Introduction
In September 2022, the Effective Animal Advocacy (EAA) Coordination Forum (now titled the Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum) was held with the purpose of bringing together key decision-makers in the animal advocacy community to connect, coordinate, and strategize. The attendees represented approximately 20 key groups in the effective animal advocacy space.
At the end of the forum, 25 participants filled out a survey that sought to better understand the future needs of effective animal advocacy groups and the perceptions of animal advocates about the most important areas to focus on in the future. This report analyzes the results of that survey.
Key Takeaways
On average, respondents to the EAA Survey believe that:
The largest share (29%) of effective animal advocacy resources should be spent in Asia and the Pacific, followed by Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (26%).
Farmed fish and farmed invertebrates received the highest allocations of resources among respondents (16.5% and 17.1%, respectively), shortly followed by egg-laying hens and broiler chickens (12.8% and 13.1%, respectively).
The plurality of resources should be spent targeting businesses (34%), followed by government institutions (28%).
There’s about a 60% chance that an area that should receive over 20% of the EAA funding currently receives less than 5% of it.
In addition, a plurality of respondents believes that:
EAA needs more people who are experts on the developing world/populous-yet-neglected countries (17/25 votes), government and policy (16/25), and/or figuring out what matters most and setting priorities (13/25).
Their EAA organization is sometimes (9/25 votes) or often (10/25) funding-constrained and it is sometimes hard (11/25) to find outstanding candidates for roles.
When asked about issues facing the effective animal advocacy movement:
The lack of a strong evidence base (11/25 votes) and ability to appeal to the people most able to contribute to EAA cause areas (10/25) were the most commonly cited problems for EAA.
Epistemic uncertainty regarding interventions (10/25 votes) and a lack of influence over the public, donors, and others with power (10/25) were generally cited as the most pressing problems in EAA.
Click here for the full version of this report on the Rethink Priorities website.
Acknowledgments
This report is a project of Rethink Priorities–a think tank dedicated to informing decisions made by high-impact organizations and funders across various cause areas. It was written by Laura Duffy. Thanks to William McAuliffe for helpful feedback and to Adam Papineau for copy-editing.
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Who did fill out the survey or which “key groups” are represented?
I’m somewhat surprised that “economics and social sciences (11 votes)” and “Forecasting ability (5 votes)” got so many votes, but “Generalist researchers (2 votes)” got so few. I consider economics, social sciences and (some) forecasting to be pretty standard parts of the roles of generalist researchers. But maybe they want more (specific) expertise than a generalist researcher would normally have?
Thanks for doing this analysis and sharing, and to the participants of the survey! This looks really useful!