The Save Movement

How The Save Movement Performs on our Criteria

Criterion 1: Does the charity engage in programs that seem likely to be highly impactful?

Before investigating the particular implementation of a charity’s programs, we consider their overall approach to animal advocacy in terms of the cause(s) they advance and the types of outcomes they achieve. In particular, we consider whether they’ve chosen to pursue approaches that seem likely to produce significant positive change for animals—both in the near and long term.

Cause Area

Save focuses primarily on farmed animal advocacy, which we believe is a high-impact cause area.

Types of Outcomes Achieved

To better understand the potential impact of a charity’s programs, we’ve developed a menu of outcomes that describes five avenues for change: influencing public opinion, capacity building, influencing industry, building alliances, and influencing policy and the law.

Save pursues two different avenues for creating change for animals: they work to influence public opinion and to build the capacity of the movement. Pursuing multiple avenues for change allows a charity to better learn about which areas are more effective so that they will be in a better position to allocate more resources where they may be most impactful. However, we don’t think that charities that pursue multiple avenues for change are necessarily more impactful than charities that focus on one.

To communicate the process by which we believe a charity creates change for animals, we use theory of change diagrams. It is important to note that these diagrams are not complete representations of real-world mechanisms of change. Rather, they are simplified models that ACE uses to represent our beliefs about mechanisms of change. For the sake of simplicity, some diagrams may not include relatively small and/or uncertain effects.

Influencing Public Opinion

Save works to influence individuals to adopt more animal-friendly attitudes and behaviors through vigils, media outreach, online outreach, and virtual reality, which we view as especially promising approaches.¹ While it is difficult to measure incremental changes in public opinion—and, consequently, difficult to know when an intervention is more or less successful—we still think it’s important for the animal advocacy movement to target some outreach toward individuals. This is because a shift in public attitudes and consumer preferences could help drive industry changes and lead to greater support for more animal-friendly policies. However, we find that efforts to influence public opinion seem much less neglected than other categories of interventions in the United States.² While we do not have direct evidence for the situation outside the U.S., we would expect it to be broadly similar to the U.S.

Save’s primary focus is holding vigils for animals on their way to slaughter. At these vigils, people gather to bear witness to the animals’ suffering. In addition to these vigils, which are often held weekly, many local Save groups occasionally hold special vigils that reportedly tend to receive more media attention.³ Many of the Save vigils in the U.S. and Europe also have celebrity participation⁴ which may gain the attention of a larger audience, although it’s unclear how this affects their impact. One way Save spreads awareness of their movement and engages the public is by sharing videos of vigils, open rescues, and other activities. Some footage of Save vigils has been used in documentaries,⁵ which a survey of current vegetarians, vegans, and meat reducers indicates are a common self-reported catalyst for avoiding animal products.

Since each local Save group operates autonomously, they sometimes engage in innovative interventions that arise out of unique interactions in their local setting. For example, a Save group in Portugal set up a helpline to aid slaughterhouse workers in finding alternative employment.⁶ Some local Save groups host vigils with virtual reality (VR) films of animals raised for food, and some groups use VR at universities, where they pay people to watch the films. This VR outreach is accomplished through a partnership with Animal Equality.⁷ We don’t have much direct evidence about the impact of these relatively unique interventions on public opinion but we think they show promise given that the number of local Save groups has doubled or tripled each year since 2015, the participation at vigils has been increasing,⁸ and Save has a strong social media following.

Save also engages with the public through leafleting, as well as billboard and subway ad campaigns. As with many interventions in animal advocacy, there is not sufficient evidence for us to confidently estimate the short-term impact of these activities. Of these three types of campaigns, we’ve reviewed the most research on leafleting and estimate that it may be less cost effective at creating short-term impact than some other interventions. While our 2017 investigation of leafleting failed to find compelling randomized controlled trial evidence for its short-term impact, leafleting—as well as billboard and subway ad campaigns—may still serve other, more long-term purposes such as general awareness raising, and contributing to gradual changes in perspective and habits.⁹ Additionally, leafleting may provide an easy way for some people to get involved in animal activism. One potential strength of some of Save’s leafleting is that it has been done in collaboration with other charities, including Viva! and Veganuary,¹⁰ and connecting across organizations may help to build the capacity of the movement.

Capacity Building

We see Save’s outreach on college campuses,¹¹ activist trainings, community organizing, and hosting conferences,¹² as especially effective forms of capacity building.¹³ Working to build the capacity of the animal advocacy movement can have far-reaching impact. While capacity-building projects may not always help animals directly, they can help animals indirectly by increasing the effectiveness of other projects and organizations. Our recent research on the way that resources are allocated between different animal advocacy interventions suggests that capacity building is currently relatively neglected compared to other outcomes, such as influencing public opinion and industry.

Save’s primary aim is not to create vegans, but to create activists in order to grow the animal advocacy movement.¹⁴ Increasing the number of activists builds the capacity of the movement by increasing the pool of people participating in and supporting its actions. While the extent to which Save activists participate in the animal advocacy movement outside of vigils is not clear to us, we have the impression that working with other advocacy groups is encouraged,¹⁵ and it may be facilitated by Save’s direct collaboration with a number of other animal advocacy organizations such as Viva!, Veganuary, Challenge 22, and Peta. Save also reports having heard from Anonymous for the Voiceless activists that the experience of attending Save vigils has benefited their activism.¹⁶ We think that growing the animal advocacy movement in currently neglected countries is especially promising—much of Save’s work aimed at creating activists takes place in currently neglected countries such as Brazil, India, China, and South Africa.¹⁷

Save works to found and support mostly independent activist groups that practice bearing witness and love-based community organizing,¹⁸ with the shared goal of ending animal exploitation.¹⁹ Save aims to follow the model of successful labor unions by sending activists out on organizing tours to help create and support new Save groups around the world.²⁰ Save supports the development of these local chapters and activists by creating guidebooks and organizational structures, providing financial support, and providing media training to organizers.²¹ As a measure of their growth, the number of Save groups has increased by factors of two and three—there were 50 groups at the beginning of 2016, 100 groups in 2017, and 300 groups at the beginning of 2018. By October of 2018, there were 535 groups in 57 countries. Meanwhile, attendance of the vigils has grown fourfold in Toronto and Los Angeles.²²

Building Alliances

Save’s outreach to key influencers provides an avenue for high-impact work, since it can involve convincing a few powerful people to make decisions that may influence the lives of millions of animals.²³ Unless these key influencers are significantly more difficult to reach, this seems more efficient than general individual outreach because a great deal more individuals would need to be reached to create an equivalent amount of change.

