Summary: I argue that EA supported animal advocacy is failing in building deeper forms of engagement with its supporters. I hypothesise 1. adherence to professional norms in community building and 2. predominance of single issue communication might be some of the reasons behind this problem.
EA supported animal advocacy has been very successful with certain forms of mobilisation. End The Cage Age petition in Europe got 1.4 millions signatures from real EU citizens. Referendums to ban cages were won with very large margins. Corporate cage-free petitions get hundreds of thousands of signatures from time to time. Compassion in World Farming reports they had 90.000 individual donors in 2023/2024 period. These are very serious numbers.
On the other hand, when it comes to other deep forms of engagement, I fear we are not growing our numbers. Mercy for Animals’ largest demonstration ever in their history seems to be 140 people. Other protests for cage-free and broiler work don’t seem to be significantly larger either.
When there are significant threats to our work, like the possibility of overturning Prop 12 or the EU dropping its cage ban plans; I don’t see many influential people speaking up and making a noise. There were very few tweets when the EU broke its promise to announce a date for banning cages.
It seems that we are failing in cultivating deeper engagement. We can get people’s shallow one-off support. They will consent to what we do, they will sign our petitions, they will vote in our favour in the referendums. But they won’t sustain continuous engagement, and won’t be willing to make significant sacrifices to protect our work.
My own organisation hasn’t been very successful in cultivating this form of deep engagement either. Addressing that segment of the supporter funnel is my focus this year. I’m hoping that thinking publicly might also help in making progress. This essay will be weak in evidence because it’s mainly for generating hypotheses to design new approaches.
Here are two hypotheses on what might be preventing deeper engagement.
Professional boundaries
EA-supported animal advocacy organisations enforce mainstream professional norms. These norms go against some of the common practices in successful community-building in other areas.
For example:
Many successful community builders treat movement members as friends. They don’t maintain the usual professional distance.
They are willing to interact with movement members any time of the week.
They also spend time with movement members in private spaces like their own houses or the houses of movement members.
My observation is that many successful social movements from all ranges of the political spectrum had a lot of intimate social bonding especially in the early stages. I think we are missing that partially because it’s hard to ask your hires to treat supporters as their friends.
Professional boundaries also exist for a reason. So we should be tactful about how we relax them. But when I read biographies and memories of movement leaders I can’t help but notice the significant amount of time spent in other people’s houses.
Some actions I’m considering:
-Switching to a physical office and using it as a community space. Maybe even sharing space with a vegan restaurant.
-Spending more time in-person with our supporters myself.
Predominance of single issue communication
Many EA-supported animal advocacy orgs refrain from commenting on issues outside their focus areas. The priority is to make progress on what we all already agree on and leave the disagreements for later. I fear this might be preventing deeper engagement. I think many of our supporters had experiences like the following:
a. Through seeing a viral and powerful content on the suffering of caged hens, Deniz is deeply touched. She is shocked about what happens to animals. After an epiphany, she decides to make big changes in her life. She researches content on animals deeply. Decides to go vegan to put her passion into action.
She realises that she had been blind to animals in so many ways in her previous life. She feels like her perspective on things needs a comprehensive overhaul. She needs guidance on how she should speak with her social circles, what she should do on edge cases in her new lifestyle, how she should reshape her thinking on politics etc.
Yet the organisation she got into contact with is still working on cage-free campaigns and doesn’t have answers to her questions about how her commitment to animals should affect other aspects of her life. Unable to find moral leadership she needs, she disengages.
There is another failure scenario like the following:
b. Eda cares deeply about political issue A and she has so many strong emotions around it. She naturally desires people around her to share her emotions. She looks at her beloved animal advocacy organisation to see how they are reacting. They are not reacting to the topic. She feels an emotional gap and disappointment. She disengages.
