How I Learned to Love Shrimp

Jesse Marks on becoming a major grant maker, The Navigation Fund and corporate campaigning

• Amy Odene & James Ozden

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Jesse Marks is the newly appointed Farm Animal Welfare Program Officer for The Navigation Fund, a new major funder in the anti-factory farming space. 

We spoke with him about his experience becoming a grant-maker, interpersonal dynamics in funding, new areas he is excited about, how the movement can improve corporate campaigning and much more. 

00:00:00:00 | Intro
00:05:37:16 | First shrimp welfare campaign ever?
00:08:48:21 | Transition to a grantmaker role
00:15:58:10 | New insights on applying for funding
00:26:40:20 | Priorities in TNF funding and why
00:35:59:13 | Youth organizing
00:48:30:21 | How to reach out to TNF for funding
00:50:23:21 | Where the movement can improve in corporate campaigns
00:55:06:08 | The importance of focus in programs
01:07:07:10 | Closing questions

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SPEAKER_02:

One thing that also stands out to me is about trying not to always follow a formula in campaigns. I do think that we have some tried and tested tactics that are well worth using again, but I worry that we then hit a point where we're just doing the same thing every time and we lose the experimentation and innovation. And I like, whenever I think about this, I think about Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals. And he has one of his roles is whenever possible, go outside your target's experience. That is a very fundamental part of why our tactics have worked in the past, because they were outside of a target's experience. But if you've done the same thing five times to the same company, that's no longer outside their experience. And you need to be thinking of fresh ways to go outside of their experience and to have the same sort of impact. And I would just say like most of those tactics were not just like in a playbook we've followed forever. Every single one of them came from innovation, experimentation, and just like taking calculated risks to see what works. And I think we need to be willing to keep taking those bets on untested tactics and new ideas. That's just like a fundamental part of campaigning.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, my name is Amy. And

SPEAKER_03:

my name is James.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is How I Learned to Love Swim, a podcast about promising ways to help animals and build the animal advocacy movement.

SPEAKER_03:

Jesse Marks is now a very popular man, being the Farm Animal Welfare Program Officer for the Navigation Fund, which is a new major funder in the anti-factory farming space. We spoke with Jesse about his experience becoming a grantmaker, into personal dynamics and funding, new areas he's excited about, how the movement can improve corporate campaigning, and much, much more. Jesse is such a thoughtful, inspiring, and down-to-earth guy, so it was a real pleasure to have him on the podcast. Hope you enjoy. Hey everyone, today we are joined by Jesse Marks, Program Officer for Farm Animal Welfare at the Navigation Fund. Jesse started at the Navigation Fund in May 2024 and prior to that he was at Animals Australia for 10 years and at Mercy for Animals for 5 years. Welcome Jesse.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks

SPEAKER_03:

for having me, big fan of the show so it's a real delight to be on. Yes, excited to have you here and you helped me with some questions for previous episodes so it's nice to have you on. First question I'd like to start everyone with is what's something you changed your mind on recently and why?

SPEAKER_02:

Really glad you asked this. I also really enjoy when you ask like what mistake have you made recently? I think it's just like very healthy for us to model that. You know, I've realized that like I have this time lag on having really valuable insights. So one that I wanted to share is something that's from a few years ago. So when I was at Animals Australia, we worked on a live animal export campaign and it was one of our biggest campaigns. And in 2011, we had this huge moment of public support. We had thousands of people turn out for protests. We had, at one point, and I wish many more people could experience this, we actually managed to shut down the Department of Agriculture's phone line with phone calls. And I think this was a moment where we had lobbyists in the room who were talking with politicians and getting a lot of valuable sort of important political strategic insights and at the same time we were trying to harness this like public energy to do more and i think in that moment there were times when we lent into trying to control the message and control the strategy because we knew what like from these insights inside the room what impact different messages could have in retrospect what i saw was i've realized is that there was just like something bigger and equally important building in terms of building power for the long term and not controlling that energy, but nurturing it. And, you know, out of that moment came a lot of new groups and new leaders, people who I think have become really inspiring heroes to me in the Australian movement. And I think we sometimes struck a good balance, but I wish in retrospect that I had been sort of more attuned to how to nurture that energy and grow that because I think those moments of the whirlwind where you have so much energy are just very important to the growth of movements.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's hard to adapt, I guess, when you have a specific goal for that campaign and other things are expanding and changing that you maybe weren't anticipating or expecting. And so you haven't planned to shift resource to support those things.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think that's very true. I hate to even admit this, but I think there were moments when we had hundreds of supporters writing to us saying, are you going to run a rally? And I was like, oh gosh, do I have to do that? We have other things that are really important. And I think like the more distance I've gained from that, the more I've sort of come to appreciate that as much as we're trying to channel public support and energy towards like highly instrumental actions that will create change, people actually want to feel some sense of ability to express themselves and feel There's a way to balance those two things that I actually think nurtures people to stay with the movement for longer instead of sort of making it a very transactional, okay, great, we've got these people, let's use their energy as much as we can to win this thing. That's something I grapple with a lot in terms of how to run campaigns.

