Sometimes organising campaigns or events can feel pretty isolating, especially if you are working alone or with a small group. One way in which you can gain support in many different forms is by involving local or national political organisations. These can include political parties, trade unions, charities, youth groups, community organisations - in fact any organisation that shares common goals or views with your own is a potential source of support.

Most student political groups are relatively small, but even larger groups & societies should make the most out of working with like-minded organisations in the community around them. So what benefits can working with these groups bring? Firstly, whether you’re renting a venue, hiring a speaker, buying some banners or just organising a social it all costs money, and when you are running on a limited budget you need to make every penny count. Political organisations can help you with things like this, OK they probably aren’t going to donate £1000 to your campaign but they are able to provide financial support in other ways. Many local political parties will have their own printing facilities, particularly in marginal seats (where propaganda is churned out at a far higher rate), and they may be able to print leaflets, posters and flyers for you free of charge or at a below-market rate.

There’s nothing politicians like to do more than have a room full of people all listening attentively to them, save having another politician in the room to argue with as well. Political parties will often provide you with a speaker for free, especially if they know representatives of other parties are going to be there too. In the run up to either a local or national election parties are even keener to send representatives, making the debate open to the public will entice them even more. Charities, Trade Unions and other similar groups will often send speakers for free, mostly because they are keen to raise awareness about certain issues and see young people as a key target audience.

Political organisations can also be a source of administrative and logistical support, perhaps you’ve never run a group or a campaign like this before and you don’t know where to start. If the advice you get from your student union is not enough why not get in touch with some local organisations, many of the people working or volunteering for these groups will have years of campaigning experience and this could prove invaluable. Political parties will have offices in most constituencies and these can be used as a venue for meetings, often the party will not charge you if they see your organisation as complementary to their own.
At most universities the biggest single recruiting event for your organisation is the fresher’s fayre and it is important to make the most of it. If you are a small group or you are lacking material for your stall you can use partner groups within your local area to provide volunteers and printed material. Just like your own group, most politically oriented organisations are always looking to expand their membership and if they think there’s a chance of recruiting some people at your fayre they’ll be more than happy to help you.

When it comes to organising events publicity is everything and this is where working with local organisations can really pay off. Simply asking the organisation to publicise your event to its own members can help fill up your venue on the night, providing leaflets and posters to members of that organisation’s branch is a good idea too and emailing several local groups at once also saves a great deal of time.

The different types of support outlined above are just a snippet of what political groups can offer, but why would they want to help you in the first place? Believe it or not but the vast majority of people involved in politics in one way or another are there for the right reasons. That is to say, they have a belief system or ideology which inspires them and they want to use that to make some small impact on the world for the better. This means that people may well be willing to offer you advice and support and expect absolutely nothing back in return save the feeling that they’ve made a difference. When it comes to political parties most of them will be wanting to help you because they may see you and others in your organisation as potential new members, currently young people make up only a tiny percentage of the membership of the big three political parties so you can expect them to be bending over backwards to try to get you on board. Many organisations however will just want to build links with groups like your own, possibly with a view to holding joint events in the future; other organisations may be looking to help you because it is good publicity for them or because they want to publicise something to you. To build up long-term relationships with these organisations you should be prepared to meet at least some of their expectations of you, even if that just means attending a few meetings or delivering some leaflets.

The first step you need to take is to find some suitable local organisations to work with. Larger political parties have what are called ‘constituency parties’ and a quick internet search should retrieve some contact details for the local constituency party. Smaller political parties are likely to have regional branches rather than constituency parties and these will be based in the larger towns and cities in your region. Trade unions run on a similar set-up and the larger unions have branches all over the UK, to find a particular union go to the Trades Union Congress website (www.tuc.org.uk). It is unlikely that you will not find a political party, however small, sympathetic to the views of your student organisation, however political parties are not the only groups out there to work with and you should try to build links with other politically oriented entities. Larger charities will have regional branches and there are many small local charities out there too. Also look at think tanks and campaign groups like Compass, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Fabian Society, many of which have active local branches - these types of organisations are able to provide really good speakers for your debates and events. Many organisations have a youth or student wing and making contact with these groups is a key source of support because they are often made up of experienced student campaigners.

Within these organisations the key people to make links with are the local branch secretaries (who will have many contacts within their own and neighbouring branches), the youth/student officer and the campaigns officer. Building up a good relationship with these people will help to ensure your own student campaign or organisation not just survives, but thrives in the next academic year because even if you are leaving university by simply passing on contact details the relationship can continue to exist with your successor.

Finally, when dealing with political organisations work on the philosophy of ‘you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ Don’t be afraid to ask for those thousand free leaflets or free use of a venue, you have nothing to lose and, potentially, a lot to gain.

There's an interesting article in today's Independent on Sunday about declining membership levels in the Conservative party, with research suggest a 21.5% drop since David Cameron's election as leader. But the phenomenon is not unique to the Tories, Labour too have seen drastic falls in membership levels since 1997. One could argue that the race to the 'centre ground' of British politics has led to the larger parties losing touch with their 'core vote' and becoming somewhat less inspirational. Whatever the cause, a dangerous by-product of this drop in membership is a real change in where parties obtain their funding.

Political parties are supposed to be popular movements, campaigning for the country to governed in one particular way or another, organised and funded by their members. But when membership levels start to fall, parties are obliged to turn to other sources for funding. The big three parties seem now to be more interested in soliciting donations from millionaires than from members. But while members expect little return from their contributions, millionaires quite naturally expect something more than a quarterly newsletter and a little plastic card from theirs. In other words, a level of corruption is now actually necessary in order to obtain adequate funding for a political party.

 While there are of course some wealthy supporters who genuinely back a particular political party and expect nothing in return for their donations, the increasing reliance on affluent donors is worrying. One solution to the problem could be state-funded political parties - removing the need to seek shady donations just to cover a party's day-to-day expenses. It could be argued that this would be the final nail in the coffin for the 'popular movement' - but the essence of a popular movement could be retained in such a system if the amount of funding a party received was proportional to its membership, with membership and funding of parties being overseen by an independent regulator.

Inevitably though, such a system would not address the key question - What is it about the main political parties today that has caused so many of their members to leave, and so few new members to join? It is this crisis of ideology, or perhaps lack of it, that must be addressed if we are to keep politics in the hands of the people.