A great deal of energy is wasted by civil society anguishing over the harm done to people by corporations, governments and technologies. Far too little effort is invested by public interest NGOs in 'practical activism'. This paper argues that civil society must establish Standards and Process Descriptions which clearly communicate their expectations, and which provide benchmarks against which the inadequacies of processes and the unacceptable dangers of projects and schemes can be delineated. The paper provides several examples of policy statements and templates of the kind that it is argued need to be provided.