SPEAKER_03:

Speaking of Animals Australia, I want to ask you about something I recently uncovered when we were talking was Animals Australia ran a campaign on shrimp welfare, I believe you said in 2012 or 2011. I

SPEAKER_02:

totally got that wrong. My memory is totally off. I went and had a look the other day at what the year was. It was 2017. So apologies for that.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Well, still, we think it could plausibly be the first shrimp welfare, at least public campaign that we're aware of. Can you say more about that? the campaign was and what you guys did

SPEAKER_02:

you know it's funnily enough i was talking to the shrimp welfare project people yesterday and they mentioned that there was a group in japan who has also been was working on shrimp around that time so i don't know if it's the first back then our ceo glenn esuja said animals australia was just like a font of knowledge on animal issues and i've learned more from her on like the issues in industries than probably anyone And one day we were just like in the office and she offhandedly was commenting on the shrimp industry and how they cut the eyes off the breeding females to accelerate breeding. And we were just like totally shocked. I think that at that point I thought I had seen most or heard about most things and to sort of just be so taken aback by this story. horrible new thing that had been hidden from us was very surprising. And so I think we sort of started from the question of, well, if this shocked us, can we get people to care about an animal so unlike us by sharing the story of something that's shocking and that the industry doesn't want us to know about? So one of my team members or colleagues, Amy Kidd, took on this project to essentially just test this question And we were really shocked. We were able to get thousands of people to sign a petition for calling on the industry to end eye stalk ablation. We had thousands of those people download a veg starter guide in direct response to this campaign. And so I think the answer to that question, can you actually get people to care about an animal so unlike us, is from my experience, a resounding yes. I think a lot of what made it work is thinking thoughtfully about the the framing for it. So we really sort of started from this question of like, how do you get people's attention? How do you keep it simple and not try to just say everything about an industry? How do you make it really concrete and something people can visualize? And then like, how do you tell a story that's emotion-based? If people haven't read it, then Made to Stick was a book that really influenced how I think about messaging. And they basically have a checklist that goes through those things. In retrospect, I wish that we had thought a little bit more about whether it was possible to actually get the industry to change. We really saw it as like just a test in what we could, like how far we could get people to empathize. Right. And I've just been very inspired by the people who've had this like focus strategy to change the shrimp industry over the last few years. And it's very exciting to see the momentum they're building.

SPEAKER_01:

So you've recently become program officer for a foundation giving advice millions away a year to the animal cause. And having come from predominantly campaigning over the last, as you said, like 10 years in Animals Australia, and then five in Mercy for Animals, how does it feel transitioning over to a position now funding this movement for the future?

SPEAKER_02:

It's been great. I mean, I'm really grateful to like, get to play a different role, learn new things, meet new people. I'm very grateful for the opportunity. It's sort of strange to shift from doing to just supporting other people to do amazing work. But I've been very inspired by the incredible work I've got to learn about over the last seven months or so and i think like one question for me is just like how to stay grounded in activism it's like how i came up in the movement and it seems important to me to keep some connection there whether i'm doing it myself or not

SPEAKER_03:

how do you plan on doing that out of interest still figuring it out

SPEAKER_02:

who knows if anyone noticed but when i turned up at the care conference this year I actually wrote to them beforehand and said, hey, do you need any help setting up beforehand? No one told me yes or no. And so I just came a little early and saw if I could do something to help. I don't know, put tables together or whatever. But I don't know. I probably need to figure out a better way to do it than once a year at a conference.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like I've had a strange feeling recently maybe actually everyone here can attest to this because I think when you're in a more, I've been in some like more meta roles where it feels like definitely step back from, you know, the actual doing. And then I feel like I, anytime I go to do something, it feels like because I have context now of like the global scale of work and how my resource could be best used, you know, a very like sort of EA mind in terms of how to support the space. It feels like anything that, you know, on like a national level or just like in my town or something that's like even in my country feels really small time when you're dealing with like such a global space. I don't know if you've had this feeling, but there's almost like a guilt that I would like just do something that was based in the UK rather than like constantly thinking about that global scope.

SPEAKER_02:

I've been trying to end factory farming in the entire galaxy or something like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah. It feels like very bizarre. I don't know if either of you felt that too.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. One fun thing I did recently is actually I had a meeting with my MP. I think it was actually last Friday, talking about animal welfare issues, and I actually got him to submit a question on the imports of pork that don't meet UK standards, you know, pigs that are kept in firing crates, etc. And I think that's quite a cool and empowering thing, because it's something that like, A, it's kind of like direct advocacy. And in a way, AMEA, even though it feels a bit minor on the global stage, it's actually something that you're uniquely well placed to do that, because You can't lobby a different MP or an MP in someone else's country. They just literally won't respond to you or engage with you. So I find, yeah, this kind of political advocacy is a nice way to feel you're having some impact and learn more about the process and how things work. And like Jessie said, yeah, feel a bit connected. So I agree. I find that super, super useful. Inspired by Josh Bach, no less. The king.

SPEAKER_02:

Even when you're working at a global level, My view, I mean, it depends on your theory of change, but it feels to me like even in that moment, you're generally relying on like hundreds, if not thousands of other people to contribute in some small way to making that win possible. You know, like even if it's someone just like signing a petition online, I think that they're all like, you know, making a post on some company's Facebook page or like writing, meeting with their politician, writing to their politician, making a phone call. all of those things add up to what actually wins a campaign. So I do resonate a lot with what you're saying. I mean, it's easy to just think, okay, well, I have to be working at the most meta level possible. But I don't think we could win those campaigns without all those other people anyway. And so contributing in those ways actually is very important to those campaigns. One of the challenges in the work we do is just that it is so abstract. And then it also gets like more abstract, the more meta you're talking about your work being. And I think it's like a tough balance there where you almost need to have some sort of comfort with never meeting the victims of what you're doing, like what you're doing to like, you're trying to help. For me, it's like, okay, but I think some people really like faced a challenge of like that feedback loop of like, am I feeling like, fulfilled in trying to change this very abstract thing that we know is horrible but I'll never actually see the outcome of it

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_03:

obviously you spent a long time in the the NGO space the programs advocacy space and now you're a donor and obviously that changes power dynamics and how do you think your relationship with other advocates in the space has changed since being in this new role

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I think in some cases, depends how long I've known someone as to like how much trust and rapport there is there. You know, I think like probably the thing I was most concerned about in stepping into this role, I wouldn't be able to have as honest and open a conversation with people. I think there's like this temptation for like thinking that the best option is to like portray like a very optimistic, rosy picture to funders. And yet, you know, as a campaigner, I think like, you know, I did leafleting. I ran most programs. I did grassroots outreach and then also took on senior roles in organizations. I don't think I've ever been in a role where I have not faced some challenge or felt like there's something that we could try and do better. I almost think of this as like when I've been managing people, the person who comes to me and says, everything's perfect. It's all fine. I'm like, oh God, what do I not know that's going on right now? Versus like, hey, I'm facing this challenge. Here's how I think I'm going to solve it. What do you think? Or even like, I don't know how to solve this, but I'm trying to figure it out. To me, it's quite a reassuring thing to hear from people. And I suppose I'm just trying to figure out how to be relatable and easy to feel comfortable around it.