Save follows successful labor union tactics to build the capacity of the movement, and they also report modeling some of their strategy on successful tactics from the Civil Rights Movement.²⁴ In addition to learning from other movements, Save reports aiming to use an intersectional approach and working to build coalitions and collaborate with other organizations.^{25, 26} At present, they have primarily partnered with other animal advocacy organizations, but they are beginning to form alliances with other social movements such as women’s rights and environmental protection.²⁷ Alliances with such movements have the potential to help promote a more inclusive and diverse animal advocacy movement. Creating a more inclusive movement seems important at this time, as research has shown that individuals from minority groups may feel ostracized from campaigns due to messaging and the perpetuation of normative conceptions of veganism and vegan individuals.^{28, 29, 30} While we’re not aware of much evidence of the direct impact of alliances between veganism and other social justice movements, additional benefits may include: reaching novel audiences, sharing strategies, and addressing human and non-human systems of oppression.³¹

Over time, some Save groups have successfully developed positive relationships with slaughterhouse workers. For example, after repeated vigils at one slaughterhouse in Toronto, the plant manager agreed to have the trucks stop for five minutes at the weekly vigils.³² These relationships with slaughterhouse workers have occasionally led to animals being rescued on their way to slaughter.³³ Save also reports having engaged in conversations with the Toronto slaughterhouse’s parent company, Maple Leaf Foods, before the company invested heavily in plant-based meat in the U.S.³⁴ We think that building positive relationships with the meat industry can contribute to shifting investment away from animal agriculture and towards plant-based foods, which we view as a promising avenue for impact. While we are unaware of other instances in which Save has engaged in this type of work, their frequent interactions with slaughterhouses around the world and planned investments in infrastructure within the organization will plausibly provide good opportunities for more potentially impactful interactions in the future.

Long-Term Impact

Though there is significant uncertainty regarding the impact of interventions in the long term, each charity’s long-term impact is plausibly what matters most.³⁵ The potential number of individuals affected by a charity increases over time due to both human and animal population growth, as well as an accumulation of generations of animals. The power of animal charities to effect change could be greater in the future if we consider their potential growth as well as potential long-term value shifts—for example, present actions leading to growth in the movement’s resources, to a more receptive public, or to different economic conditions could all potentially lead to a greater magnitude of impact over time than anything that could be accomplished at present.

Predictions about the long-term impact of any intervention are always extremely uncertain, because the effects of an intervention vary with context and are interdependent with concurrent interventions—with neither of these interactions being constant over time.³⁶ When estimating the long-term impact of a charity’s actions, we consider the context in which they occur and how they fit into the overall movement. Barring any strong evidence to the contrary, we think the long-term impact of most animal advocacy interventions will be net positive. Still, the comparative effects of one intervention versus another are not well understood.³⁷ Because of the difficulties in forecasting long-term impact, we do not put significant weight on our predictions.

Save’s approach to helping animals sets it apart from many of our other comprehensively reviewed charities this year. They are focused almost entirely on capacity building and influencing public opinion—on creating activists and moving people towards veganism.³⁸ In contrast, many of our other charities invest heavily in working towards various forms of institutional change. It seems likely that in the long term, it is most effective overall to have a variety of mutually reinforcing approaches among collaborative groups rather than competitive animal charities. As an example of the potential impact of engaging the animal agriculture industry from multiple perspectives, Maple Leaf, the largest meat producer in Canada, shifted some of its investment away from animal agriculture through its acquisition of three plant-based food companies,³⁹ after Save developed a relationship with them and engaged in conversations on the topic.^{40, 41}

The idea that it is everyone’s moral duty to bear witness to the suffering of animals⁴² through a love-based, community-organizing framework is fundamental to Save’s approach.⁴³ Most Save groups are focused on advocating for farmed animals, but some groups focus on other animals such as rabbits used in labs, and animals used for fur.⁴⁴ We wouldn’t likely recommend a charity whose main focus was reducing the suffering of animals used for fur or in labs, since we believe that focusing on farmed animals is likely to have a greater impact than focusing exclusively on other types of animal exploitation. While some Save groups advocate for animals used for fur and for research, Save as a whole focuses the majority of its resources on farmed animals.⁴⁵

Criterion 2: Does the charity have room for more funding and concrete plans for growth?

In order to recommend a charity, we need to assess the extent to which they will be able to absorb and effectively utilize funding that the recommendation may bring in. Specifically, we need to consider whether there may be non-monetary “bottlenecks,” or barriers to the charity’s growth. First, we look at the charity’s recent financial history to see how they have dealt with growth over time and how effectively they have been able to utilize past increases in funding. Next, we evaluate the charity’s room for more funding by considering existing programs that need additional funding in order to fulfill their purpose, as well as potential new programs and areas for growth. It is important to determine whether any barriers limiting progress in these areas are solely monetary, or whether there are other inhibiting factors—such as time or talent shortages. Since we can’t predict exactly how any organization will respond upon receiving more funds than they have planned for, our estimate is speculative, not definitive. It’s possible that a charity could run out of room for more funding sooner than we expect, or come up with good ways to use funding beyond what we have suggested. Our estimates are intended to indicate the point at which we would want to check in with a charity to ensure that they have used the funds they have received effectively and are still able to absorb additional funding.

Recent Financial History

The Save Movement was founded in 2010 as the Toronto Pig Save. Between 2015 and 2017, Save experienced increases in funding following Anita Krajnc’s “Pig Trial” which garnered significant public discourse. Consequently, they opened a new bank account in 2017 for The Save Movement separate from the Toronto Pig Save chapter.⁴⁶ Save is currently funded primarily through an individual donor, but they also raise money through fundraising events, merchandise sales, and campaign-specific fundraising.⁴⁷ Save is currently working towards diversifying their funding sources.

The chart below shows Save’s recent revenues and expenditures.⁴⁸

Planned Future Expenses

Save is planning to continue to expand—they aim to found new chapters by organizing tours, creating videos geared towards new group growth, and increasing support to existing groups with new tools, guides, trainings, and regional liaisons.⁴⁹ They also plan to launch a corporate campaign to convince restaurant chains to offer more vegan options.⁵⁰

Assessing Funding Priority of Future Expenses

A charity may have room for more funding in many areas, and each area will likely vary in its potential cost effectiveness. In addition to evaluating a charity’s planned future expenses, we consider the potential impact and relative cost effectiveness of filling different funding gaps. This helps us evaluate whether the marginal cost effectiveness of donating to a charity would differ from the charity’s average cost effectiveness from the past year. We break down the total room for more funding into three priority levels, as follows:

High Priority Funding Gaps

Our highest priority is funding activities or programs that we think are likely to create longer-term impact in a cost-effective way, as well as programs which we have relatively strong reasons to believe will have a highly positive short- or medium-term direct impact in a cost-effective way.⁵¹

As described in Criterion 1, Save has a number of programs that we consider promising, including building the animal advocacy movement in neglected countries through organizing drives, investigations, media outreach, and VR. Of these programs, we estimate they could effectively use the largest increases in funding for organizing drives in neglected countries.⁵² In terms of new programming, they are planning to launch a campaign to persuade restaurants to put more vegan options on their menus, which we think is a relatively promising tactic,⁵³ although we have the impression that this will not be one of their main programs. Save expressed plans to devote resources to developing its organizational structure and infrastructure⁵⁴ through projects such as a communications working group,⁵⁵ an organization-wide data collection working group,⁵⁶ a national and regional liaison program to support their groups around the world,⁵⁷) and a fundraising training program for all Save groups.⁵⁸ Of these planned programs we estimate they have the most room for funding for development of their fundraising program.⁵⁹ We estimate that Save has a high priority funding gap of $1.6–$3.6 million for 2019.^{60, 61, 62}

Moderate Priority Funding Gaps

It is of moderate priority for us to fund programs which we believe to be of relatively moderate marginal cost effectiveness.

