Podcasthon Special Episode: How Faunalytics Empowers Animal Advocacy with Data

Hello, amazing listeners!

Buckle up for a special episode of The Just Be Cause Podcast for Podcasthon featuring Andrea Polanco from Faunalytics! Dive into the power of data-backed advocacy tactics and nonprofit research and discover how this can transform the landscape for nonprofits. 

Ever wondered how effective those gripping animal advocacy tactics really are? Or the truth behind pay gaps in animal protection movements? Or why some groups do not join the animal movement?

Andrea, with her unique journey from animal welfare scientist to passionate advocate, spills the beans on how Faunalytics is helping advocates turn data into action. From impactful insights on animal welfare's role in advocacy to eye-opening studies on diversity, this conversation reveals the challenges and opportunities in making the movement more inclusive.

Join us for a journey into the heart of how research can empower change, unite various causes, and truly make strides towards a more compassionate world. Are you ready to be inspired and informed? Tune in for an episode that’s both thought-provoking and enlightening!

Show resources and links

• Report on the impact of animal advocacy tactics on people’s animal product consumption
• Report on salaries & pay gaps in the farmed animal advocacy movement
• Report on animal advocacy retention
• Faunalytics Office hours

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With over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, I help organizations optimize their operations with key knowledge in various domains, such as fundraising strategy, grantmaking research, communications, and development.

