Faunalytics’ Plans & Priorities For 2024

By JLRiedi @ 2023-12-13T16:57 (+47)

Faunalytics’ mission is to empower animal advocates to effectively end animal suffering. As such, what advocates think about our work is of the utmost importance. Feedback like the quote above is especially rewarding, and all the more motivating as we plan for another productive and informative year ahead on behalf of animals and advocates alike. 

In 2024, we have big plans to conduct more Original Research than ever before, expand our Library in exciting new ways, and build upon the research support services that we provide for the movement. We’ll be assessing opportunities to increase our impact, and we’ll be working hard to live up to our status as an Animal Charity Evaluators Recommended Charity. Read on to learn all about our upcoming plans, and how you can help us succeed in our mission. 

A New Original Research Agenda

Faunalytics is thrilled to share that our 2024 Original Research plans will support many different advocacy types and tactics. We’ll cover topics including political advocacy, youth advocacy, global advocacy, equity and inclusion, consumer behavior, and capacity building. In 2024, we plan to hire a Projects Manager to help our team continue to be as efficient as possible as we bring more and more research to the animal protection community.

In-Progress Studies Coming Soon

• Collaborative Opportunities with Environmental Organizations: We’re working to identify environmentalists’ perspectives on potential opportunities for, and challenges of, collaborating with animal advocates.
• Benchmarking Compensation in the Farmed Animal Protection Movement: Salary transparency and benchmarking are important tools for a fair and equitable movement, and this study will provide insights to support advocates and organizations alike.
• The Impact of Humanewashing on Consumer Behavior: Our simulated shopping experiment will shed light on whether humanewashing helps consumers justify their consumption of animal products.
• Conservative Political Values with Respect to Animal Advocacy: We’re investigating ways that U.S. animal advocates can potentially leverage conservative political values to make headway for animals.
• International Advocacy Strategies and Needs: We’re uncovering the reasons why animal protection groups in different regions and circumstances choose particular approaches to advocacy, and what resources they would need in order to expand their efforts. 
• Chicken and Fish Substitution Meta-Analysis: Are consumers giving up one kind of animal product only to eat another? We’re working with Rethink Priorities to answer this question and to help animal advocates navigate this issue.

2024 Upcoming Research Agenda

• Effective Communication with Legislative Staffers: We’ll interview political staffers about their preferences and recommendations for communication, reporting on the most effective strategies with input from advocates who have engaged with legislative teams successfully.
• Voter Response to a Pro-Animal, Anti-Subsidy Candidate: With a focus on the U.S. and Brazil (high-impact, highly subsidized), we’ll present hypothetical candidates in a real election context to better understand voter response. 
• A Case Study of the Impact of Humane Education & Leadership Training: In collaboration with New Roots Institute (formerly FFAC), we’ll examine the long-term impact of their humane education leadership program.
• Fostering A Pro-Animal, Socially Aware Gen Z: We’ll conduct focus groups to better understand Gen Z’s current social and/or environmental concerns, and explore areas for advocates to pursue engagement (e.g. education, career, lifestyle).
• Balancing Inclusivity with an Animal-Oriented Mission: In partnership with Dr. Ahmmad Brown of Northwestern University and EBDI Consulting, we’ll help identify how organizations can thread the needle of having a clear mission identity without excluding people in a way that reproduces systems of oppression. 
• How Global Policy Affects Factory Farming in LMICs: We’ll review policies of the World Trade Organization, World Bank, etc. for gaps that are allowing and/or encouraging the growth of intensive animal agriculture in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
• Talking about Plant-Based Products and Veganism in Southeast Asia: Examining existing plant-based terminology and rhetoric in Southeast Asia, we’ll identify strategies for countering common beliefs, talking about alt proteins and diet, etc.
• Social and Animal Movements in Southeast Asia: We’ll work with social and non-farmed animal groups in Southeast Asia to map social movements,key organizations and opportunities for collaboration and funding.

An Expanding Research Library

Faunalytics was established in 2000, though at the time, much of our work was focused on research conducted on behalf of other organizations. Over time we realized that an self-guided research agenda would have a greater impact on the movement, as would a database of existing research that everyone – not just academics – could access and benefit from. In 2007 our Research Library came to life, and since then we’ve added over 5,300 study summaries and resources to this treasure trove of data, covering nearly every animal advocacy topic imaginable. In 2024 we plan to hire a Content Manager to help us bring our Library to even greater heights.