We estimate that for their subway and billboard ad campaigns, along with potential increases in fellowships for graphics team members to support advertising and video, Save has a moderate priority funding gap of $60,000–$310,000 for 2019.⁶³

Low Priority Funding Gaps

It is of low priority for us to fund programs which we believe to be of relatively lower marginal cost effectiveness, or to replenish cash reserves. Because it is likely that there may be future expenditures we haven’t thought of, we also include in this category an estimate of possible additional expenditures (based on a percentage of the charity’s current yearly budget).

Using a range estimate of 1%–20% of their projected 2018 expenses to account for possible additional expenditures, we estimate that Save has a low priority funding gap of $10,000–$380,000 for 2019.⁶⁴

The chart below shows the distribution of Save’s gaps in funding among the three priorities:⁶⁵

Save has grown rapidly over the last few years and has plans to continue to grow. Between their plans for organizational and infrastructure projects, expanded organizing drives, and branching out to corporate outreach, they have significant room for more funding. We estimate that next year they have a total funding gap of approximately $380,000–$2.7 million,⁶⁶ and that they could effectively put to use a total revenue of $3.4–$5.5 million.⁶⁷

Criterion 3: Does the charity operate cost-effectively, according to our best estimates?

We think quantitative cost-effectiveness estimates are often useful factors in charity evaluations, but we are concerned that assigning specific figures can be misleading and can make these estimates appear to carry more weight in our evaluation than we intend. For Save in particular, we believe that our best estimate of their cost effectiveness is too speculative to feature in our review or to include as a significant factor in our evaluation of their effectiveness. For instance, in thinking about their impact we considered estimating the amount of activists they have created and the subsequent impact those activists would have. Our estimates for these factors were very speculative; we considered other unknowns as well, and we omitted many possible scenarios for simplicity.

Additionally, Save is focused on helping animals in the medium and long term, and we have not published estimates of the medium-term or long-term impacts of any other charities—so we worry that including this in a cost-effectiveness calculation would be unfair to those other organizations.⁶⁸ Our lack of a cost-effectiveness estimate for Save does not necessarily indicate that they have lower overall cost effectiveness than the charities for which we have completed a cost-effectiveness estimate.

In the future, we hope to have better ways of evaluating medium- and long-term impacts, which could lead to publishing a cost-effectiveness estimate for Save. We think cost-effectiveness calculations will still be the most useful as one small component of our overall understanding of charities’ effectiveness.

Criterion 4: Does the charity possess a strong track record of success?

To evaluate a charity’s track record, we consider how well the charity has executed previous programs. We also consider the extent to which these previous programs caused positive changes for animals. Information about a charity’s track record helps us predict the charity’s future activities and accomplishments—information that cannot always be incorporated into the criteria above. An organization’s track record can be a pivotal factor when our analysis otherwise finds limited differences in other important factors.

Have programs been well executed?

Save is a relatively young organization with a long-term goal of establishing animal rights. They were founded in 2010 with the emergence of the Toronto Pig Save chapter but only saw significant growth starting in 2015 following the Anita Krajnc “Pig Trial.” In their short history, they have had some notable achievements such as significant media coverage, rapid growth in the number of vigils, and fast international expansion.⁶⁹ Save is currently going through a process of professionalization in light of their young age and rapid growth.⁷⁰ Their track record is much shorter than the track records of more established groups.

Save has achieved notable social and news media coverage by sharing videos of vigils, open rescues, and other activities. They report that these videos have had over 21 million views in the past year on some of their main Facebook pages.⁷¹ As for growing the movement, the number of Save groups has grown from 50 at the start of 2016, to 100 in 2017, to 300 at the beginning of 2018, and 535 by October 2018. The vigils vary both in size and in frequency. We are unsure of the average number of vigils that each group organizes, but Save reports that one of their more established groups in L.A. runs about three vigils per week.⁷² They’ve expanded rapidly internationally, spanning over 57 countries in 2018.⁷³ They’ve also started to include groups that focus on a number of species other than pigs and cows, such as fishes, ducks, turkeys, and other animals raised for fur.⁷⁴

While the relatively recent expansion into many countries and to new species is a sign of significant potential, there is also some reason for concern. These new activities have a limited track record so we are unsure about their effectiveness. For instance, it is unclear to us how well Save will be able to transfer their relatively well executed pig and cow vigils in Northern America to fish vigils or to their new activities in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia.⁷⁵

Have programs led to change for animals?

Save’s theory of change is based on achieving medium- and long-term impact, so many of Save’s accomplishments have not yet led to change for animals. For example, the conferences that they’ve hosted and the outreach they’ve done on college campuses may only indirectly lead to change. Despite the inherent challenges with measuring this kind of impact, we think that capacity building is essential to creating a better world for animals.

One of Save’s strengths is that they are very good at getting media coverage of their activities.⁷⁶ According to this study conducted by Faunalytics, Save’s social media coverage may play a role in retaining ethical vegans and activists while encouraging meat eaters to take steps toward reducing animal product consumption. There is also other weak evidence that media coverage of the treatment of farmed animals is negatively correlated with meat consumption in the United States;⁷⁷ if such a correlation exists, it is possible that footage of farmed animals nudges people towards reducing their meat consumption. If the correlation between media coverage and meat reduction also exists in other countries—and we expect it does—then media coverage of Save’s events may help animals on a large scale by reducing demand for meat and other animal products.

We believe that activities designed to raise awareness of the plight of farmed animals and to build a strong animal advocacy movement could be highly effective. Whether this is the case for Save’s activities probably depends on factors such as: (i) wether their tactics reliably create new activists and substantially decrease recidivism, (ii) the extent to which there is sympathetic public opinion in a given country, and (iii) how much attention their vigils get from outside the animal advocacy community. At this point we don’t feel that we have a good sense of how well Save’s activities will perform on these factors.

We believe that protesting on behalf of farmed animals can have a strong impact. While there is some evidence to support the effectiveness of protests in other movements, we are uncertain about the generalizability of its impact for the animal advocacy movement.⁷⁸ In our 2018 intervention report on protests, we concluded that we would like to see the animal advocacy movement invest more heavily in protests—including vigils—primarily because protests currently only receive a very small portion of the movement’s resources even though they are plausibly at least as cost-effective as interventions that receive much more. We think that protests also contribute to the diversity of the movement’s tactics, which might help attract a greater number of activists to the cause.

Overall, Save’s focus on creating activists and building the capacity of the movement makes the impact of some of their programs difficult to measure. However, we believe that capacity building in the animal advocacy movement is a crucial part of building a better world for animals, and we do not want to penalize groups doing this work for the inherent difficulties of measuring its success. Ultimately, increasing the number of animal advocates could help to strengthen and support all other forms of advocacy.

Criterion 5: Does the charity identify areas of success and failure and respond appropriately?

A charity that has systems in place for assessing their programs is better equipped to move towards their goals effectively. By conducting self-assessments, a charity can retain and strengthen successful programs, and modify or end those that are less successful. When such systems of improvement work well, many stakeholders benefit: benefactors are inclined to be more trusting and more generous, leadership is able to refine their strategy for achieving their goals, and nonhuman animals benefit more.

To evaluate how well the charity adapts to successes and failures, we consider: (i) how the charity has assessed its past programs and (ii) the extent to which the charity updates their programs in light of those assessments.

Does the charity actively assess areas of success and failure?