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Transcript

0:00

I support database advocacy just because it can help us save more animal lives. Welcome to the Just Be Cause podcast. In a space in which the scarcity mindset has been normal for far too long, discover how we're helping nonprofits finally take back their power, find their true purpose, and even use mindfulness to manifest their dream solutions into reality. I'm your host, Katherine Lacefield, a lifetime nonprofit professional. Together, we'll master the tools needed to overcome limitations, rise in times of adversity, and understand the interconnectedness of all causes towards a more conscious philanthropy. Just because it's the right thing to do. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Just Be Cause podcast where today, we're actually doing something a bit different as this is a special episode specifically for Podcast on. So it's like a marathon, but for podcasts. So this week is really dedicated to inviting as many podcast hosts as possible to invite nonprofits to their shows. Now because I always post nonprofits, it's a bit similar to what I usually do, but I decided to do an extra episode to really showcase the amazing work being done at Faunalytics. Why? Yes. Well, you'll see. They're pretty awesome. So Faunalytics' mission is to empower animal advocates with access to research, analysis, strategies, and messages that will maximize their effectiveness to reducing animal suffering. So far, I'm on board. Generally speaking, animals need you as nonprofits, but also, the nonprofits themselves need more data. So they conduct essential research, maintain an online research library, and directly support advocates and organizations in their work to save lives. The range of data they offer helps our movements understand how people think and how to respond to advocacy, providing advocates with the best strategies to inspire change for animals. So here to talk to me about the amazing work being done by Faunalytics is Andrea Polanco. She holds a PhD in animal welfare science from University of Guelph, where she studied the welfare of laboratory monkeys and furrowed mink. Although Andrea entered the field of animal welfare science to reduce animal suffering, she became a more focal animal advocate halfway through her PhD. This activism led her to discover the animal advocacy organization, Faunalytics, where she volunteered as a science writer before starting her formal role that she is in now as a research scientist. She has conducted both quantitative and qualitative social science studies on effective animal advocacy at the organization, and this is why I really wanted to invite her to the show today. So, Andrea, welcome to the show. I am so excited to hear all about what we've talked about in the past about the amazing research that you've been working. Thank you so much, Katherine. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah. So as we we've just talked about in your bio, very interesting background. I'd love to hear kind of how you got involved. So, yes, of course, why you decided to study animal welfare science and then how that evolved into much more advocacy oriented perspective. Yeah. So I've always cared about, animal suffering. My undergraduate was actually in psychology. So I kind of for graduate school, I knew I wanted to go into research, but I wanted to go into a program where I felt I could make a difference. So that's why I applied to the animal welfare science program, and my master's and my PhD focused on, looking at abnormal behaviors as an indicator of poor welfare. So for those listening who aren't familiar with animal welfare science, it is a specific discipline of animal sciences that tries to investigate the subjective emotional state of captive animals. So like you touched upon, I did look at the welfare for farmed mink and laboratory monkeys for my graduate study, training. So abnormal behaviors are quite prevalent, among captive animals. So for example, some animals will pace back and forth in captivity. So often people will use the example of a polar bear pacing back and forth in their cage. Monkeys do this as well. So that's just an example. So with animal welfare science, it's coming from a utilitarian perspective. So this discipline does work closely with farmers or industry groups that use animals because the whole goal is to reduce suffering. And we do that by trying to change the animal's environment. So for example, cage free reforms are a really good example of, where animal welfare scientists work closely with farmers to try to enact those changes. So that's, the animal has better welfare. So throughout my graduate training, what I noticed was animal rights per se was sort of treated like this unrealistic philosophy. It was rarely taken seriously. It was rarely talked about, to be honest. Although we did the only time we talked about animal rights was when it was, talking about how it's different from animal welfare. So that's the only time we talked about it. And it was actually learning about that difference that got me interested in veganism and which eventually led me to go from vegetarianism, to veganism. And so when that switch happened, I became an activist right away. I attended my first Save Movement vigil where we basically, go outside slaughterhouses. We stop transport trucks that are carrying the animals. We bear witness for a couple of minutes. So for example, we take photographs. If they are pigs, we give them water. So that was my very first animal rights demo. And then since then, I've been going to quite a few different types of demos, and I quickly became part of the animal rights community. So this all happened when I was in graduate school. And it made me think about my career. Like, is this animal welfare science, something that I could see myself doing in the future? Because right now in that moment, I was an activist. So I felt like I couldn't merge my identity as an activist and as a researcher who was doing this type of work on animals. It was just really taboo in my department to do animal rights activism. For some reason, it was just questioning why we use animals in the first place was considered extremely radical, which I find kind of ironic because animal welfare science, like, they they genuinely want to reduce animal suffering, but stopping animal use in the first place, for some reason, that's