SPEAKER_01:

I think the funders do a particularly good job of that in this space. I know Amanda touched on this briefly in her episode as well about feeling like you can be critical of your own work and we're not expecting everything to have been fulfilled perfectly. And I think actually because it probably makes a difference when the funders have been rooted in the activism at some point that you've been through all of this, you know how it feels, you know what it's like on this side. You know, you've obviously now got the insights into the really tough trade-offs for funders, particularly, you know, major donors making tough decisions about who does and who doesn't get funded. Is there something that you wish you'd known when you were head of programs, maybe applying for funding and you feel like you have new insights now to offer based on being in that funding position?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I think that it's like easy to take it personally when you don't get funding from a funder. And to feel like, okay, there must either be something wrong with me or my project or, you know, or alternatively, why don't they get this? This is unreasonable. I think I've come to appreciate just like how many great projects there are out there and how many incredible people are doing incredible work. And I think every funder is making tough trade-offs about what they do and don't fund. I think one thing I was surprised by is the extent to which once I was starting to think about funding, I started to think about not just like who is doing great work and should I fund them, but also how can we best position ourselves amongst the ecosystem of other funders so that we're not just like all doing exactly the same thing. And I think even like, being clear on what you say you don't do. And I think that often means you're having to say no to things that are really good, that you think are really good and that you think should succeed and you hope will succeed. I subscribe pretty heavily to the sort of ethos of good strategy, bad strategy, great book if people have not read it. And I think one of the things they really talk about is like trying to think about mutually reinforcing sets of actions that will sort of accelerate things as much as possible. And as a funder, I think that means like partly making decisions about not doing really cool stuff because you're trying to like prioritize and focus your funding. Fortunately, we have an ecosystem of funders who have a lot of different interests and focuses. And I'm very grateful to see all this fun stuff that I think is really awesome, but it's sort of like outside of our current scope.

SPEAKER_01:

Can you give us some context there for the Navigation Fund in terms of the scope?

SPEAKER_02:

When I started looking at the funder landscape, I thought about a few different things. One is that we're very fortunate that our funders have reasonable appetite for longer-term change and for speculative bets. And I think that there's this challenge in our space where there are a lot of opportunities where we could measure short-term returns on impact. But I think that alongside that, it really benefits the movement to be thinking about how do we build for long-term change. I think one contrast you could make here is between corporate campaigns where hopefully you see some outcome, at least a policy decision in the next, I don't know, two to six months. Yeah. And then you see the change, like maybe the policy implementation is a longer timeline. Whereas like legislation, I don't know, you might be working. The optimist says, okay, great, it's going to take us 12 months. And then like I've worked on campaigns that took 10 years or longer to win policy reform. We're in this position where we can actually invest in some longer term power building for the movement, political change, like legislative change for the movement. And these are areas that I think are really important to changing the entire system. We looked at that as one factor and thought about how do we build power for that long term and broke it down into narrative power, like how effectively are we able to influence the stories that are told about the issues we work on and how often they're told. People power, how many people are taking action and able to influence decision makers. And then political power, are we actually getting decisions made within political frameworks. And then within that, we thought about use and elite as two target audiences that we think are particularly important. But we were also thinking about how to do this, how to play a useful role in complement to other funders. So we're looking at which organizations are running awesome campaigns that other groups might, like other funders might already be funding, but how can we support those groups to build that power for the long term? And then we In terms of the sort of scope of the movement, I think that we have some room to set the movement up to be able to absorb larger funding in the longer term. And so we invested in capacity building. We've invested already in capacity building organizations to help groups be ready for further growth, as well as sort of positioning a lot of our funding where we saw a gap in the movement, where it's very hard to jump from a small to medium organization to an organization that can absorb like a multi-million dollar gift, we're like, okay, well, I think we can play a useful role between those two things and supporting organizations to sort of grow before they're ready to sort of absorb large or something. You can see our website if you want to see the rest of our strategy.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think because I think you guys are actually one of the very few funders that has your kind of priority areas listed on your website, as well as things you won't fund it, which I think is really cool. We did that kind of recently as well, just because I think it saves everyone a bunch of time and hassle. Also people probably listening into this podcast halfway through to be like, Oh damn, Jesse doesn't actually fund this thing. God damn. So hopefully it's useful for everyone.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, to be honest, we still get hitched up that it's outside of our scope and like, that's fine. I totally understand that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. But you actually want to share. So what are the things that are not in your scope?

SPEAKER_02:

At the moment, we aren't invested heavily in plant-based interventions. You mean like promoting plant-based uptake in schools? Yeah. And then individual diet change is also not one of our focuses right now. Those things might change over time if our budget changes, if we see different opportunities. But there's some really awesome projects in those spaces that I wish we could just say yes to and

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm trying to show some discipline in like, okay, setting a strategy, having focus. And so even just like putting that on a website, I'm like, oh gosh, there's so many great people who I'm like saying no to by putting this up.

SPEAKER_03:

From that book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, really the two key things I took away is, yeah, focus and coherence. I think they're extremely bullish on just... Yeah. You make the hard decision, you make some kind of guiding policy and then you stick to it and that's what delivers results.