The Library You Know and Love

• Faunalytics will continue to grow our Library, adding four new external study summaries and one blog each week to our collection. Our blogs are a unique mix of Faunalytics-authored content, as well as guest contributions from a variety of experts in animal protection and academia.
• 2024 will also bring new visual resources, including new factsheets, Faunalytics Explains videos, and Faunalytics Fundamentals. We’ll also make crucial updates to the older editions of our Fundamentals series to ensure that these resources stay relevant and reliable to the advocates who depend on them.
• In the past Faunalytics has published in-depth analyses and infographics summarizing secondary or external datasets, such as our Global Slaughter Statistics and Charts and our Wildlife Imports analysis. Now that a new Data Analyst and Visual Coordinator has joined our team, we’re excited to bring you even more of these important resources.

Plus Some Exciting New Features

• Faunalytics.org is getting an update! Next year we’ll launch our new site, which will feature new search features and landing pages to make it even easier to find the data you need to be as effective as possible. 
• One of the key aspects of our Library is relevance in a contemporary context: we summarize studies and reports that are current (often published within the last 6 months to a year) and avoid studies that may be outdated. However, there are many major reports, journal articles, and books that have been pivotal to the animal advocacy movement. Moving forward, we plan to undertake a new initiative to populate the Library with historical research and publications relevant to advocates, whether as foundational texts, or as materials that can provide a longitudinal view of a given issue.
• We also plan to explore the expansion of our Library by scoping several new wings: the Visual Hub, the Training Center, the Investigation Library, and the Movement History Wing. The rollout of these initiatives will be done through a process of visioning, prototyping, and test deployment, before ultimately being launched to the public. We’re excited to explore these possibilities and bring new content collections to the movement!

A Commitment to Supporting Advocates

Faunalytics’ Original Research and Research Library are vital programs, but the Research Support branch of our work is just as important. Through resources like our Office Hours, Research Advice hub, ambassador presentations, and annual symposium, we’re able to help advocates understand how use research in an active way. By directly supporting hundreds of organizations in our movement, we help advocates apply data to their campaigns and strategies.

• Our free, one-on-one Office Hours sessions are currently available to advocates three times a week, in languages including English, Spanish, French, and Polish. In 2024 we’re going to add two new Office Hours time slots, as well as limited support in Mandarin!
• In addition to our Research Advice hub and glossary, Faunalytics has begun providing research support to the Impactful Animal Advocacy Community, which we’re excited to continue in the year to come. We’ll also create a new webinar for academics on writing for general audiences. 
• Two years ago we launched our Research Ambassador Outreach Project, where we proactively reach out to animal organizations and university programs to offer free, customized presentations about how research can support their work. In 2024 we plan to offer new “201” presentations so that we can help advocates dive even deeper into the data.
• Fauna Connections is our annual, virtual research symposium where we bring advocates and academics together, united in our shared goal to end animal suffering. Save the date for this free event where advocates learn all about the latest research and how it applies to their advocacy. Fauna Connections returns on September 19, 2024!

An Eye on Our Impact

At Faunalytics we pride ourselves on not only advocating for data-driven decision making, but being data-informed ourselves. We use a variety of surveys and tools to help us gauge and improve the impact of our research and resources, including our annual Community Survey, Office Hours survey, Ambassador Project survey, Fauna Connections post-event survey, and a variety of quantitative metrics using tools like Google Analytics.

In 2024, we plan to take it a step further. We’ll be making improvements to our Impact Center, adding six-month follow-up surveys to some of our programs to measure real use of our support, and in particular, we’re finalizing research to help shape our efforts in the year ahead.

We’ve also commissioned an external research firm to work with us on a study investigating research and data as tools in animal advocates’ decision-making. We wanted to better understand what factors promote a transition from organizations’ awareness of research to use of that research. There are two key goals of this project: First, to identify ways to increase the use and impact of research on advocates’ decisions, and second, to provide recommendations to advocacy groups and researchers about how to improve knowledge translation pathways to achieve that impact. We’re excited to announce that this research – and the actions we’ll take from its findings – will be shared in early 2024.

A Request to Make It Possible

According to our review by Animal Charity Evaluators, Faunalytics is in a strong position to use charitable donations effectively: ”We estimate that Faunalytics could effectively use $1,000,000 in additional donations (beyond their projected revenue) through 2025. With that funding, they plan to conduct and share more research, provide data-driven resources, and offer animal organizations greater support in conducting their own research. By supporting Faunalytics, you play a crucial role in helping them achieve their plans and creating a better world for farmed and wild animals.”

Help us transform the animal protection movement. Your donations, ideas, and involvement in our work are what make our capacity-building research and resources possible. Thank you for believing in our shared vision that effective animal advocacy truly can change the world for animals.

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