Yep Ben is right. We did turn the tabloid coverage into further deeper coverage and were on our way to the North Star but leaned out of controversy to a degree that killed our momentum. Of course we don’t know what would have happened otherwise, and it should certainly be characterized as a “low probability bet” because trying to land media hits is inherently “hits-based”, but this was a reasonable PR strategy that our two staff who both have ample PR experience devised. I don’t think we should put much stock in our armchair PR intuitions

Knowing Matt, I’d wager he’s asking why your p(bee sentience) is so low 

Read the Rethink research in its entirety and you’ll see the section with our reflections on the findings. It explains how the research influenced our strategy, and why campaigns like this can still make sense in light of it. We care a lot about what will actually work to drive donations — that’s why we requested this piece of research be done in the first place 

Also our thousands of donors over the past 12 months. Many of them email us expressing that our compassion calculator is exactly what they’re been looking for and/or that they’ve been put off by other animal advocates in the past and find our website refreshing.

I took a ~3/4 pay cut to work in EA (and that's before accounting for the upward trajectory of my previous salary versus my static one working in EA). Most EAs I know could be earning a lot more if they worked in the for profit sector based on their education and experience.

I don't think this is the right question, as we should be just trying to encourage everyone to do more good rather than telling everyone to get to one "good enough" point and then stop. Also, being vegan is not the biggest thing someone can do for animals, so focusing our commendations on that seems like setting the wrong norm/incentive

“Are FarmKind claiming that Veganuary is one of those organisations?” — No

"I think if EA's on the forum feel uncomfortable about this, the general public is likely to take it even worse than us" -- I really disagree with this. EA's values and sensibilities are very different to the average person. Things that EAs consider horrifically callous are normal to the average person and vice versa.

Examples of the former: eating meat, keeping all your wealth for yourself, 'charity begins at home'

Examples of the latter: measuring impact and saying we shouldn't give resources to organizations that don't perform well against these measurements, donating to help shrimp rather than people, donating to help strangers overseas rather than your local community, expressing support for billionaires who give away some of their wealth

There hasn't been backlash to this campaign from average people, only EAs and animal advocates. 

Haha kayfabe is exactly right. Let's not spoil it for the fans

Veganuary seeming against it is part of the bit. These media outlets hate Veganuary and wouldn’t cover it if they thought it was what they wanted. We (FarmKind) have an announcement coming tomorrow explaining the context behind this campaign but the TL;DR is that it is not encouraging meat eating, it’s encouraging donating as another option for people who aren’t willing to change their diet, and generating coverage for Veganuary who have a harder time getting in the media each year without a new hook