UNKNOWN:

So I...

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, it's debatable whether we got sufficiently narrow in our scope, but we tried. It's

SPEAKER_01:

learning. It's still relatively new, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, this is our first funding cycle, so we're still learning a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

Anything else you feel like you've learned since starting your role that feels particularly poignant to share?

SPEAKER_02:

Something I've been grappling with a lot over the last couple of months is my availability to people. This was a rude shock to the new role. I think I'd went to the AvaCon Summit about a month into being in the role.

SPEAKER_01:

And you suddenly had a lot of new friends.

SPEAKER_02:

Suddenly, many more people wanted to talk to me than before.

SPEAKER_03:

It's because of your haircut, Jesse. That was why. Oh,

SPEAKER_02:

thank you. I'm glad you noticed. I appreciate it. For example, I think I... I think I managed to meet with about 40 people there over four days. And I think I had to say no to at least as many again. And every conference since has been sort of very similar where it's hard to fit in every conversation I'd like to have. And I think even beyond just the conferences... I hit a point a couple of months in where I realized I was dedicating quite a lot of time to telling people I will happily talk to them, but later, and that I needed some space now to sort of do some other stuff. That became unsustainable after a while where I was like, okay, great. I can either meet people, tell people I'll meet with them, or I can actually write a grant up and make it happen. And so I think that the last little while I've been I'm sorry, people. I've been less responsive. If you haven't heard from me, it's probably not you. It's probably just that my workload is challenging. You at some point just have to come to terms with the fact that you're less responsive than you would like to be. And you can't meet with everybody that you would like to. And then ultimately, you can't find everyone that you would like to.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, my inbox is a total nightmare. I've given up all hope on being responsive. So I also apologize to people.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't even know if like an autoresponder is the right way to go there. I thought about an autoresponder that said like, you know, I really care about personal interaction and here's why this is tough right now. I'm sorry, but no.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that would be good.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe the next time you write to me, there'll be an autoresponder.

SPEAKER_01:

Straight to and out of office.

SPEAKER_02:

There's one other thing that's actually struck me recently, what I've seen as a funder. I think they're like, It strikes me that it's quite hard to measure progress in a social movement. And I think that our movement overall has room for improvement in how we do that and then how we set goals to achieve that. And I do think that that would help funders. But more than anything, I think it would also just help us make more informed strategic decisions as a movement. I haven't quite figured out how we go about that. But I do think that that is an area that is a question in my mind that I'll be chewing on over the next year.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you're talking at the level of, yeah, movement level, organization level. So I know a few, I've seen a few useful analyses of like, cage free progress in Asia, Latin America, whatever. And it's like the combination of all the groups, but I wonder if that exists for like institutional reduction to like how many schools in Brazil have this or across Latin America? Is that kind of stuff you mean? I mean, they're

SPEAKER_02:

doing this both, right? I think that there is actually room for improvement in just how we measure progress for organizations themselves. And I'm not saying as a funder, but as someone who's been in a leadership role in an organization and also just seeing others who are setting their goals. But I also think at a movement level, yeah, there's a lot that we could be asking questions about and trying to measure more effectively.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you think we do on a global scale when it comes to that? Because funders are predominantly in the global north and trying to assess progress and goals in organizations working in Asia, as you just said, James, like South America and NASCA. How do you find trying to assess a funding application or progress in a region that is just so different and the context is so different to what you've experienced in your career

SPEAKER_02:

so far? I think this is something that's probably evolved for me over time. So I've been fortunate enough to manage teams in Australia, Romania, Canada, Brazil, Mexico. So I've seen a sort of spectrum. Every time I feel like there's a crash course in what context do I need to know in this region for it to even understand what's going on. I'm grateful that I think there is a lot of transferable teams intuitions and assumptions but there are like some that just surprise you quite often and it's very possible to set goals for a region based on assumptions that you have based on a different context and then just totally realize later that there's like some fundamental issue that you were not aware of that presents some major challenges and I think one of the ones that my colleague, Lucas Alvarenga at Mercy for Animals, really sort of woke me up to over time was thinking about countries with very large informal markets where there isn't the sort of concentration of the supply chains of food within major food companies. But wet markets, it's just very hard to trace how production gets to consumers. that has become like more and more like this burning question in my mind of like, how do we actually affect change in these, in regions like that? You know, I think Indonesia, I wouldn't quote me on this, but I think it's about 90% informal market. Mexico is about 80% informal market. And I think a lot of what we assume about like how to affect change in the West or in developed countries breaks to some extent when you start to think about these sorts of where it's like, okay, well, big food companies are not buying most of the food. If we just say our goal is like affect 50% of the largest food companies, oh, we're actually talking about a much smaller portion of the pie than we would be in like the US.

SPEAKER_03:

Is that one of the main reasons why most of your funding, I believe it's going to be prioritized in places like North America, Europe and Latin America? Is that because you just have a much better understanding of how to affect change there and... Whereas let's say in Asia, this informal market, you're just a bit more uncertain of how to make progress.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And this year we've invested most significantly in Europe. US is sort of like North America is sort of a more modest investment from us. Next year, we will be doing more funding in Asia and Latin America. Our general assumption is we know that tractability is relatively high in some key regions. So we'll invest quite significantly in seeing progress where we have confidence in tractability. And then in regions where we're a little bit more unsure, I think it's very important that we're investing resources to figure out what works. And then I think as soon as we have some really tractable solutions it'll be like exciting to scale those up

SPEAKER_03:

how much weight are you putting on tractability versus other considerations in in your funding i would say relatively high but scale

SPEAKER_02:

is also like something we're certainly considering so like i think we'll like asia is a region that will be investing funding to just sort of see what's possible and i think there's some promising projects there but um it's also just a lot of i think experimentation to see what can have an impact

SPEAKER_03:

Is it particularly in the early days of Navigation Fund? Do you want to fund things that have higher chances of working out so you can learn quicker and then maybe can get more experimental? What's the thesis behind? Let me clarify. I think

SPEAKER_02:

we're willing to take a lot of bets on new stuff. So in terms of interventions, we will be funding stuff that is more of a bet. I think what I'm talking about here is like which regions do we put the most funding into as opposed to like what interventions are we putting the most funding into? So

SPEAKER_03:

being experimental in like Europe versus being like funding stuff in Asia, is that kind of what you mean? Are you willing to take like bets in regions where you generally feel more confident?