considered really radical. So I knew I had to change careers after graduating, and luckily, Funalytics happened to be hiring for a researcher during my last year of my PhD. So it was great timing. I applied. I got the job, and now I'm here at Funalytics. It's been four years that I've been working as a research scientist. So that is actually it's a crazy story because I think that is a big issue in the animal rights, animal welfare dynamic of they're seen as, like, almost against each other, whereas I strongly believe that both have their place, we both have their time, and we need many different approaches to reduce animal suffering. But it's not because you're in animal welfare that doesn't mean that you shouldn't or can't support animal rights and vice versa. I think that they work very well together. But as you mentioned and even in I've had friends that went to vet school and the whole question of animal rights is almost like it's pushing against everything that they believe in and it creates this huge pushback. So that's a crazy story and I've heard so much about the different forms of activist activism that can take place. And I know that one of the research projects that that Funnelytics has done has been on that. So before we dive into that though, like, I know that's a very specific issue, but what is Funnelytics more, like, larger mission and vision, and why did they use research so much? Like, people would assume why shouldn't they just be out there doing the activism themselves? So So I'd love to hear from a researcher perspective. What is the vision and what is the whole resources behind this? Yeah. It's, great that you bring this up because, our founder, Jay Green, actually just put a blog on this. It's Faunalytics' twenty fifth birthday this week, and I was just reading his blog this morning. Yeah. Happy birthday. And, yeah, it's incredible to learn, how much the animal advocacy movement has changed in the past two decades. So using data, using research to guide decisions is actually relatively sort of like a new phenomenon in the sense that there's now dedicated organizations into conducting original research analysis so that animal advocates can maximize their effectiveness. So our whole, like, vision at Spottalytics is we basically help animal advocates help animals, and we do that by providing them with data and evidence. So it's really important for us that animal advocates, use data because our movement is really small compared to other social justice movements. We have fewer people. We have really limited resources. So if you look at the animal protection movement in a really broad sense that includes companion animals, animals used for science, the farmed animals gets the least amount of resources. Right? So we have limited people, limited money. So So it's really important that the actions we do are gonna be the most impactful. And one way to understand impact is through original research, data, and analysis. So that's what I'm most proud of working at Funnelytics because that's basically our whole, mission is to do that. That and it's so true because you would think that a lot of times, obviously, fundraising and missions is a lot about the emotional appeal, but we do need to back up a lot of what we're saying and what we're advocating for with numbers. But it's not just about, let's say, the harm being done to animals that you do research on. What I love about the research that you're doing at Faunalytics is that it actually supports the movement from more of like an operational logistical movement perspective where you're really doing capacity building research. So what are the, like can you give us, like, maybe a a few examples of the type of research that has been done? And I know that I wanna hear, and this one we talked about last time around specifically that what tactics work most, for example. But I'd love to hear maybe more of, like, a what are the types of research that have been done so far? Yeah. So I can start with the, more, like, advocacy related type of of research and then go into the capacity building work, because I think those are really two great branches of examples of the type of research that we do at Faunalytics. So, for animal advocates listening, I would they would find this really fascinating. So, when it comes to animal advocacy, people usually picture protests, leaflets, graphic videos. So with this study that we ran a few years ago, we did an experiment to actually see which of these tactics among others were most successful in actually getting people to reduce their meat consumption. And so we found that some tactics actually have different type of impact on people's behavior depending on whether the person is already, reducing their meat consumption. For example, they're a vegetarian or they're reduced reducetarian compared to people who are meat eaters. So, specifically, we found that social media posts and news articles that discussed farmed animal suffering were the most effective types to reduce people's consumption of animal products. And this was found for the group that we called meat avoiders. So they were the vegetarians or the reducetarians. Interestingly, we actually found that there was a backfire effect for disruptive protests. So meat eaters who watched a video of a disruptive protest actually increased their consumption of animal products two weeks after exposure to this video compared to meat eaters who didn't see any type of animal advocacy, the control condition. So we found that really, really interesting. And so for people who engage in this type of advocacy, like now they have some data to kind of understand the type of effect that these tactics will have on people's behaviors. That is so mind blowing because as someone who at the tender age 15, I got converted, if I could say, I really got much more involved in the movement by watching very intense videos from, of course, PETA, and that really converted me, but I was already sensitive to the cause. But actually, I've been seeing a lot of pushback for violent types of protesting or very, like, active protests in general, be it for animals, be it for the environment, be it recently there was a a women's march in Playa Del Carmen, New Mexico where I'm from, where I'm living and there was so much pushback against anything that is seen as disruptive. So this is this is something that I would I wouldn't say we don't