We think that Save, though fairly young, is quite capable of assessing areas of success and failure in their work. They measure the progress of their work simply by tracking the number of existing Save groups.⁷⁹ They find that this basic measure helps them to gauge how quickly and considerably the Save movement is growing—for instance, the number of groups reportedly tripled from 2016 to 2017.⁸⁰ They also report collecting data on the number of people attending vigils. Their primary means of measurement is their activity report, which they request all Save groups fill out once a year. The report includes metrics such as the frequency of vigils, attendance at vigils, number of organizers, regularity of open meetings, and social media presence and following.⁸¹ They have recently updated the activity report to improve data collection and emphasize fundraising, and they reportedly sent out the updated activity report to all of their groups over the summer of 2018.⁸² In their updated version of the report, they also ask groups to share links to any mass media coverage they have had, so that they can track the specific content and numbers of all their media coverage.⁸³

One tool Save uses for data collection is their “Save Movement Worldwide Organizers” Facebook page; it is a private online group that includes over 1,000 Save organizers around the world.⁸⁴ For Save, this is an important means of communication, and they use it to send out the activity report to all of their groups. From an organizational perspective, Save has found that the Facebook groups are helpful for monitoring the growth and success of the actions they are taking.⁸⁵

Save tells us that one main difficulty with using their activity report as a method of data collection is that not every group fills it out.⁸⁶ In fact, they report recently launching a data collection working group which could help address this difficulty.⁸⁷ We think that Save’s process of data collection should be continuously refined. For example, to encourage better survey responsiveness, they could shorten their activity report to hone in on exactly the kind of information they need to measure their progress. Since one of their ultimate goals is to have vigils at every slaughterhouse,⁸⁸ they plan to set up another working group that will be tasked with creating a world slaughterhouse map, which would be a way of visualizing their progress toward that ultimate goal. The plan is to chart the locations of slaughterhouses around the world and mark the ones where they currently hold vigils.⁸⁹ The latter seems like a highly specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant goal, though it is not time-bound. One step towards their goal was creating a map of existing Save groups. In general, we think that Save could benefit from setting more short-term goals that are SMART, and in particular, achievable and time-bound.⁹⁰

Does the charity respond appropriately to areas of success and failure?

Save appears to be adaptive and responsive to their own observations. For example, when they first started out, they often sent organizers to recruit at VegFest events in various cities across North America. Later, they found that it was more cost-effective to send groups of Save organizers on “organizing tours,” or international trips to promote Save’s mission in neglected areas.⁹¹ They added that they are currently refining the latter and will continue to improve on that model.

Save seems to be responding appropriately to the challenges of recruiting people to attend their vigils, specifically by choosing to collaborate with groups that can help them further their mission of bearing witness. For example, they worked with Animal Equality to implement a virtual reality (VR) outreach program for college campuses, which shows that they are open to experimenting with new interventions.

Criterion 6: Does the charity have strong leadership and a well-developed strategic vision?

A charity is most likely to be effective if it has a well-developed strategic vision and strong leadership who can implement that vision. Given ACE’s commitment to finding the most effective ways to help nonhuman animals, we generally look for charities whose direction and strategic vision are aligned with that goal. A well-developed strategic vision must be realistic to manage and execute. It is likely the result of well-run, formal strategic planning; when a charity’s leaders regularly engage in a reflective strategic planning process, revisions and improvements to the charity’s strategic vision are likely to follow.

Does the charity have strong leadership and a well-composed board?

The Save Movement’s most prominent leadership figure is Co-Founder and Campaigns and Fundraising Coordinator Anita Krajnc. Krajnc is a dedicated and respected animal advocate⁹² who has a PhD in Political Studies, is a student of social movement strategies and tactics, and is a Tolstoy scholar.⁹³ She is known particularly for facing a criminal mischief charge for offering water to a pig in transport, a case which was eventually dismissed. Many Save members described her to us as “hard working” and readily available to anyone who wishes to speak with her.

The Save Movement’s leadership structure is slightly different from the leadership structures of most of the organizations we evaluate. Unlike most animal charities, The Save Movement is a collection of local groups, and each group has its own leadership. Some regional Save Directors work together with regional liaisons to act as leadership for the whole movement. In addition to Krajnc, these Directors include: Robin Bryce and Lori Croonen of The Save Movement Canada, Bogar Felix and Ian Purdy of Toronto Pig Save, and Alex Lockwood of The Save Movement U.K.

The Save Movement does not have an independent Board of Directors. In general, we recommend that charities have a board of at least five individuals⁹⁴ of diverse occupational backgrounds who are independent from the charity’s staff. We believe that Save’s more democratic approach may allow each local group to have more independence, which could make sense given their geographical spread. Still, some Save members have reported to us that they think Save could run more efficiently with stronger, more centralized leadership. Save has recently been working on professionalization and developing their strategy, so we suggest that they create a board as a part of that process.

Does the charity have a well-developed strategic vision?

Does the charity regularly engage in a strategic planning process?

The Save Movement has recently developed their first formal strategic plan. They are working to standardize their programs across their many regional groups.⁹⁵ For instance, they are standardizing their grants program as a way to fairly distribute funding to each Save group⁹⁶ and they are standardizing their application process for organizing tours.⁹⁷ We feel that creating more homogeneous programs for each local group is a good way to ensure that each group’s activities support the vision of the movement.

Does the charity have a realistic strategic vision that emphasizes effectively reducing suffering?

The Save Movement’s primary goal is to place a group of activists outside of every slaughterhouse, and to “create a mass-based, grassroots movement for animal justice.”⁹⁸ In the short term, we don’t expect them to pursue activities that substantially reduce suffering, as that is not the focus of their strategy. In the long term, however, we think that movement building might be a critical step towards achieving systemic and lasting change for animals.

Does the charity’s strategy support the growth of the animal advocacy movement as a whole?

The Save Movement is quite clear that their priority is to recruit activists in order to build the capacity of the animal advocacy movement. They are less focused, for example, on influencing individuals to reduce their meat consumption.⁹⁹ One reason for their focus on movement building is that they feel it is relatively neglected. Many other groups focus on individual dietary change, but fewer groups are focused on creating activists.¹⁰⁰ We agree that movement building (along with other interventions that increase the capacity of the animal advocacy movement) is generally underfunded, so we feel that organizations like The Save Movement could be quite valuable to the movement as a whole.

Criterion 7: Does the charity have a healthy culture and a sustainable structure?

Effective charities are generally well-managed on an operational level; they should have healthy cultures and sustainable structures. We collect information about each charity’s internal operations in several ways. We ask leadership about their human resources policies and their perceptions of staff morale. We also speak confidentially with non-leadership staff or volunteers at each charity to solicit their perspectives on the charity’s management and culture.¹⁰¹ Finally, we send each charity a culture survey and request that they distribute it among their team on our behalf.^{102, 103}

Does the charity have a healthy culture?

A charity with a healthy culture acts responsibly towards all stakeholders: staff, volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, and others in the community. One important part of acting responsibly towards stakeholders is protecting employees from instances of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Charities that have a healthy attitude towards diversity and inclusion seek and retain staff and volunteers from different backgrounds, since varied points of view improve a charity’s ability to respond to new situations.¹⁰⁴ A healthy charity is transparent with donors and the general public and acts with integrity; in other words, their professed values align with their actions.

