[Cross-posted from Sentience Institute's blog.]
Last year we launched with our foundational questions summaries and published several original research reports, including a survey of US attitudes, our first technology adoption case study, and our first social movement case study, which contributed to our thinking on important strategic changes the movement for an animal-free food system needs to make. This year we focused more on outreach, particularly around the publication of our research director's book, The End of Animal Farming. We expanded our team from three to four in late summer, and we engaged more advocates with our research on effective animal advocacy strategy.
Now we're aiming to raise $180,000 by the end of December in order to start 2019 strong and hire a new researcher to work on the important quantitative projects on our agenda. Note that in our last hiring round, we had multiple excellent candidates but only the funding to hire one. Below you'll find a summary of our research and outreach accomplishments this year, what research we're planning next, and what funding we need to make that happen.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2018 (TO DATE)
PUBLICATION OF BOOK, THE END OF ANIMAL FARMING
A bold yet realistic vision of how technology and social change are creating a food system in which we no longer use animals to produce meat, dairy, or eggs.
"Places the issue of factory farming in the context of human progress and presents compelling arguments on how we should deal with it today."—STEVEN PINKER, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now
Buy Now on Amazon
REPORTS
BLOG POSTS
OUTREACH
Articles
- NY Daily News Vegan? Here's how to talk to your family on Thanksgiving by Jacy Reese | November 22, 2018
- GeekWire In ‘The End of Animal Farming,’ Jacy Reese lays out a meat-free future thanks to science and tech by Jacy Reese | November 22, 2018
- Vegconomist Jacy Reese – Author of The End of Animal Farming by Jacy Reese | November 22, 2018
- Vice Motherboard Jacy Reese Thinks Technology and Ethics Will See the ‘End of Animal Farming' by Jacy Reese | November 17, 2018
- The Guardian There's no such thing as humane meat or eggs. Stop kidding yourself by Jacy Reese | November 16, 2018
- Vox We could end factory farming this century by Kelsey Piper | November 15, 2018
- Current Affairs Can we end animal farming forever? by Nathan J. Robinson | November 12, 2018
- The Verge These are the technology advances that could end animal farming by Angela Chen | November 9, 2018
- Quillette A World Without Animal Farming by Spencer Case | November 7, 2018
- National Review ‘Clean Meat,’ the Future of Vegetarianism by Jacy Reese | November 6, 2018
- Fast Company Can we end animal farming by the end of the century? by Adele Peters | November 6, 2018
- Quillette Why It's Time to End Factory Farming by Jacy Reese | October 20, 2018
- Huffington Post Slaughter-Free Meat Is An Answer To Our Cruel And Broken Food System by Jacy Reese | October 19, 2018
- NowThis Is the end of animal farming in sight? by Jacy Reese | October 15, 2018
- LIVEKINDLY China Could Become the Lab Meat Capital of the World by Jacy Reese | August 26, 2018
- Feedstuffs A few minutes with Jacy Reese: Why pay attention to preachers of animal rights by Jacy Reese | August 8, 2018
- Quillette The Convergent Case for Veganism by Jacy Reese | March 27, 2018
- Effective Altruism Forum Why I prioritize moral circle expansion over artificial intelligence alignment by Jacy Reese | February 20, 2018
- Quartz Our treatment of animals is stalling human progress by Jacy Reese | February 19, 2018
- Our 2017 survey of US attitudes towards animal farming and animal-free foods (or its OSU replication) also continues to be used by advocates in media publications.
Podcasts & Radio
Select Recorded Presentations
Unrecorded Speaking Engagements
- Kelly spoke on a plenary about diversity at the Animal Rights National Conference.
- Kelly spoke about institutional change at an Effective Animal Advocacy graduate class at NYU.
- Kelly also did a Q&A with The Humane League staff.
- Jacy gave a talk at the Animal Rights National Conference outlining a roadmap to the end of animal farming.
- Jacy gave a talk on moral circle expansion and the far future at EAGxMelbourne.
- Jacy spoke at Brazil's VegFest.
- Jacy gave 27 other talks to university students, effective altruism groups, and animal rights groups on a tour of Oceania, Asia, and Europe.
- Jacy also just closed a speaking tour in the US following the publication of his book.
Interpersonal
We continued to regularly engage in strategic conversations with farmed animal movement leaders and influencers, several of whom are avid readers of our publications. We were also solicited for career and research advice on several occasions.
IN-PROGRESS RESEARCH TO BE PUBLISHED IN COMING MONTHS
2018 SPENDING
We've spent approximately $190,000 so far this year, broken down roughly as follows: 44% research, 38% outreach, 18% admin.
This year included an unusually large focus on outreach due to the publication of The End of Animal Farming and a focus on establishing ourselves as a credible and well-known organization, in the interest of both public outreach and effectively disseminating our research insights to advocates.
ROOM FOR MORE FUNDING
In order to start 2019 with a 9-month runway for our current staff, we are aiming to raise at least $120,000 by the end of this year; if we raise $180,000 we'll hire a fifth team member, who would focus on quantitative research projects such as those listed among our research priorities below. As mentioned above, in our last hiring round, we had multiple excellent candidates but only the funding to hire one, so we are confident that we will have other excellent candidates in our next hiring round and are strictly constrained by funding. Support in excess of $180,000 will either extend our limited runway or be held until we have the capacity to hire another new researcher, which may be shortly after the next hire.
PRIORITY FUTURE RESEARCH PROJECTS
HELP US RAISE $180,000 BY THE END OF THE YEAR!
We are so grateful to our donors for supporting this research and empowering the farmed animal and animal-free food movements to be as effective as possible. There is more useful research to be done and we intend to press forward as immediately as our funding enables us to. Please consider donating this year so we can get more strategic insights into advocates' hands!
