How We Win
Why we need people power for Animal Freedom
Historically, movements have succeeded when their movement ecology is complete. The Suffragettes, the US Civil Rights Movement, the Indian Independence Movement, the ex-USSR Colour Revolutions, and many more have all depended on people power.
Within the Animal Freedom movement, there is a gap to complete a full ecology of social movement ‘mass mobilising’ and people-led ‘structured organising’. Our aim is to launch and lead such a grassroots social movement to change the institutions from the outside.
The Animal Freedom movement is missing the ‘outside game’ of grassroots Social Movement Building, which involves structured organising and mass mobilising.
Change happens in many ways — each approach complements others. We have:
Vegan outreach, such as vegan festivals, vegan influencers, AV, the SAVE Movement, Veganuary, etc. whose role is the personal transformation of individuals;
Lobbying organisations that play the ‘inside game’ to change the dominant institutions of government and corporations; and
Plant-based alternatives addressing market offer.
But the Animal Freedom movement is missing the ‘outside game’ of grassroots social movement building, which involves structured organising and mass mobilising.
Our Theory of Change
Animal Freedom needs everyone — there is no one ‘right way’. We believe in a full movement ecology of organisations working with different theories of change and strategies. We believe in vegan outreach, creating alternatives, lobbying, litigation, mass mobilising, and the power of people to campaign.
There is no one ‘right way’.
To achieve Animal Freedom, we need to build a social movement that engages in anti-speciesist campaigning. The Animal Freedom movement needs the structured organising and mass mobilising of local groups and ordinary people.
Structured organising involves large numbers of grassroot activists and volunteers organised at a local level and coordinated within a national campaigning network. Organising around local campaigns, they influence local populations.
Mass mobilising involves large protests, as well as large-scale boycotts, petitions and nationally organised campaigns. It targets societal level legislative change. Our approach is grounded in ‘momentum-driven organising’, a best practice methodology for combining mass mobilising and structured organising. This is the theory of change employed by Gandhi, the Colour Revolutions of former Soviet occupied states, Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and many other contemporary social movements. It involves volunteers and activists building organisations that can lead people and groups to coordinate protests and campaigns. It lays out how organisations need to nurture a movement by developing and front-loading the movement’s foundations.
An unpacking of our mission statement is available on the ‘About Us’ page on our website, and a reading list on the ‘Our Work’ page.