SPEAKER_02:

We will put more resources into some regions that we think we can like make more progress in, but we will be putting funding into like Asia and China Some other regions where we're like a little more unsure of like what will be tractable, but where we think the scale is very high. You look at any of those charts of like where all of the money goes in the movement and it's very like, you know, North America is way out on top in terms of funding. So I don't think that our funding will look like a chart of where funding goes. We are trying to ensure that we're sort of funding in regions where there isn't resources as well, for sure. I would also say that one of the reasons we've gotten excited about Europe and we'll be investing more there is that I think that Europe has a very significant potential to influence the rest of the world. If we can get reforms at an EU level, I think that's very meaningful.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you think that is transferable? I think in terms of the progress, I feel like I hear more and more from groups that are trying to push cage-free legislation. they're asking for evidence. They're saying like, why is the government not moved on this? If it was government policy, then obviously we'd all transition to cage-free. And I've often asked if showing that there's been bans on battery cages in the EU and all of the ballot initiative bans and things in North America, if those examples of progressive animal welfare could influence the conversation there. And often it doesn't seem like decision makers are interested in policy or examples from the global north. Do you think that it's public perception that would change as opposed to decision makers assessing what happens in other countries and passing that across? Do you think it's just a sense of time and that information being disseminated? What do you think the impact is there?

SPEAKER_02:

There are a lot of large multinational food companies with headquarters in Europe Therefore, they have a significant amount of influence and purchasing power around how animals are treated globally. And then the EU itself is a very significant economic power. If they were to take seriously the idea of trade being a part of how they think about animal welfare, then that could significantly influence how chickens are raised in brazil or shrimp are raised in vietnam and you know i think that there's just like a lot of trickle-on effect from practices changing within the eu itself that um are less about a sort of cultural shift or like a perception shift in other regions and more about like a sort of trade shift but beyond that i think there's also just like flagship progress it's like incredibly inspiring, at least for me, to know that something's possible and to see that progress happening somewhere. Not all of that is going to be perfectly translatable into your context. I'm not going to be able to just cookie cutter the strategy from, I don't know, Czechia and put it into Thailand and say, fantastic, we're absolutely going to ban cages here. But I do think that knowing that there are some tactics that have worked, trying to figure out how you translate some of that to your context, trying to figure out what doesn't work within your context, some sense of belief that we can change things is very important for our movement.

SPEAKER_03:

I do think policymakers do look at what other countries have done to learn. So a nice example is we just had Rue and Christopher on the podcast talking about the Danish action plan for plant-based foods. And There was an event in Parliament where he spoke along with a Danish minister, the one who actually implemented that plan, who's the agriculture minister. And also there was the UK minister, Daniel Zeichner, for food and farming. And he said when he opened the event, he's like, we're always looking for new, interesting ideas on what we can do on food policy. So I'm excited to hear what the Danes have done, because it's like if they can implement it there and they're a huge exporter of pork, you know, maybe we can do something similar here. So I think there is definitely some other policy leadership effects that happen there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I totally agree. And you look back a few years to when marriage equality was something that was sort of in the air being passed in a number of countries. It's like just very hard for me to believe that there isn't some sort of cascading effect of influence from some countries taking a position on animal welfare that doesn't then just influence the at least the public perception in another country of the possibility for change. And like, I think that like this, you know, there's this idea of like portraying something in the future that seems like it seems impossible, but making people believe it is possible. And I think seeing that change happen somewhere can help you believe that could happen in your own country as well.

SPEAKER_03:

You're excited about the EU for this, let's say, policy leadership impact to being this flagship region in the world. Anything else you're excited about funding over the next year or two years?

SPEAKER_02:

This year, I was like, right, here's our whole strategy. We're going to fund everything. It's going to be fantastic. And I think like a couple of months and I was like, okay, I have a bit more than I can chew. I need to sort of take a step back and put some focus into what we're doing. So we really have only sort of touched the surface of like all of the priorities that we would like to fund. Next year, I think we'll probably do some more funding in Asia, in Latin America, the two regions that I'm very excited to explore further. I'm interested to look at aquatic animal issues and see what we can do in that space. And then we'll also start to think about like some of the key target audiences I mentioned earlier, and particularly youth. I'm like very excited to think about like see what work is out there in terms of youth engagement, youth organizing, but then also think like, well, what does an entire ecosystem that's sort of leading work in that area look like? And how do we support that?