It’s difficult to draw an overall impression of The Save Movement’s culture, since they are a large network of local groups and each local group likely has its own culture. As a whole, however, we believe that The Save Movement empowers its individual members to promote innovative animal advocacy strategies. Its members seem uniformly passionate about the value of bearing witness to animal suffering.

One potential weakness of The Save Movement is that its most prominent leaders have a limited capacity to support each group. We believe The Save Movement might benefit from helping a larger number of its members develop into leadership positions.¹⁰⁵ We also believe that The Save Movement could improve its internal communication systems, which might help its core leadership provide greater support to local teams.

Does the charity communicate transparently and act with integrity?

Save reports that they are in the process of having their financial information audited and that they will have it published soon.¹⁰⁶ We feel that making more of their financial information publicly available will help promote transparency. Some members of The Save Movement’s team reported to us that they don’t know very much about the organization’s finances, though many of them felt that they could find the information if they asked.

In local Save groups, members approach regional organizers with questions or concerns. Regional organizers handle problems themselves when possible and inform the international organizers of any major problems. We’ve received mixed reports about how larger problems have been handled in the past. In general, however, Save members agree that the organization promotes a culture of acknowledging and learning from mistakes.

Internally, we think The Save Movement may benefit from more regular and streamlined communication. Respondents to our survey indicated that, in addition to holding meetings every two weeks, the organization communicates via email, phone calls, public and private Facebook groups, and social media messages. According to some reports, not everyone in the organization checks all methods of communication, so some members may be missing messages. Save may benefit from restricting its internal communication to one or two more versatile communication platforms, such as Slack.

Does the charity provide staff and volunteers with sufficient benefits and opportunities for development?

Respondents to our culture survey generally reported to us that their pay is lower than it could be at other organizations. However, many of them told us they’re happy to work for The Save Movement because they support its mission. Some members noted that The Save Movement’s pay structure is relatively flat; that is, its team members tend to make the same amount of money regardless of the extent of their responsibilities. We have the impression that, for some members, Save’s flat pay structure is not as incentivizing as a more hierarchical structure would be, though it may also have some benefits.

The Save Movement does not offer many benefits, but they provide time off and travel reimbursement on an as-needed basis. Generally, members seem to feel that they know who to approach if they need further support, and that they are likely to receive it.

Does the charity have a healthy attitude towards diversity and inclusion?

As a large and globally distributed network of local groups, The Save Movement is more diverse than most animal charities we evaluate. When hiring, Save explicitly encourages applications from non-white and non-male groups and takes measures to ensure a fair review process for applications.¹⁰⁷

Save members who responded to our survey generally reported no issues with regard to diversity or inclusion, though some mentioned that Save could benefit from making a more explicit statement in support of these values. We would support such a statement, and we also feel that The Save Movement would be wise to offer formal trainings on diversity and inclusion for all members.

Does the charity work to protect employees from harassment and discrimination in the workplace?

We are not aware of any instances of harassment or discrimination in The Save Movement, though we recognize that there are numerous reasons why we might not be privy to such information if it does exist. We are therefore cautious not to take this lack of information as evidence that Save is free of any issues with harassment or discrimination.

While Save’s leadership tells us that they have zero tolerance for harassment and discrimination, Save does not have a formal, written policy on these issues. Their Code of Conduct does not currently address harassment or discrimination, but it is currently under review by a committee of Save members who are looking to add relevant new policies.¹⁰⁸ Staff tell us that harassment and discrimination are frequent topics of discussion, though Save does not offer any formal trainings on them. Since Save is so geographically distributed, we suspect it may be difficult for Save’s central leadership to protect members of all local groups from harassment or discrimination. We therefore believe it’s especially important for Save to have formal, written policies that all local groups must adopt, as well as mandatory harassment trainings, particularly for the leaders of each local group.

Does the charity have a sustainable structure?

An effective charity should be stable under ordinary conditions and should seem likely to survive any transitions in which current leadership might move on to other projects. The charity should seem unlikely to split into factions and should seem able to continue raising the funds needed for its basic operations. Ideally, they should receive significant funding from multiple distinct sources, including both individual donations and other types of support.

Does the charity receive support from multiple and varied funding sources?

Save is currently funded primarily through individual donors, fundraising events,¹⁰⁹ and campaign specific fundraising, typically through a site such as Indiegogo.¹¹⁰ Save is currently working towards diversifying their funding sources.¹¹¹ In general, organizations with multiple and varied funding sources are more sustainable. We don’t think Save should necessarily shift away from fundraising primarily through individual donors, though they might want to increase their fundraising activity in general.

Does the charity seem likely to survive potential changes in leadership?

Save is comprised of many local groups, each of which has its own leadership and is in a different stage of its development. Many local groups are quite established, and we feel that they could likely sustain changes in leadership if necessary. Some groups are newer and might struggle with leadership changes at this time. Because Save is so geographically distributed, we believe that the organization as a whole would be fairly resilient to change.

;Total Revenue;Total Expenses;
2016;$655,161;$524,705;
2017;$1,229,754;$1,229,754;
2018 (estimated);$1,578,798;$1,578,798;
2019 (estimated);$3,000,000;$2,849,000;

,Lower estimate,Upper estimate
High Priority,1600000,2000000
Moderate Priority,60000,250000
Low Priority,10000,370000

---

1. In order to best estimate which programs are more or less effective, we collected independent staff judgments of the relative efficacy of every commonly-used intervention and reached a consensus with the following process. Seven research team members rated each type of intervention using a scale from -1 (“relatively ineffective”) to 1 (“relatively effective”), with 0 meaning “not enough information to decide.” The mean score for each intervention was then rounded to the nearest integer to yield a score with which all Researchers were satisfied. As a check, we also calculated the median score and came out with the same results. 

2. For more information, see our recent research on Allocation of Movement Resources. 

3. Some of the other types of vigils include five-day vigils, all-day vigils, barn fire vigils, and truck rollover vigils. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018). 

4. “Mainstream celebs who have joined the vigil [in Los Angeles] include Moby, Kat Von D, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Mena Suvari, Tony Kanal, Craig Robinson, Damien Mander, Toby Morse, and Nimai Delgado.” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

5. “[A] number of filmmakers have shot footage at our vigils including The End of Meat (2017), The Age of Beasts (2017), Truckin’: The Story of Eddie Traffic (2015), and The Ghosts in our Machine (2013).” —Follow-up Questions for The Save Movement, Part Two (2018). 

