I’ll throw another two reasons into the mix—and to be clear, I’m referring here to why we have a dearth of people who gather for in-person activism, as I think in-person activity is disproportionately more important for building a connected and powerful movement:
The current aesthetic of most activism is overly tailored for hardcore people. A lot of what we ask people to do—protests and street outreach—is stuff that most people find scary. The vibe is often black t-shirts and placards. I’m all for catering to the rebels, but I think there are a lot of more moderate vegans and veggies who could be activated by offering them a different menu of actions within a more “normal” container. I think political organising has a lot of potential here—some good examples I’ve experienced recently were a letter-writing + pizza event organised by UK Voters for Animals, and also an outing where I helped Direct Action Everywhere gather signatures for a ballot measure. These were meaningful actions where I enjoyed connecting with others, but they were also aesthetically much more enjoyable than most protests and outreach events I’ve organised and participated in. In addition to political organising, I think organising people for institutional change is another huge area of potential—e.g. mobilising people to lobby local cafes to make their milk plant-based by default, or organising workers in large companies to create vegan food clubs in their offices. Plant-Based Universities is a great example of institution-focused organising.
Much of the movement doesn’t place a high value on activating people. I was recently on a call with someone who’s been deeply active in the movement 20+ years and they mentioned an interesting phenomenon: that a lot of groups started out very grassroots with a strong focus on organising people—but then as they grew and professionalised, they focused more on work carried out by their staff, and lost sight of organising volunteers. Professionalised staff can often achieve more in the short term on specific campaigns, but by choosing not to organise volunteers, there’s a trade-off. Here’s the thing: I think it’s very easy to see organising as simply a means to an end—as a tool to achieve a campaign win. But I think actually, activating people is an end in and of itself, because it builds movement capacity. A broad base of distributed, engaged people is what allows a movement to respond rapidly, weather setbacks, and build lasting power. I would love to see more organisations designing their campaigns such that organising volunteers is placed at the centre, not just as an optional add-on. This would have the added benefit of creating a greater range of approaches which can appeal to different types of people, because every organisation will have its own flavour—which would help with the “aesthetic” problem I mention above.
I hadn’t thought about the activist “uniform,” but it is often geared towards being striking rather than approachable. There’s also a danger of our identities as activists getting tied up in our apparel choices. I just started reading Change of Heart byNick Cooney (one of the THL founders) and he tells a fitting story of an environmental campaigner speaking at a rally to an enthusiastic group of young campaigners:
“He shouted to the crowd, “Are you ready to get out there and fight for the environment?” To which they responded an enthusiastic, “Yeah!” “Are you ready to get arrested and go to jail for the environment?” “Yeah!!” “Are you ready to give your life for the environment?” “Yeah!!” “Are you willing to cut your hair and put on a suit for the environment?” The crowd fell silent.”
The lack of investment in activating people makes sense. Maybe there’s some instances of incentives shifting as well. Once you have a nonprofit, a big part of your time becomes justifying the nonprofit’s existence, which will automatically syphon away attention from capacity building unless you intentionally redirect it.
Agree that activating people is an end in and of itself. With the loneliness epidemic going on, activating people and building community is a public service in its own right (even if it might not reach the EA bar on its own). And the nice thing to building capacity is that we can redirect a lot of that power to different causes, especially if we don’t tie our group identities too closely to any specific organization. I’d love to see different organizations playing up their different aesthetics while retaining collaborative ties—would really help with our recruiting surface area.
I think this post is spot on.
I’ll throw another two reasons into the mix—and to be clear, I’m referring here to why we have a dearth of people who gather for in-person activism, as I think in-person activity is disproportionately more important for building a connected and powerful movement:
The current aesthetic of most activism is overly tailored for hardcore people. A lot of what we ask people to do—protests and street outreach—is stuff that most people find scary. The vibe is often black t-shirts and placards. I’m all for catering to the rebels, but I think there are a lot of more moderate vegans and veggies who could be activated by offering them a different menu of actions within a more “normal” container. I think political organising has a lot of potential here—some good examples I’ve experienced recently were a letter-writing + pizza event organised by UK Voters for Animals, and also an outing where I helped Direct Action Everywhere gather signatures for a ballot measure. These were meaningful actions where I enjoyed connecting with others, but they were also aesthetically much more enjoyable than most protests and outreach events I’ve organised and participated in. In addition to political organising, I think organising people for institutional change is another huge area of potential—e.g. mobilising people to lobby local cafes to make their milk plant-based by default, or organising workers in large companies to create vegan food clubs in their offices. Plant-Based Universities is a great example of institution-focused organising.
Much of the movement doesn’t place a high value on activating people. I was recently on a call with someone who’s been deeply active in the movement 20+ years and they mentioned an interesting phenomenon: that a lot of groups started out very grassroots with a strong focus on organising people—but then as they grew and professionalised, they focused more on work carried out by their staff, and lost sight of organising volunteers. Professionalised staff can often achieve more in the short term on specific campaigns, but by choosing not to organise volunteers, there’s a trade-off. Here’s the thing: I think it’s very easy to see organising as simply a means to an end—as a tool to achieve a campaign win. But I think actually, activating people is an end in and of itself, because it builds movement capacity. A broad base of distributed, engaged people is what allows a movement to respond rapidly, weather setbacks, and build lasting power. I would love to see more organisations designing their campaigns such that organising volunteers is placed at the centre, not just as an optional add-on. This would have the added benefit of creating a greater range of approaches which can appeal to different types of people, because every organisation will have its own flavour—which would help with the “aesthetic” problem I mention above.
Great additions!
I hadn’t thought about the activist “uniform,” but it is often geared towards being striking rather than approachable. There’s also a danger of our identities as activists getting tied up in our apparel choices. I just started reading Change of Heart by Nick Cooney (one of the THL founders) and he tells a fitting story of an environmental campaigner speaking at a rally to an enthusiastic group of young campaigners:
The lack of investment in activating people makes sense. Maybe there’s some instances of incentives shifting as well. Once you have a nonprofit, a big part of your time becomes justifying the nonprofit’s existence, which will automatically syphon away attention from capacity building unless you intentionally redirect it.
Agree that activating people is an end in and of itself. With the loneliness epidemic going on, activating people and building community is a public service in its own right (even if it might not reach the EA bar on its own). And the nice thing to building capacity is that we can redirect a lot of that power to different causes, especially if we don’t tie our group identities too closely to any specific organization. I’d love to see different organizations playing up their different aesthetics while retaining collaborative ties—would really help with our recruiting surface area.