We started a study last fall to investigate whether the reported effects of leafleting to spread concern for animals and encourage vegetarianism or veganism would hold up when compared to a relevant control group. We’ll be publishing our findings on that question very soon. In the meantime, we’ve learned a lot of other things from this process. … Read more
Research
Do protests hurt animal activism?
An article on Salon reported that scientists have recently shown that everyone hates environmentalists and feminists, that they do so because stereotypical activists are abrasive extremists, and that this stereotyping has prevented environmentalists and feminists from achieving their goals. These conclusions are simultaneously obvious and shocking. The reader is presumably aware of negative stereotypes of environmentalists, feminists, and activists in general, but do activists really hamper their own causes as the article claims? If so, the implications would be disturbing. … Read more
Breaking Down the Leafleting Study
Effective Animal Activism’s [now Animal Charity Evaluators] current candidates for top interventions in reducing animal suffering all share a focus on public outreach to spread awareness and concern for the conditions and lives of farmed animals. We believe that there is a good chance that funding some form of this outreach is the most cost-effective way for individual donors to reduce suffering today — but these interventions have not been thoroughly studied, and so their effectiveness cannot yet be accurately estimated. EAA hopes to improve the situation with two studies launching this fall. This post is about one of those studies, the Leafleting Study. … Read more
Humane League Labs
One of our top two rated organizations, The Humane League, has recently introduced Humane League Labs, an initiative aimed at original research on veg*n advocacy effectiveness. We’re very excited to see The Humane League expand into this space. Although our current recommendation for them is solely due to their direct veg*n advocacy work, we feel that effectiveness research combined with direct advocacy is potentially more effective. … Read more
New Video Efficacy Comparison Study
VegFund, one of EAA’s [now Animal Charity Evaluators] standout charities, released today a summary of the findings of a new video efficacy study they conducted together with the Faunalytics, examining the effectiveness of four different videos used in Online Veg Ads, … Read more