have the data to coalesce between other movements, but given our focus on interconnection between causes on the Just Be Cause podcast, this is a very interesting data point to look at for anyone in the advocacy movement. Figuring out which tactics actually work to change behavior is very interesting because I would assume that these disruptive videos, let's say, I've seen where they barge into these fast food restaurants and they they cause a huge disruption, they get a lot of clicks and views because it attracts attention. But what's what is more important? Is it getting more likes and views on social media, or is it actually changing people's behaviors? So that is a perfect example of how useful having this research to back up your tactics and to be more efficient as a movement. I love it. Yeah. I love how you said that because, that's actually referred to as the protester's dilemma. So the basically, the argument, like, oh, is the media clicks worth it even if it's negative attention? You know? So it kinda, like, weighed that. Yeah. That's really interesting you bring that up. It's it's something that I've thought about as someone who has worked in the animal rights movement and with someone who lives with a Virgo who's always right and who tells me that these tactics don't work. I've always kinda started questioning, like, what what really does work to get people to change behavior? And for someone who has worked with many people who were non vegetarian, and then by just having conversations and sharing information in a very nonjudgmental, non, like, pushy or angry way. I've had people come back to me after. Of course, this is just, like, my personal experience, but I've had people come to me after and say, you know, the way you approached that, just the stories you shared in a very welcoming opening environment made me think and have the space to think without needing to become defensive. Because we know that when people become defensive, what do they do? They push back and they they dig in their heels even more. So it's a it's a big dilemma like you said. Like, we want attention to be brought to the cause, but what kind of attention I think is much more of an important question than quantity. No. Exactly. Exactly. So this is one type of research that Faunalytics does. So that's great around tactics, strategies from more of, like, an outward facing perspective. But I know that there's also other forms of research that have been done that are more, like, how to run your nonprofit more internally, so more around the capacity building. So what example would you be able to give? Yeah. So I'm really proud of this work too. We basically, a few months ago, put out the first reports in the Farm Animal Advocacy Movement that has tracked salaries. So how much do people get paid in our movements? So we found that, aside from like reporting average salaries, we also investigated the existence of pay gaps in the study. And we actually found that advocates who are members of marginalized groups. So for people who identify as being black, indigenous, person of color, if they identified as having a disability or if they identified as being LGBTQ, we found that they received salaries that were 15% lower than the salary, salaries of non marginalized advocates. So this means that advocates from marginalized communities earn 85¢for every dollar that a non marginalized advocate makes. So with this type of data, we now have it so that, leaders of these organizations can hopefully go to their board and, you know, argue for higher salaries for their staff. Because I think one thing that was missing before is they couldn't really make that argument because there was no benchmark that they could refer to that was specific to the Farmed Animal Protection Movement. And now with our reports, we put everything on our website for free. It's all accessible, because we wanna help make this movement stronger. So leaders can go, and look at that report on our website. This is a perfect example of how the intersectionality of so many causes can show up in different work. It's not because you're working in one cause that you're not gonna be able to have impact on others around diversity, around equity further than your own cause. And I would say this is something that I've seen show up in many different organizations that it's like, okay. Yes. As an organization, you are defending x, y, zed cause. However, internally, you can have a really big impact on pushing forward other causes. And I believe that the more we push for equity in different different areas, we're just gonna become more equitable as a society as a whole. So something that I found that was very difficult working in the animal rights movement was the leaders in my organization seemed to have almost a complete disregard for the well-being of their team, saying, well, the suffering of the animals that we're defending is so much greater than the potential suffering of our employees that we don't care. Like, that was really how it was perceived. I'm not saying that this is what they said. Mhmm. But this goes beyond these kinds of, pay analysis, goes beyond the question of of pay gas. It also goes on why are people leaving the movement. So being able to understand the motivations and the internal reasons of why the movement is maybe pushing people away, it's not just in their outward tactics, but it's also in their internal policies around their wages, around their pay gaps, and for sure, if they can have an opportunity to go elsewhere and get paid more, I mean, we kind of have to understand that. So this kind of study can really help push forward those arguments. