Not a criminal
Not a Criminal Campaign
How do you build a campaign that not only advocates for your audience but also for a broader, intersectional audience which experiences the same injustices in different ways?
The Not a Criminal (NAC) campaign was a partnership between many global organisations focused on those who have HIV, those who do recreational drugs, those who are part of the LGBT+ community or are gender diverse, or those who are sex workers. The initiative was spearheaded by The Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), who approached us to create a website to campaign against the criminalisation of these key populations.
In looking at the layout and content of the site, it was really important for the campaign to reiterate that the initiative is intersectional, and while the idea might have formed to focus on protecting those who are more likely to be affected by HIV, it has evolved to become much more than that.
We created inclusive and intersectional spaces by including each population in primary areas of the site. This ranged from featuring a scrolling list of relevant statistics across the top of the home page, repeating the list of key populations within major sections of the website, as well as representing each partnered organisation clearly and accessibly.
The Resource Hub section of the site also made exploring the challenges and solutions to criminalisation for each of the key populations easy to understand and use, and ensured that each key population had a space to gather information on the site.
It was also very important that the site protected all those who were involved. This was done by using stock images only, so it was difficult to identify someone personally, and within the forum hosted on the site, only usernames were used, with no identifying markers like full names or images.
The website evokes the importance of the cause it stands for, while presenting solutions and resources that will help both organisations and individuals. This site formed the foundation for a wider digital campaign. It meant so much to our team to be a part of this important work.
We were also tasked with creating and managing a social media presence for the NAC campaign. We began with a deep dive into the conversations happening online in the sector, and the creative ways that organisations are working to drive change in this space. In crafting a strategy that would have the desired impact, we found the conversations we had with GNP+ fascinating and motivating.
A carefully curated community management strategy was put into place upon the launch of the campaign’s social media in order to protect the key populations involved with the campaign.
The Not a Criminal website launched with
In March 2025, Not a Criminal Campaign sunset their website. This website is no longer live.