6. “Yolanda Santos is a Save organizer for Portugal and Lisbon Animal Save. She is meeting with a political party to work on a slaughterhouse worker alternative employment project, so they can have support in finding a different job.” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

7. “We partnered with [Animal Equality] to invest about $60,000 in creating a VR program and ordering VR headsets. We distributed them to Save groups around the world and brought them to university and college campuses, where we would pay people a few dollars or give them a coffee voucher to watch the entire video.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

8. “Since 2016, the number of Save groups has grown exponentially. At the beginning of 2016, we only had about 50 groups. By the end of that same year, we had about 100. Last year, the number increased again, to about 300 at the start of 2018. As of October 2018, we have 535 Save groups in 57 countries.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

9. Most people go vegan or vegetarian over a long period of time (Jabs, Devine, and Sobal, 1998; Beardsworth & Keil 1992; Pfeiler and Egloff 2018; Mullee et al, 2017), with an abrupt “conversion experience” (Beardsworth & Keil 1992) being a much less common trigger. The adoption of a politicized dietary identity (such as vegetarianism/veganism) has been found to most commonly occur through a series of encounters (Chuck, Fernandes, and Hyers, 2016). Thus, when receiving a leaflet, such experiences may contribute to a gradual shift in perspective. NGOs serve as a primary site of awareness-raising, which is key in achieving widespread societal and political change, particularly in the current climate. Researchers into political change have repeatedly argued that awareness raising is key to changing policy (e.g. Bailey et al., 2014). Awareness of reduction motivations does appear to be increasing (Siegrist, Visschers and Hartmann, 2015) and awareness may be linked to increased reduction (Lee and Simpson, 2016). Leafleting may play a role in this. 

10. For more information, see our Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

11. “We distributed them to Save groups around the world and brought them to university and college campuses, where we would pay people a few dollars or give them a coffee voucher to watch the entire video.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

12. “In May 2018, Save joined DxE in helping to organize the Animal Liberation Conference.” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

13. In order to best estimate which programs are more or less effective, we collected independent staff judgments of the relative efficacy of every commonly-used intervention and reached a consensus with the following process. Seven research team members rated each type of intervention using a scale from -1 (“relatively ineffective”) to 1 (“relatively effective”), with 0 meaning “not enough information to decide.” The mean score for each intervention was then rounded to the nearest integer to yield a score with which all Researchers were satisfied. As a check, we also calculated the median score and came out with the same results. 

14. “We aim to recruit people to become activists. From day one, creating activists has been more important than creating vegans.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

15. According to a 2018 private communication with The Save Movement, the activity report asks groups to report their successes—two examples of successes include “collaborations with other animal rights groups” and “solidarity with other social movements.” There is also a separate section on partnerships that specifically asks them to “list examples of joint participation with animal rights groups and other social movements.” 

16. “People at Anonymous for the Voiceless often say that having attended a vigil with us makes it easier to talk to people on the street because they have concrete personal experiences of animal victims to share.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

17. For more information on the locations of Save chapters around the world, see The Save Movement’s map. 

18. “We use a love-based community-organizing approach based on non violence, love and truth as informed by Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi.” —The Save Movement’s Memorandum of Understanding 

19. “The Code of Conduct and Memorandum of Understanding lists the common set of principles we adhere to—including the strategies of bearing witness and love-based community organizing, the principles of animal rights, and support for social justice and equality. Nonviolent anarchic: no one leadership center; decentralized; political and economic democracy (similar to Alcoholics Anonymous)” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

20. “Historical research suggests that the most successful unions, like the Service Employees International Union, invested about 25% in organizing drives.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

21. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018). 

22. For more information, see our Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

23. In order to best estimate which programs are more or less effective, we collected independent staff judgments of the relative efficacy of every commonly-used intervention and reached a consensus with the following process. Seven research team members rated each type of intervention using a scale from -1 (“relatively ineffective”) to 1 (“relatively effective”), with 0 meaning “not enough information to decide.” The mean score for each intervention was then rounded to the nearest integer to yield a score with which all Researchers were satisfied. As a check, we also calculated the median score and came out with the same results. 

24. “A second approach is to build an organization of organizations or coalition—for example the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) set up in the 1950s in the Civil Rights Movement.” —Follow-Up Questions for The Save Movement, Part One (2018) 

25. “Because of our community-organizing approach, we work with organizations across the fields of animal rights, animal welfare, student, environment, women’s rights, LGBT2Q+ rights, and workers’ rights, and many of these organizations do not have a vegan focus. Consequently, we try to use a positive intersectional approach.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

26. Forming alliances with other social justice groups is one of Save’s ten core values and they have a goal of creating local movement Save centers/hubs that would include environmental, student, labour, women’s, and religious groups. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Strategy (2018–2023). 

27. “We have had many successes partnering with other animal rights and animal welfare groups, from the Canadian Coalition for Farmed Animals, PETA, Veganuary, FARM, In Defense of Animals, DxE and other groups. We have only begun to form alliances with other social movements. For example, North Carolina Farmed Animal Save developed an anti-CAFO campaign with women’s groups and River Keepers, an environmental group.” —Follow-Up Questions for The Save Movement, Part One (2018) 

28. In Singer’s “Neoliberal Backgrounding, the Meatless Monday Campaign, and the Rhetorical Intersections of Food, Nature, and Cultural Identity” (2016), he describes campaigns using stereotypical masculine notions to appeal to men. Associations with such campaigns and messaging may contribute to feelings that reduction is only for privileged individuals or that certain communities would not be welcome within the movement. 

29. See, for example:

    • Broad, G.M. (2013). Vegans for Vick: Dogfighting, Intersectional Politics, and the Limits of Mainstream Discourse. International Journal of Communication, 7, 780–800.
    • Harper, B.A. ed. (2010). Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society. Herndon, VA: Lantern Books.
    • Ko, A. and Ko, S. (2017). Aphro-Ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters. New York, NY: Lantern Books.
    • Wrenn, C. (2016). Fat vegan politics: A survey of fat vegan activists’ online experiences with social movement sizeism. Fat Studies, 6, 90–102.

     

30. In addition, as human and non-human animal oppression are interlinked, forming coalitions can help address areas of intersection and increase overall effectiveness. 

31. For more information on this topic, see the ACE blog post titled “How can we integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into the animal advocacy movement?“ 

32. “Because we were there every week with a relentless, love-based approach, relations have improved at a number of locations, and we have agreements at many locations now. The Maple Leaf Poultry plant manager in Toronto, for example, agreed to have each truck stop for five minutes at weekly vigils in Toronto.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

33. This information can be found in The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018). 

34. “We have even engaged with Maple Leaf in bigger picture conversations about the necessity of investing in plant-based alternatives, and interestingly, Maple Leaf now has the biggest market share of plant-based meat in the U.S. This is not to say that this is because of our own interactions with Maple Leaf—but we do recognize the importance of engaging in respectful, truthful, and honest dialogue with the representatives of the companies and slaughterhouses where we hold our vigils.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

35. See the 80,000 Hours article “Presenting the Long-Term Value Thesis” for a more detailed discussion of why long-term impact is plausibly what matters most. 

36. “When outcomes of interventions are interdependent, the effectiveness of each is inextricably linked with those of the others. Justifying one as being more effective than another is not quite straightforward—declaring so is often misleading.” —Sethu, H. (2018) How ranking of advocacy strategies can mislead. Humane League Labs. 

37. See our report on leafleting for a more detailed consideration of the potential long-term impact of a particular intervention. 

38. “We stick to a clear vegan message. The Save Movement advocates not just for the welfare of farmed animals, but for their complete liberation. We are protesting not only the number of hours that these animals spend in transport trucks or the conditions that they experience while in the trucks, but the very fact that these animals are there in the first place. […] That said, we are open to collaboration with organizations that work on animal welfare.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

39. In 2017, Maple Leaf bought both Lightlife and Field Roast, and they recently acquired a third plant-based food company, Oh Naturel. For more information, see this list of Maple Leaf brands. 

40. This is not sufficient evidence to attribute the cause of this change to Save as there may have been other organizations working with Maple Leaf or market forces driving the change. 