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up and shared that. So, before I joined to analytics, our research director actually conducted a study, in 2020 looking at the reasons why people in The US and Canada leave animal protection movements. So they found that the most common reasons were actually some of the examples you gave. So some of the reasons as to why people cited leaving was problems with leadership. They found a better opportunity. They were burnt out, or they were dissatisfied with their pay and benefits. And it it's super like, it's something that is, I think, widespread throughout the nonprofit sector. And I remember even working with organizations that helped the unhoused or people living, on the verge, on the on the poverty line. And a lot of their employees that were in the organization would almost be considered in that same pool. So you're reinforcing the situation that you're trying to fight against by not offering the right working conditions, which I feel is just reinforcing the cycle. We can't pick you more because of x y zed reason. So so then what are we fighting against? And I really believe that this is a wider issue. So for any grant makers out there that are listening or please, I think we need to have more advocacy for grants and for donors to understand that investing in salaries, investing in staff makes the movement stronger. And so I feel like this kind of research can go beyond just supporting the movement internally, but also put pressure on those that are giving the money, giving the dollars to for them to understand that when we invest in our staff, we invest in stability, we invest in knowledge building, and in retentions that we cannot be constantly on this cycle of of new staff that we have to train, and that that costs much more money. For anyone interested in more of that retention cycle, there is an episode that we talked specifically about that around the parental leave and retention models. Highly recommend it. I'll drop it in the the show notes as well. And, of course, all of the research that Andrea is mentioning, I will be putting little links towards so you can go and find that information. So I think so from the strategies and now the HR component, if I could say, are there any projects that you've worked on or that you're working on now that you feel are are really important that kind of showcase another angle that Faunalytics explores? Yeah. Thank you for asking. So we recently are conducting a qualitative study, actually. We're just finished coding yesterday, looking at inclusivity issues in the movement. So there is a harmful stereotype that veganism, vegetarianism is a white people thing despite plant based eating existing in so many different cultures for centuries now. Although, needless to say, I do think that the US animal protection movement as a nonprofit sector for sure has, a diversity problem. It's not a welcoming space for black, indigenous, and people of color. So there was a report, not done by us, but by a consultancy group. And they basically surveyed BIPOC and white animal advocates, and they found that BIPOC animal advocates were more likely to report negative experiences in the movements compared to white respondents. So this included experiences of racism, being stereotyped, being dismissed. So we kind of wanted to follow-up on this type of research. So we basically interviewed, nine BIPOC animal advocates, five BIPOC non animal advocates to better understand feelings of inclusion in the movement. So for example, like, what like, why did you join the movement? And for prospective members, like, you do you want to join the animal protection movement? If not, why not? And so after asking them these questions, we also asked them about potential potential solutions to the problem, and we then took these solutions to eight leaders of, farm animal advocacy organizations. And we wanted to understand, from their perspective, is this, you know, solution something that you can actually see yourself doing and acting at your organization? So like I just mentioned, we just finished coding all of these interviews, so I'm really happy to share, like, preliminary findings. The report will be on our website in July of this year, so I'm really, really stoked for this, because it was a collaboration with doctor Ahmed Brown from Northwestern University. So one key result I can share is that, when you think of inclusion in the movements, it went beyond just race and ethnicity. And what I mean by that is that participants, reported, while they while some did report discrimination because of their race and ethnicity, most felt excluded for reasons that weren't directly related to their demographic identities. So, for example, both current and prospective members said that the movement is exclusionary towards non vegans, including perceptions of vegans being judgmental of non vegans, which actually alienates people from joining the movements. So I thought that was really interesting. And we also found that for participants who view animal protection from an intersectional lens, they find that the mainstream movement is exclusionary. They find uncompassionate due to its siloed approach that just, focuses on farmed animals. And the last thing I can share is that, trying to balance animal advocacy issues with intersectionality issues was a key struggle for both advocates and leaders. So participants, some of them said that the movement can be made more inclusive if organizations took a vocal stand on other social justice issues, for example, or if organizations made genuine connections between animal protection and other social justice issues. And for the leaders, like, most of them, I would have will say they actually did express support for the participant recommended solutions to foster an inclusive environment, although there was some pushback. And the pushback was basically due to, differences in priorities and views. And I think a lot of leaders struggle with basically coming up with their mission scope. Right? So a lot of the mission is siloed towards farmed animals. And, like, there are organizations out there where their mission is actually encompassing of all types of social justice. But I think the ones that, really have a hard time balancing this are the ones with that siloed approach. Because I think right now they're kind of grappling with, should we extend our mission beyond just animals? So I think, yeah, with this study, it's gonna be more of a guidance for leaders. Like, we're not gonna be telling them you should do x y z, but I think there's there's gonna be a lot of, basically organizational mapping that some leaders will need to do in the next few years. This brings up so much interesting conversation pieces to have. And I think this is what I love about this qualitative research is that, like you said, it's not saying there's a formula that will definitely work. It's about how can we have more discussions and also just applause to the participatory base Yeah. Of the research you're doing, of really trying to go and understand from the point of view of people. And also because it's qualitative, You're getting what they