SPEAKER_01:

Have you seen some good examples of this youth work working?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, yes, within our movement, there are some promising organizations doing that. I really like the work of New Roots Institute. I think they have a really interesting model There's a group in Denmark I chatted with recently, Gerunds Alliance, who do youth organizing there. When I think about this more broadly, how I've seen other social movements grow, and you see this sort of shift in mindset over time, what seems at times like an entire generation come out of college with like some new fresh sort of energy and perspective on an issue to me it's both a matter of like how do we shift culture over time but also like how do we develop the next engaged leadership so the animal movement i think like those two questions hand in hand uh really what i'm curious about

SPEAKER_01:

i've been thinking about this recently our daughter is nearly nine and I feel like it's come pretty quickly that this sense of like her what she thinks about the world and her like moral questions they've been doing persuasive writing at school and the question was should animals be kept in captivity so me and James are like right here we go here's all of your

SPEAKER_03:

Wait, what was that question for the whole class or just?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And they were giving like pros and cons. Well, I guess it is. But I think, you know, they're like prompting like pros and cons as in like, well, you know, often it's for very essential research and it's like health, you know, breeding programs and X, Y and Z. So, yeah, we're definitely in that sphere of thinking like, actually, if she's passionate about this topic like I don't know in the UK like what to tap into to like help spur that kind of that sense of being having a voice as a child and how do you like nurture that

SPEAKER_03:

almost the equivalent of like Fridays for Future so that was a great outlet for people in school young people to express their climate interest and passions and maybe there's nothing quite the same for animal rights yeah

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot more we could do in that space. Ask me in six months what we should be doing and I'll probably have a better informed opinion because I'll have spent some more time exploring it and thinking about it.

SPEAKER_03:

In terms of funding process, what are you thinking there? We've had a couple of conversations on doing also requests for proposals and being a bit more active and trying to either like create things that don't already exist. I guess what's your thinking there on like how do you want to create opportunities when maybe you do see a white space or? There isn't something exactly as you're picturing.

SPEAKER_02:

This year, I'm in focus has been like, okay, let's just start getting funding happening. You know, I think as a new foundation, a lot of funds like already have those existing relationships that they know that like, let's say like 80% of their grantees are going to be renewals. And so it's not as much of like screening new organizations, it's like check-ins, evaluating impact, et cetera. So this year, I think like our workload is sufficient in just like getting off the ground, building our processes and starting to build our sort of our grantee pool. Next year, I do think that we might explore a few RFPs in areas where we think that there's like white space and or just like an opportunity for something new. We've already seed funded some projects that are like relatively new, but it's not something where we've sort of proactively tried to create something. It's just that there's like someone talented in the movement who has a new idea and wants to get it off the ground. But I do think that like next year, as we see some other opportunities, we might start to do some RFPs. Two questions in the back of my mind as a new funder is how to be useful beyond just funding groups, programs. One initiative recently, and James, I just know I'm sort of speaking for you as well, and this is like working with you on co-funding some convenings for leadership in the movement to connect and build trust and co-strategize. My experience as an activist in the last five years in the US is that these sorts of in-person meetings where you can build trust and get to know people with different theories of change can be like, I think it's not too small a word to say transformative to the relationships and the impact. Actually, you both were involved in facilitating something like this in the UK, right? So I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. We've already put out some offers for that. within a few countries. And if that goes well, we might do more of that sort of funding as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'm excited about that. Yeah, so we're funding convenings in Brazil, Mexico and Pakistan in all of which are early in 2025. So yeah, I agree. I think that's a nice way to add value and maybe something like groups. No one necessarily came to us and was like, hey, can we have some money for this? But I guess like you mentioned, Amy and I ran something similar in the UK and we felt it was quite useful. And the groups who attended convenings Delta was quite useful, so we thought, why not try it in other countries? Anyway, no one owns hosting like a movement-wide convening, but maybe if they're nudged, then everyone's like, yes, of course we'd love to do this.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think that like for, you know, I was talking in the beginning about sort of appreciating the energy of grassroots activism and then like the inside game actors. To me, these sorts of convenings where you have people who are like okay, I'm here. I do direct action. I'm all about the sort of pressure tactics. And then the folks who are like, okay, well, I'm the one who meets with decision makers, bringing those sorts of folks together and getting them to sort of appreciate each other's theory of change, appreciate the sort of tactics that they use and how they can complement each other. Yeah, I think that if I look at the movement 15 years ago compared to today, it's just like, night and day the amount of like trust collaboration openness to different perspectives that i see and i definitely think more of that would be um is very beneficial do

SPEAKER_01:

you think there's any risks to those i feel like i hear sometimes that maybe this is more through like coalitions than convenings which is a word i love by the way it sounds very posh

SPEAKER_02:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

Is it a risk that it makes us more narrow because there's a sense that we would like copy or think, oh, that worked there. So let's just focus on that here rather than what might work most naturally in our setting or in our cultural setting. Is there some risk there, do you think?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, there's a risk to anything and maybe there is here. The way that we've set this up this time is that it's at a national level. So everyone should have a similar cultural context.

SPEAKER_01:

Great. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's the two risks I see, and neither of them I think are so huge that it's not worth doing. So one is that if everyone gets along, is talking regularly, you may all converge on the same ideas and strategy, and we may miss other stuff that would be worth trying. I'm not convinced that I've seen people come out of those conversations like, Oh, I've got to really adopt someone else's theory of change. It's more like, I appreciate that person's theory of change and not might not be my theory of change, but I no longer think they're insane and ruining the movement. I actually think they're like probably doing something very meaningful and beneficial for the movement. The other risk that I see if people just are not going to get along and there isn't some like intention for goodwill and seeking to understand, or if like the gap in their understanding, ideological perspectives is so large, it might do nothing to improve the situation. It might make the relationship worse. I think what I've seen like very beneficial in like some contexts is even people with very significantly different theories of change have some shared lexicon, like shared language, shared frameworks. To be honest, this is an uprising. It's a book on social movements, momentum, organizing, and the way that they talk about movement ecologies and the different roles within a movement ecology. I think that that has probably been, more than anything, transformative to getting different people in the same room who are like, oh, yeah, I've read that. You've read that. We both agree with the sort of framework. I see myself over here, you see yourself over here, but we can be friends and we can appreciate each other's approaches. I definitely think that starting from that shared understanding makes a big difference. Even if you disagree on the tactics and the strategy, knowing you've got a shared framework gets you halfway to

SPEAKER_03:

being able to see the other person's perspective. Fun fact, we're trying to get Paul Engler who wrote that book on the podcast. But like me and Jesse, he's not good at emails. So he's proving it's hard to pin down for a slot. But I hope they will have him on soon.