41. “The Maple Leaf Poultry plant manager in Toronto, for example, agreed to have each truck stop for five minutes at weekly vigils in Toronto. We have even engaged with Maple Leaf in bigger picture conversations about the necessity of investing in plant-based alternatives.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

42. “The whole organization is built around the idea of bearing witness. […] By focusing on this one simple idea of bearing witness, the Save Movement has been able to popularize the notion that we have a moral duty, both as individuals and as communities, to bear witness to the suffering of animals.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

43. “We also started the Save Movement with a strong, love-based, community-organizing framework. […] The Save Movement is quite unique in our complete adherence to a love-based framework.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

44. “We have also started holding vigils not only for pigs, but for chickens, cows, fish, and furred animals.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

45. According to a 2018 private communication with Anita Krajnc of The Save Movement, less than 15 out of 535 Save groups focus on animals other than farmed animals. 

46. “The Save Movement bank account provides start-up funds for new Save chapters, and funding for vigil grants, for Save organizing drives, and global Save initiatives.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

47. This information can be found in our Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

48. Data for 2016 comes from a private communication with Anita Krajnc of The Save Movement; expenses for 2017 come from a private communication with Krajnc, and revenue was estimated to be similar to expenses; expenses for 2018 come from a private communication Krajnc, and revenue was estimated to be similar to expenses. The 2019 estimated revenue is Save’s fundraising goal and the 2019 estimated expenses are based on their planned expenses according to our Follow-Up Questions for The Save Movement, Part Two (2018). Save currently does not have surplus assets. 

49. According to The Save Movement’s Strategy (2018–2023), they are budgeting to (i) increase the amount of collective months of organizing tours by a factor of two to ten in each of the next five years, (ii) to establish country level supports including tools, guides, trainings, and regional liaisons, and (iii) to create a video team and produce videos geared towards new group growth. 

50. This information can be found in The Save Movement’s Strategy (2018–2023). 

51. In order to best estimate which programs are more or less effective, we collected independent staff judgments of the relative efficacy of every commonly-used intervention and reached a consensus with the following process. Seven research team members rated each type of intervention using a scale from -1 (“relatively ineffective”) to 1 (“relatively effective”), with 0 meaning “not enough information to decide.” The mean score for each intervention was then rounded to the nearest integer to yield a score with which all Researchers were satisfied. As a check, we also calculated the median score and came out with the same results. 

52. Save budgeted around $300,000 to $400,000 for organizing tours in 2018 and they plan to spend around $750,000 on organizing tours in 2019 if they meet their funding goals. The 2018 information was provided in a private communication and the 2019 plans can be found in our Follow-Up Questions for The Save Movement, Part Two (2018). 

53. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Strategy (2018–2023). 

54. “We have put so much energy into growing the movement, and now we need to start working more on establishing working groups, updating our website, and other infrastructural projects. Our website, for example, has not been updated since we first started.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

55. “Establishment of a Communications working group (former Media Action Group) to support groups in the UK with advice on press coverage, press release writing and including comms in their campaigns.” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

56. This information can be found in our Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

57. “Currently, we are developing national and regional liaisons […] whose specific role [will be] to help already-established groups to stay active and help them with any issues or questions that come up. Up to now, the help and assistance for new groups has largely been Toronto-based, and we now need a network of liaisons now to keep up our growing presence worldwide.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018 

58. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Strategy (2018–2023). 

59. We think Save’s fundraising program has significant room for more funding because (i) most of their funding currently comes from a single donor, and we think that having a more distributed source of revenue could make their financial situation more stable, and (ii) given the plan to have a large number of Save groups around the world doing fundraising on their own, rather than having a few centrally organized fundraisers, there will be many people requiring training. 

60. This range is a subjective confidence interval (SCI). An SCI is a range of values that communicates a subjective estimate of an unknown quantity at a particular confidence level (expressed as a percentage). We generally use 90% SCIs, which we construct such that we believe the unknown quantity is 90% likely to be within the given interval and equally likely to be above or below the given interval. 

61. This estimate is an SCI based on ACE’s 2018 RFMF Model for The Save Movement. 

62. The method we use does calculations using Monte Carlo sampling. This means that results can vary slightly based on the sample drawn. Unless otherwise noted, we have run the calculations five times and rounded to the point needed to provide consistent results. We did this by first rounding the 5% and 95% estimates given in Guesstimate to the nearest $10,000 and then taking the most extreme of the five estimates (the highest value for an upper bound and the lowest value for a lower bound) and rounding it outwards to the next $100,000 when the numbers are in the millions and to the next $10,000 when the numbers are in the tens or hundreds of thousands. For instance, if sometimes a value appears as $2.7 million and sometimes it appears as $2.8 million, our review gives it as $2.9 million if it were an upper bound and as $2.6 million if it were a lower bound. 

63. This estimate is an SCI based on ACE’s 2018 RFMF Model for The Save Movement. 

64. This estimate is an SCI based on ACE’s 2018 RFMF Model for The Save Movement. 

65. The percentages used in this chart are based on the mean size of each funding gap. 

66. This estimate is an SCI based on ACE’s 2018 RFMF Model for The Save Movement. 

67. This estimate is an SCI based on ACE’s 2018 RFMF Model for The Save Movement. 

68. We have sometimes prepared, but not published, speculative estimates similar to the one we could have prepared for Save. 

69. For more information, see our Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

70. For example, they recently formed a communications working group, they are now developing an organization-wide data collection working group, and they are working on a national and regional liaison program to support their groups around the world. This information can be found in our Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

71. Videos from the Save Movement and the Toronto Save groups together have over 21 million views. This information can be found in The Save Movement’s Viral Social Media (2018). 

72. Private communication with Anita Krajnc of The Save Movement, 2018 

73. “At the beginning of 2016, we only had about 50 groups. By the end of that same year, we had about 100. Last year, the number increased again, to about 300 at the start of 2018. As of October 2018, we have 535 Save groups in 57 countries. […] Our most recent reports indicate more frequent and well-attended vigils than we have seen in the past. In Toronto, for example, numbers have increased from at most five people attending a vigil when we first started holding vigils at Toronto Pig Save in 2011, to between 20 and 30 people at a vigil. […] When all of these L.A. vigils first started, they had an attendance of about 30–50 people, but we now estimate an attendance of about 200 at the pig vigils.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

74. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018). 

75. For more information, see The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018). 

76. According to The Save Movement’s Viral Social Media (2018), Save actively tracks the viewership of these videos to learn what’s impactful, and altogether they have over 21 million views on a few key Save Facebook Pages. In a 2018 private communication with Anita Krajnc of The Save Movement, she noted that “this does not include all the 535 chapters or the social media reach of the videos taken by the thousands of vigil attendees themselves around the world and posted on their social media accounts.” 

77. See, for example:

    • Animal Charity Evaluators. (2016). Models of Media Influence on Demand for Animal Products. Animal Charity Evaluators.
    • Tiplady, C. M., Walsh, D. B., & Phillips, C. J. C. (2013). Public Response to Media Coverage of Animal Cruelty. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 26(4), 869–885.
    • Tonsor, G. T., & Olynk N. J. (2010). Impacts of Animal Well-Being and Welfare Media on Meat Demand. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 62(1), 59–72.