feel is important more than in some, like, quantitative surveys that I've seen where it's very, like, it's almost directed to a certain direction. So I love the how your research process is, first of all. But this brings up so many questions that I've actually just recorded a podcast recently. We were talking about scope creep. And should we be doing all of the things, or should we niche down and focus on one and do it really, really well? And I think this is a big issue with a lot of nonprofits that I've worked with where they're like, well, we wanna do it all. We wanna save all the animals. And it's like, but can you, with your limited resources, actually extend that far into doing everything? But then on the on the other side, I do believe in the power and partner in partnerships and collaborations between organizations. Kathy Paulson of Paws for Hope in BC, she'd showed this amazing story on one of our first episodes of how she teamed up with, women's shelters that a lot of these women were not leaving domestic violence situations because they had pets. And so by partnering with an animal welfare organization, if we don't want this person abandoning, quote, unquote, their animal in a shelter, This woman cares about her pet, but she doesn't have a choice or just not an option. So instead of being judgmental and saying, oh, well, you know, you should have thought about that, which is unfortunately something that is often said in shelters. It was okay. Let's offer you a foster care until you can find your own situation for your well-being. And I see this is is is how the movement, I believe, is moving towards more of that one health perspective of we do need to take into consideration the interconnection, intersectionality. But that doesn't mean that you need to change your whole mission. I think it's about partnerships, speaking up, and just collaborating with other organizations that are working on those issues and seeing how those different pieces of the puzzle can fit together. It's definitely complex, and I don't think that there's an easy answer out there. But I really what you said about what's come up so far, and I'm very excited to see the full report, are things that I myself have felt of being shamed of, oh, you're just a vegetarian. And then there's, like, this pressure of, like, if you're not gonna be vegan, like, you won't be able to get promoted. Like, that was the sentiment that it was felt. And, of course, I ended up becoming vegan because I just had to in the movement, but it turned me off from that whole conception of the pressure. And I know a lot of people felt the same way. And it's hard to say, like, like, oh, well, don't you care about animals? And it's like, that's not the argument that is being said right now. And I don't think that is actually pushing the movement forward. And I love that you have done the research, Donald. Prove that that is actually pushing more people away. And at the end of the day, what is your objective? To get a couple people that are perfect or to get more people that are imperfectly participating in the cause? So all of the amazing stuff that we've covered today around the different forms of research that can really help support the movement, just for me proves how important it is to invest in studying the movement. As someone who's worked in a philanthropy research lab for seven years, I really understand and understood just how much that could help decision makers that be more guided in towards what actually works, not based on what they feel, but based on the actual data. So before we we end this conversation, I'd love to hear what are some of the services that Faunalytics offers? I know that you have the research library, but is there any other specific forms of services that nonprofits looking to dive in and can actually benefit from? Yeah. We have pro bono research support to anyone interested in helping animals. So we have virtual office hours with myself and three other staff members where it's basically one to one support. If you need help finding data, if you wanna run a survey, assess your campaigns, things like that, we are more than happy to chat with you about that. That's amazing. And for anyone out there, like, having one on one time with researchers is gold. I know that it's something that they they don't run around usually. So for anyone looking to get more of those one on one help, I think that is an amazing service. And that is why I'm so excited to have you guys on the show today to really showcase how important this component that I know from a fundraising perspective is not as sexy in the sense of, like, oh, let's let's pay for a research project. Like, most people won't see that as, necessarily the most exciting fundraising campaign. But when we understand it as people in the sector, it really goes to show that these are the kinds of works that we should be supporting more because it helps exponentially improve other organizations as well. So I'm very happy that I was able to showcase, all of the work being done. For anyone who's looking to connect with you and to learn more about the work either you do or follow the work you're doing, what are the best ways to either connect stay connected with you, but also with Phonalytics? Yeah. So with Phonalytics, you can subscribe to our newsletter when you go to our website, and we're also on a bunch of different social media platforms. So, that way you can stay up to date with our latest studies. Like I said earlier, that's, qualitative studies coming out in July that I'm super excited about. For you for me, you can email me or you can drop by my office hours as well. Amazing offer. So, of course, all of the links to the research projects, to the website, to even if you wanna make a little donation to support the amazing work they're doing, everything will be included in the show notes below. Andrea, thank you so much for participating in this amazing podcast, and I'm really happy to have been able to showcase the work you're doing because research is not something that is showcased enough, and yet we've seen by this conversation just how impactful it can be. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Katherine. Thanks for tuning in to the Just Be Cause podcast. Are you enjoying the content we're creating? We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. 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