As a longtime vegan and new EA, it's so encouraging to see both sides collaborating to get things done (and to see vegan advocates use effective, evidence-backed methods).
I want to attend the US summit in D.C. -- hopefully I'll be able to have enough time to go.
The problems we are facing are huge and I completely agree: We need to get things done. And an important way to do that is through 1. learning from each other, 2. collaborating with each other, and 3. improving collectively.
Just stopping by to add my +1 to anyone reading this— AVA has been a much needed boost in fostering connections and collaborations within both of our spaces.
I was amazed by the size (and engagement) of the EA community there, so I highly encourage anyone interested to register for the upcoming event in D.C., there's a lot of value to be gained.
Thank you, David -- See you there!
Happy that such events bring all actors on board irrespective of their origin. Africa has been engaged. I also pray that the youth, especially from Africa be brought onboard as well. Africa is the youngest continent in the world, and if systemic change is to be realized, youth need to be actively engaged and included.
With the recent announcement of the Centre for Effective Altruism on leaning into cause-specific conferences for some of their events, EAs working in farmed animal welfare or alternative protein lost an important event to network, hear about the latest research, and meet EA-minded funders.
Nevertheless and independent of the rest of this article, I want to take a brief moment to say how impressive it is to see the EA movement growing so much that there now is the need for (large!) specialized conferences.
We often get asked: “Is the AVA Summit an EA event?” and I would like to provide some answers and thoughts about that in this post.
First and foremost, the AVA Summit is an international conference series bringing together advocates focusing on systemic change for animals. The animal and vegan advocacy movement consists of people working on a wide range of strategies and approaches, but we all share a vision of a world where nonhuman animals, ultimately, are taken out of the food system and other human uses.
While the AVA Summit is not branded as an EA event, there are certain “EA lenses” that we frequently use in our assessments and work, such as the core principles around scalability, tractability, and neglectedness:
To be very clear and transparent, I will add to points 1. and 2.:
Who attends the AVA Summit?
Our attendees are dedicated individuals working or looking to work in the animal and vegan advocacy movement professionally. 80% of our attendees are full-time advocates.
Lewis Bollard, Farm Animal Welfare Program Director at Open Philanthropy, said about the inaugural AVA Summit that it was “the event with the highest number of serious-minded people in the movement“. We strive to achieve this high standard with all of our events.
Our events are also substantially more international than any other similar event: At the last Summit in the US, we welcomed more than 750 attendees from 47 different countries.
People at AVA have a multitude of motivations, including animal welfare, animal rights, environmental, social justice, effective altruism, public health, and they also join from other intersecting movements. A lot of attendees at AVA are EA-aligned without necessarily calling themselves “Effective Altruists”.
What are the biggest advantages of going to the AVA Summit?
What is the program at the AVA Summit like?
Like I mentioned before, we support various strategies and tactics for advancing our shared vision: From grassroots activism to highly specialized engagement, individual outreach to food systems change, legislative change, corporate engagement, advancing animal-free technologies, as well as non-animal issues stemming from animal farming (such as climate change and farmworker abuse), and issues facing our movement (such as promoting racial and gender equality).
Our program is about improving the impact and effectiveness of what advocates do more than excluding certain tactics or trying to convince someone out of their tactic of choice: We don’t offer a blanket condemnation nor approval of tactics.
Check out the speaker lineups from our past events here!
We work with our Advisory Committees to create the best possible program for our audience. At the same time, we know that one single event cannot satisfy everyone, and we are happy that there are many other wonderful events with slightly different angles and approaches.
How is AVA generating impact?
We put emphasis on a detailed evaluation of our work and we set ourselves ambitious quantitative and qualitative goals for each event that we measure via collecting data in our registration forms, conducting surveys, and gathering feedback in anonymous feedback forms. There are various ways in which the AVA Summit adds significant value:
People:
Organizations:
Movement:
Come join us and let us know what you think:
We welcome the participation of “effective animal advocates” at all of our 2024 events, especially those engaging in or interested in full-time work in the field. And of course, we welcome your honest feedback!
Upcoming events in 2024
Useful links
Our website: www.avasummit.com
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I would just like to second that AVA is a very welcoming conference that invites open discussion of different tactics and strategies. Impactful Animal Advocacy hosted a meetup at AVA in July 2023 where attendees respectfully shared their criticisms of EA.
An EA meetup was also held at AVA 2022 and was the most well attended meetup that wasn't on the formal program. So if you come to AVA, you will both have plenty of like-minded folks to talk with and may benefit from learning about other perspectives.
Edit 12-6-23: Corrected the post link
Thank you, Constance -- I appreciate the feedback and support!