owns the most names.

Digital technology should be the nervous system of a movement, facilitating flow, intelligence, and rapid response. To fix our engine, we need to shift from Reactive Organising (responding to the last crisis) to Predictive Organising, where we use our shared insights to anticipate what our supporters need to be effective.

As the Fossil Fuel Treaty prepares for its first major conference this year, it serves as a vital reminder that the mission is always bigger than the database. We must ask ourselves: are we building a list, or are we building power? If we aren't willing to de-center ourselves and prioritise the collective, we will continue to build massive, silent warehouses of data while the window for climate action closes.

Strategic shifts and digital architectures are only as strong as the people who drive them. Leaving the Treaty was a moment of profound transition, and these words from the colleagues I respect most serve as a reminder that even in a world of big data, the human heart remains our most vital campaign asset.

Follow the Fossil Fuel Treaty as they head into this historic conference; their journey remains an essential case study for how we navigate the tension between organisational due diligence and the radical collaboration required to win.