SPEAKER_02:

He did a presentation for, I think, Animal Liberation. Yeah, yeah. Animal Liberation Conference, that's right. Yeah, Animal Liberation Conference a few years ago. I thought that was really great. And it was interesting just hearing him talk as someone as an outsider to the movement. Some people asked him, like, what would you expect the dynamics of the animal rights movement to be? And I think he nailed it. And I think that that just goes to show that like a lot of these dynamics are patterns that you see across different movements. And once you appreciate that, you can start to appreciate like the different perspectives the movement has and different approaches.

SPEAKER_01:

We're still predictable.

SPEAKER_02:

That's right. We think we're a unique unicorn and then it turns out,

SPEAKER_03:

nope. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, it's like every movement has like pragmatist, idealist tension, right? And in our case, it happens to be around, well, one such axis is like on animal welfare reforms versus rights or other asks. But yeah, it's so predictable that basically every issue has a very similar split on pragmatism, idealism, whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I have this unhealthy tendency, or maybe it's useful to try and find a silver lining in everything. And in this case, I actually think the animal rights movement is doing really well compared to a lot of other movements at this moment. When I talk to other folks about the challenges that they face in a similar way, like, oh, wow, we've really come so far in bridging those gaps and having a more unified movement. It's like hard to talk about the animal rights movement as a whole because it's like global and it's going to be different region to region. But certainly in a lot of regions, I see more unity than ever before.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, we certainly haven't hit levels of just stop oil going into like breaking windows in the Greenpeace office, like throwing paint in their offices. So I think there's been no such incidents in our world, which is something. Not for a while anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah. So wrapping up that section on the navigation fund and your new position, is there a particular way that you like to receive applications? How does it work?

SPEAKER_02:

So people can find our strategy to see if there's like a good fit on our website, navigation.org. We have a whole section on our farm animal program, the strategy there. At the bottom of that page is an introduce yourself form. So that's like a great way to get on our radar and make sure that we know what you're doing. I'll admit right now, I am not particularly responsive to that, but I do intend to get back to everyone who has applied. And then in terms of our application, it is by invitation. So I've been meeting with a whole host of groups this year to see where we're looking to, particularly in areas that we're looking to fund. We're trying to do it by focus on one area or cluster of projects that are similar at the same time so we can think about it holistically. Um, so when we might be interested to invite you to apply really depends on like our timeline. I'll have a better idea of like our schedule for next year in February, March, and we'll have this year, we've had one funding cycle next year. We'll have three. So I think there'll just like be a lot more room and spaciousness to talk to people and explore projects next year. And then our application is like a, you know, short survey. And then we haven't, sort of internal review and let people know as soon as we can whether we're looking to fund them or not.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice. Yeah, we'll link your website with the strategy in the form below so everyone can have a look. Yeah, I wanted to move on to questions around, I guess, your past work either at Mercy for Animals or Animals Australia on campaigning and corporate engagements. Obviously, this was the bread and butter of what you've been doing for the last 15 years. I'm kind of curious, kind of high level, is there anything you think the movement is getting wrong in campaigning and corporate engagement right now? Or how do you think we can improve? I mean, first off, we're getting a lot right. You know, we're winning a

SPEAKER_02:

lot

SPEAKER_00:

of...

SPEAKER_02:

I

SPEAKER_03:

mean,

SPEAKER_02:

that's a given. I mean, I've got to say that, like, I really appreciate and I'm inspired by the sort of campaigning work that the movement does. I would say, like, the corporate campaigns are one of the most disruptive things that's happening to factory farming right now. And just as, like, one small anecdote, say 10 years ago, we had... The number of hens in the US that were in cages was over 90%. 40% of hens have been freed from cages because of corporate campaigns. That would not have happened without that pressure. So we're looking at 120 million hens a year who are no longer in cages. And then the other thing that I would say about winning is that I agree with you, James, that I read your blog a little while ago, a couple of weeks ago. I think that Winning is just like such an important part of recruiting people to a movement and unifying a movement. And that is a big part of what the value of like corporate campaigns is as well. In terms of what we're getting wrong, like we could probably like erase the rest of the podcast and just talk about that instead. Like there's so many, let's say room for improvement is how I would put it. I want to just flag that I see this as a reflection on where I could have done better. I definitely see this as the self-reflection as much as anything. We sometimes assume that people don't care about animals. And I do think that we can, as I said at the beginning, I strongly believe that in a lot of contexts it's possible to frame the issues we work on in a way that will really resonate with people and will attract them to taking action for animals. There are many times when it makes more sense to say no to more stuff and have more focus and follow through. I think when Josh Volk was on your podcast a little while back talking about corporate work and other things, he had said that the US movement got hundreds of cage-free commitments, then moved on to broiler welfare, and that we sort of lost sight of the fact that we needed to actually get those commitments implemented. Yeah. I definitely agree with that sentiment and have fallen into that trap myself. I appreciate the ambition that comes with trying to do a lot of things. But if we could channel our ambition into just doing one thing exceptionally well until it's done, put a pin in it, and it's like, okay, great. Now let's take the next thing on. I do think that there's times that that's really important.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. In the productivity lingo, there is... almost advocate to do things sequentially and like apply your full efforts to kind of one thing rather than almost switching between many different campaigns or things in this case, but actually just like really completing one big goal and then moving on to the next one. And yeah. So I think maybe that would yield better results.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I think that like one of the reasons that we have this challenge is that there, or like that this happens is maybe because we don't talk enough about where the challenges are. There are times I talk to people who are maybe like watching a program or a project from the outside and their impression of how it's going compared to the people who are working on it could just be like very different. I think like the broiler work is a good example of that where I've seen groups say, okay, great, we're going to work on broilers because it's going really well in Europe or the US. And then you're like, okay, well, I'm very excited about this work, but just like, let's pause for a moment. And I'd love to chat to you about like, The challenges that the movement has faced in the US and trying to make this happen or the Europe, like talk to you about like how we got stuck in a campaign for a while in this country or what have you. It's hard to create the right forums to have those conversations about challenges that gives people the ability to like be open and transparent and still believe it's possible to win and still be committed to that. But also just give that context to other campaigners who might be debating, should I take on this project as well?