     

78. “There is some evidence for each of the mechanisms represented in our theory of change, as described in Part Two of this report. However, much of the evidence comes from studies with important limitations and may not be generalizable to animal advocacy protests. Many of the studies do not directly investigate the impact of protests; rather, they investigate the impact of civil resistance, direct action, or other more general approaches. Most of them investigate social movements other than the animal advocacy movement. The animal movement seems relevantly different from many other movements, particularly those that are closely associated with major political parties or those with which large portions of the population identify. The uncertain generalizability of much of the relevant evidence limits the extent to which it supports our theory of change.” —ACE’s 2018 Protest Intervention Report 

79. “Measuring the growth of the movement is quite simple because we just need to track the number of Save groups.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

80. “Exponential growth in the number of groups each year: from 100 to almost 300 in 2017[.]” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

81. “This year, we will also use the activity report to get more funding for our groups. When the groups fill out the report, they will be eligible for different types of grants based on their responses. The only difficulty with the report as a method of data collection is that not every group fills it out, so we want to encourage people to fill them out more regularly.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

82. “We have recently updated the report to improve data collection and emphasize fundraising, so we will be sending out the updated version over the summer and it will be due back to us on September 23rd.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

83. “In one new question, we ask the groups to send links to any mass media coverage they have had, so that we can keep track of the specific content and numbers for all our media coverage.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

84. “Another thing that’s relevant to data collection is our Save Movement Worldwide Organizers Facebook page, which is private and includes about over 1,000 Save organizers around the world. This is an important means of communication, and we use it to send out the activity report to all of our groups.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

85. “The Facebook pages and groups really help to create an inclusive community, where groups in different regions can inspire and encourage one another. From an organizational perspective, they also help us to monitor the growth and success of the actions we are taking.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

86. “The only difficulty with the report as a method of data collection is that not every group fills it out, so we want to encourage people to fill them out more regularly.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

87. “Through this group, we have been working on compiling questions to ask as part of an annual report (particularly in relation to our achievements, so that we can keep track of those over time).” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

88. “We aim to (1) change the cultural norm so that everyone sees it as their moral duty to bear witness, (2) hold vigils at every slaughterhouse in the world (3) create a vegan activist world, (4) address the environmental catastrophes through support for Vegan World 2026, and (5) reforest and rewild half the planet.” —The Save Movement’s Accomplishments (2017–2018) 

89. “We have also been discussing the creation of a world slaughterhouse and vigil map, where we will chart the locations of slaughterhouses around the world and mark the ones where we currently hold vigils.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018). 

90. When considering how well charities assess success and failure, one useful consideration is whether their goals are SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Specific, well-defined goals help guide an organization’s actions, and can help them determine which areas or programs have succeeded and failed. Setting a measurable target allows organizations to determine the extent to which they’ve met their goals. It is also important that goals be plausibly achievable; goals that are predictably over- or undershot tell an organization little about how well their programs have done. Goals should be relevant to the organization’s longer-term mission, both to guide their actions and to help them evaluate success. Finally, including time limits is especially important, as it keeps a charity accountable to their expectations of success. 

91. “We are very adaptive and responsive to feedback from others as well as our own observations. For example, when we first started out, we often sent organizers to recruit at VegFest events in various cities across North America, but we found that this wasn’t very cost-effective, so we moved on to our present organizing tour model. Now, we are again re-assessing and moving forward by improving on that model.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

92. For example, see this video of Anita Krajnc receiving PETA’s “Compassionate Activist” award in 2017. 

93. Private communication with Anita Krajnc of The Save Movement, 2018 

94. See these three standards for nonprofits in the U.S. suggesting between five and seven Board Members as a minimum. 

95. “We have been working on standardizing our programs, many of which started out quite informal and experimental.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement 

96. “This summer we are introducing a grant program that will include a $1,000 vigil grant, a $5,000 impacts grant (based on matching funding), and a hubs grant for groups that are in a hub area (like Manchester, L.A., Toronto, or Buenos Aires) where there is a lot of financial or media power.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement 

97. “We also developed a standardized organizing tour application, as well as training and a handbook for our organizers. In the past, we have selected tour organizers quite informally, and although we haven’t had too many problems with this method. As there is a growing number of positions, we feel it is important to advertise more formally through our worldwide organizers pages as the movement continues to grow.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement 

98. For more information, see The Save Movement’s “What Is Community Organizing?“ 

99. “From day one, creating activists has been more important than creating vegans.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement 

100. “There are lots of other organizations, like Anonymous for the Voiceless for example, that are trying to convert people to veganism. Our focus is much more on activism.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement 

101. We speak with two non-leadership staff or volunteers at each charity, except when doing so would not allow us to preserve the anonymity of our contacts (i.e., when charities have fewer than four staff members). Our selections of contacts are random in all dimensions except the following: we aim to select staff members or volunteers who have been with the organization for at least one year (when possible), and we aim to speak with at least one woman and/or person of color from each organization (when possible). 

102. Fourteen members of The Save Movement participated in our survey. 

103. We recognize some limitations of our culture survey. First, because participation was not mandatory, the results could be skewed by selection bias. Second, because respondents knew that their answers could influence ACE’s evaluation of their employer, they may have felt an incentive to emphasize their employers’ strengths and minimize their weaknesses. 

104. There is a significant body of evidence suggesting that teams composed of individuals with different roles, tasks, or occupations are likely to be more successful than those which are more homogeneous. Increased diversity by demographic factors—such as race and gender—has more mixed effects in the literature, but gains through having a diverse team seem to be possible for organizations which view diversity as a resource (using different personal backgrounds and experiences to improve decision making) rather than solely a neutral or justice-oriented practice. 

105. One place to start might be with Save’s new working groups and regional liaison program: “At the moment, we are developing national and regional liaisons […] These would be people whose specific role is to help already-established groups to stay active and help them with any issues or questions that come up. Until now, the help and assistance for new groups has largely been Toronto-based, and we now need a network of liaisons to keep up our growing presence worldwide.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement 

106. Private communication with Anita Krajnc of The Save Movement, 2018 

107. “In the U.K., Save organizers advertised for people for the tasks needed by the U.K. CIC, and ensured that on all of the advertisements we encouraged people from non-white/male groups to apply. We also ensured that the panel who interviewed for the roles was a majority non-male, non-heterosexual panel.” —Follow-up Questions for The Save Movement, Part One (2018) 

108. “The Save Movement has a zero tolerance policy on harassment and discrimination. We set up a working group to review the Code of Conduct and look for additional protocols to address issues of harassment and discrimination and ensure that all working practices are non-discriminatory.” —Follow-up Questions for The Save Movement, Part One (2018) 

109. “We have also had [fundraising] goals in terms of monthly donors, one-time donors, and annual fundraisers. We also have an individual donor who provides us with a lot of funding.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

110. “Our funding objectives are campaign-specific, such as advertising campaigns, which will often include an Indiegogo crowd source funding campaign.” —Conversation with Anita Krajnc and James O’Toole of The Save Movement (2018) 

111. “Up to now, we have been distributing funds outward from Toronto to groups in other regions. But again, now that our movement is getting so much bigger, we need to begin diversifying our funding and fundraising more widely outside of Toronto.” —Private Communication with The Save Movement, 2018