Have animal advocacy organizations expressed interest in using SI’s findings to inform strategic decisions? To what extent will your choices of research questions be guided by the questions animal advocacy orgs say they’re interested in?
We’ve been in touch with most EAA orgs (ACE, OPP, ACE top/standout charities) and they have expressed interest. We haven’t done many hard pitches so far like, “The research suggests X. We think you should change your tactics to reflect that, by shifting from Y to Z, unless you have evidence we’re not aware of.” We hope to do that in the future, but we are being cautious and waiting until we have a little more credibility and track record. We have communicated our findings in softer ways to people who seem to appreciate the uncertainty, e.g. “Well, our impression of this social movement is that it’s evidence for Z tactics, but we haven’t written a public report on that yet and it might change by the time we finish the case study.”
I (Jacy) would guess that our research-communication impact will be concentrated in that small group of animal advocacy orgs who are relatively eager to change their minds based on research, and perhaps in an even smaller group (e.g. just OPP and ACE). Their interests do influence us to a large extent, not just because it’s where they’re more open to changing their minds, but because we see them as intellectual peers. There are some qualifications we account for, such as SI having a longer-term focus (in my personal opinion, not sure they’d agree) than OPP’s farmed animal program or ACE. I’d say that the interests of less-impact-focused orgs are only a small factor, since the likelihood of change and potential magnitude of change seem quite small.
Have animal advocacy organizations expressed interest in using SI’s findings to inform strategic decisions? To what extent will your choices of research questions be guided by the questions animal advocacy orgs say they’re interested in?
We’ve been in touch with most EAA orgs (ACE, OPP, ACE top/standout charities) and they have expressed interest. We haven’t done many hard pitches so far like, “The research suggests X. We think you should change your tactics to reflect that, by shifting from Y to Z, unless you have evidence we’re not aware of.” We hope to do that in the future, but we are being cautious and waiting until we have a little more credibility and track record. We have communicated our findings in softer ways to people who seem to appreciate the uncertainty, e.g. “Well, our impression of this social movement is that it’s evidence for Z tactics, but we haven’t written a public report on that yet and it might change by the time we finish the case study.”
I (Jacy) would guess that our research-communication impact will be concentrated in that small group of animal advocacy orgs who are relatively eager to change their minds based on research, and perhaps in an even smaller group (e.g. just OPP and ACE). Their interests do influence us to a large extent, not just because it’s where they’re more open to changing their minds, but because we see them as intellectual peers. There are some qualifications we account for, such as SI having a longer-term focus (in my personal opinion, not sure they’d agree) than OPP’s farmed animal program or ACE. I’d say that the interests of less-impact-focused orgs are only a small factor, since the likelihood of change and potential magnitude of change seem quite small.