Until recently, I always had the impression that there was a glut of animal activists and there’d be little point in me participating. It’s not something I ever bothered to check.
For one thing, I heard plenty of stories of how hard it is to get a job at an animal organization. So I figured that would be same for animal activism and that each campaign was saturated with volunteers.
And for another thing, I usually don’t hear about pressure campaigns unless they’re successful or have tons of people. Understandably nobody wants to promote the mediocre attempts where there’s only 3 people pressuring a target and failing. Activist campaigns want to seem like a cool group on the cusp of victory while newspapers have better stories to run.
It wasn’t until I said all this to an organizer a few weeks ago that I learned all the struggles with recruiting and retaining activists. And then I made a mental note to join the next action I could.
I don’t know how many people would benefit from hearing, “Hey our capacity is actually very low and we’d benefit from any non-crazy person with a pulse”, but I certaintly did. And now I’m among the irregular participants who show up at least once or twice a year.
I had a similar experience when I started volunteering for The Humane League. I joined because I was looking for unskilled EA-approved volunteering and I was under the impression that THL would have plenty of people. It wasn’t until I became a local organizer and started digging into the numbers that I realized the activist population is tiny and there was an opportunity for individuals to significantly improve the movement base.
Part of my hope in writing this post was to tell more people about the need for non-crazy people with a pulse. I do think getting the word out about that while retaining the idea that we can make real change is a big challenge for organizers.
Until recently, I always had the impression that there was a glut of animal activists and there’d be little point in me participating. It’s not something I ever bothered to check.
For one thing, I heard plenty of stories of how hard it is to get a job at an animal organization. So I figured that would be same for animal activism and that each campaign was saturated with volunteers.
And for another thing, I usually don’t hear about pressure campaigns unless they’re successful or have tons of people. Understandably nobody wants to promote the mediocre attempts where there’s only 3 people pressuring a target and failing. Activist campaigns want to seem like a cool group on the cusp of victory while newspapers have better stories to run.
It wasn’t until I said all this to an organizer a few weeks ago that I learned all the struggles with recruiting and retaining activists. And then I made a mental note to join the next action I could.
I don’t know how many people would benefit from hearing, “Hey our capacity is actually very low and we’d benefit from any non-crazy person with a pulse”, but I certaintly did. And now I’m among the irregular participants who show up at least once or twice a year.
I had a similar experience when I started volunteering for The Humane League. I joined because I was looking for unskilled EA-approved volunteering and I was under the impression that THL would have plenty of people. It wasn’t until I became a local organizer and started digging into the numbers that I realized the activist population is tiny and there was an opportunity for individuals to significantly improve the movement base.
Part of my hope in writing this post was to tell more people about the need for non-crazy people with a pulse. I do think getting the word out about that while retaining the idea that we can make real change is a big challenge for organizers.