Archived Version: December, 2014
| Status | Exploratory |
| Primary Work Area | Industrial Agriculture |
| Website | Movement for Compassionate Living |
| Review Published | December, 2014 |
| Type | Archived Review |
| Current Version | December, 2014 |
The Movement for Compassionate Living (MCL) is a small UK-based organization that promotes veganism and the extension of compassion to all sentient beings. Their main project is connecting a community through their magazine, New Leaves, produced three times per year. They also print and distribute other publications, including leaflets and booklets, and hold occasional meetings. They have administered grants to fund projects, and updates from those projects continue to appear in their newsletter, but MCL was not set up as a grant-giving organization and plans to transfer those functions to another organization which an MCL member has set up for this purpose.
The Movement for Compassionate Living (MCL) is a small UK-based organization that promotes veganism and the extension of compassion to all sentient beings. Their main project is connecting a community through their magazine, New Leaves, produced three times per year. They also print and distribute other publications, including leaflets and booklets, and hold occasional meetings. They have administered grants to fund projects, and updates from those projects continue to appear in their newsletter, but MCL was not set up as a grant-giving organization and plans to transfer those functions to another organization which an MCL member has set up for this purpose.
Impact Evaluation:
An Idealistic Vision
The Movement for Compassionate Living aims to produce a world where everyone has a healthy vegan diet, the environment has greater protection, animals are free from human use, and food is grown locally and at small scales, specifically through the increased use of trees. They promote small steps toward this world through discussion describing their vision and through grants to small-scale, vegan agricultural and community projects such as gardens and gift economy collectives. They also support members in conducting outreach by providing free literature about veganism and their philosophy for them to distribute at events and individually. We have concerns that partially because MCL’s goals are so sweeping, they may not have a practical vision of how their activities contribute to bringing about larger change.
A Supportive Community
Providing community and support to help people maintain vegan and compassionate lifestyles is important, given the high frequency of recidivism for vegetarians and vegans. Both the distributed community connected by MCL’s newsletter and annual meeting and the local communities they have supported through grants may play roles in reducing recidivism, though we don’t know how strong of roles. We’re not sure to what extent increased funding would increase the strength or reach of these communities, since MCL’s operating budget is low and MCL isn’t set up for receiving and using large donations.