One way to address this problem is to have more thought leaders and organisations that don’t attempt to be catch-all brands and offer more holistic ideologies in different flavours. These thought leaders and organisations can preserve their own specific identities and also join together for common welfare campaign goals under umbrella platforms/organisations. Currently everyone seems to be trying to offend no one, which doesn’t seem to be optimal.
Some actions I’m considering:
-Writing a personal blog that will detail my thinking on many issues
-Encouraging our supporters to write more blogs and become thought leaders for people similar to them
Many thanks to Jakub Stencel and Haven King-Nobles for their helpful comments on the draft. Errors remain my own.
Love that you wrote this up and shared Emre! I definitely think we need more people having this kind of discourse publicly so appreciate you contributing.
I wanted to share some mostly anecdotal things from my experience in AR and XR in what seems to have worked for building deep/committed engagement from volunteers & activists:
Which also has a bunch of downsides but more on that another time..
Appreciate you thinking about and giving this thought publicly Emre.
A colleague shared a model of three concentric circles representing engagement, attributed to M. Bauman, but I've yet to see the original source. The model categorises engagement as follows:
If I understand correctly, your concern is that the core segment isn't expanding sufficiently within EA-supported animal organizations. My interpretation of this model is that there should always be an invitation to engage more deeply. The changes you are considering for yourself seem to align with this principle, and I would be very interested to hear about your experiences if you implement them.
I'm not sure whether the issue lies in the prevalence of single-issue communication or in the belief that organisations must embody people power to drive change. If our focus is on achieving quick wins in animal welfare, there might be less emphasis on harnessing people power. Similarly, if an organisation is predominantly funded by a small group of major donors, it may not feel the need to cultivate a large supporter base.
I think growing people power is important and perhaps the strongest tool to do this is local volunteer groups. An example comes to mind of an org that has their flagship campaigns as a cage-free, broiler work and had a local volunteer group run their own campaign to ban pony rides at a local fair. The volunteer campaign used generally the same approach of a pressure campaign that would be used on cage-free and broiler work and gave the volunteer group an up close look at the strategies and allowed them to see and create change that was more tangible and personal to them. I saw this have the effect of deepening the engagement of many of the volunteers to do more of their own work and also engage on bigger asks on the organisations flagship campaigns.
What you propose as your actions on single issue campaigns, I think can happen at local group gatherings where people have space to discuss, and see the variety and nuance in others thinking and importantly take action that drives work forward which I think helps with that engagement. In person informal discussions can also feel like lower stakes in expressing a dissenting view vs sharing on a public forum.
Thanks a lot for your comments Alex. I really appreciate it as I want to develop my thinking on topic. Thanks a lot for the suggestions as well.
Your observations provide valuable and good insights for me into the challenges of growing a sustainable movement. The transition from an exclusive, specialized setting to a more open and inclusive movement is a difficult step. This transformation requires consideration of how to maintain core principles while becoming more accessible and relatable to a wider audience.
During the early phases of movement building, there's a natural tendency for organizations and their core supporters (early adopters) to create intellectual and physical distance from mainstream perspectives. While this can help establish a strong foundation and clear identity, it can also create unintended barriers that limit broader participation. To achieve meaningful growth, I think you should carefully examine and address these obstacles to deeper engagement, finding ways to bridge the gap between committed activists/friends and potential supporters.
Your suggestion about relocating to a more visible and accessible location seems to be an excellent step toward greater inclusivity. Such a move could create opportunities for interactions with individuals who might not otherwise encounter your organization or its mission. This physical presence could serve as a location for introducing animal rights issues to new audiences (e.g., guests of a vegan restaurant) in an approachable way.
Investing time in building relationships with existing supporters and those who show initial interest could give you insights into the factors that either encourage or inhibit deeper engagement. These personal connections and conversations often reveal subtle barriers and opportunities that might not be clear through more formal analysis or in contacts with supporter-friends.
Thank you for sharing these insights. I look forward to hearing updates about your blog plans and potential move or changes.