SPEAKER_01:

What responsibility do you feel like, I guess, going back to your funder hat? I feel like often, like there was definitely a couple of years ago, groups started getting funding for fish work. So then it was like, oh my goodness, like we're all going to navigate towards that. There's money there, there's funding there, that's exciting. We could get this, you know, hire new staff and work on a new campaign. And I think that did drive a lot of people to move away from maybe focusing solely on hen stuff and it was like expanding into other species and areas. To what extent do you feel like funders can control that sense of focus and trying to only stick to working on a limited number of programs? I

SPEAKER_02:

think there's an important role for funders in that, for sure. I have told more than one group that I would be excited to see them narrow their focus I'm trying to strike a balance as a funder in being very honest with our thinking and what we're excited about, but also knowing that I don't have the full context to that situation.

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_02:

don't know. There's times I've been pleasantly surprised by what someone's been able to, or like a group's been able to achieve in an area that my intuition was clearly off. At the very least, I don't want people to take on new stuff because they think I want them to do everything. And then there are times that I also may say, like, I think here's some contexts that I've seen from this other situation where you may or may not be aware that like, this was really hard in this other context. I want you to like, I want to just be a helpful conduit for information that helps you make better informed strategic decisions about what you do in your situation as well.

SPEAKER_01:

And do you have a recommendation for how to share those failures that we spoke about or those challenges? Because I think often as well, we can't do that in a public forum because we don't want to say to the industry, hey, we're like really struggling on this issue. Like, don't worry. We're like, it's all gone to shit behind the scenes. Like, how do we have, is that a part of these convenings maybe where there's like, there is this shared knowledge and this shared sense of the challenges as well?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I wholly agree with that. I think that like in person, building trust, having those relationships, being able to know who to reach out to for advice and then just like having forums for groups to sort of come together and talk about these issues together is,

SPEAKER_03:

Do you think it's preferable rather than, let's say a group that's working solely on corporate welfare for hens rather than expanding into a fish welfare program, do you think it's actually better to fund that work at a new organization? Do you think that would be, that allows them to basically have more focus whilst also working on more important issues?

SPEAKER_02:

Sometimes... Possibly. Let me sit on offense for a second. I think probably in some cases that is true. We have a lot of campaigners in the movement who have sort of extensive experience working with the same food companies. They know those relationships. They know where the pressure points are or like how, like what has worked in the past. It's hard to put a value on like that expertise and how much that can help just accelerate something, accelerate a new area of work. At the same time, I think narrowing the focus for the work of anyone can be very helpful. We should probably just need to think way up in all of that is coordination, because I do think that coordination is a pretty critical part of this work. If you have multiple groups who aren't connected, who don't have relationships and haven't got trust, all trying to work on the same issue. And I do see this sometimes happen. And then they aren't aligned on what they're asking for. And they're each sending a different message to the company. And they don't even know how much contact that company is getting from other activists in the space. To me, I think that's like one of the worst case scenarios where we can't actually get a coherent outcome out of companies because they're hearing different things from different people. I do think that there's like, potential for new groups to be working on some of these issues and for other groups to stay focused on the project that they're already working on but i think where that happens we probably need some support on like accelerating the campaign training for those new groups and networking them so that they have some alignment and coordination and agreement on the asks and then i think it's also just really important that we have some crossover with those who are working on other issues so that we don't have five different asks going to exactly the same decision makers all at the same time. That's probably just as bad as multiple asks on the same issue is. I think there's a way to sort of have these things happening in tandem and with some coordination. Do you want to get back to your stuff on what movement's getting around on campaigning?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I worry about that framing, especially as a funder now. I'm like, oh, everyone sucks. Everyone's at home sweating and biting their nails like, shit, is he going to call out my

SPEAKER_00:

program?

SPEAKER_02:

With love in my heart and having made these mistakes myself and just wanting to see us continue to grow and improve as a movement. I think that one thing that also stands out to me is about trying not to always follow a formula in campaigns. I do think that we have some tried and tested tactics that are well worth using again. But I worry that we then hit a point where we're just doing the same thing every time and we lose the experimentation and innovation. And whenever I think about this, I think about Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals. And one of his rules is radicalism. whenever possible, go outside your target's experience. That is a very fundamental part of why our tactics have worked in the past because they were outside of a target's experience. But if you've done the same thing five times to the same company, that's no longer outside their experience. And you need to be thinking of fresh ways to go outside of their experience to have the same sort of impact. And I would just say like most of those tactics were not just like in a playbook we've followed forever. Every single one of them came from innovation, experimentation, and just like taking calculated risks to see what works. And I think we need to be willing to keep taking those bets on untested tactics and new ideas. That's just like a fundamental part of campaigning. This focus on like building power for the longterm, every, almost every campaign I think has the potential to really recruit people and retain people. Um, and a lot of it's about how you approach it. And if we go into a campaign with this very transactional thinking about our supporters and like, what can we get out of them and not also thinking about what can we give them? And look, we have something like very meaningful to give people, particularly in a world where they, like, I think a lot of people's feel this sense of and powerlessness to like global events, um, in this moment and there's times I do. And like our gift is that like we can give people a sense of agency and control and like a belief that they can have a meaningful impact on the lives of others. And honestly, like I just can't think of something more meaningful to give to people. And I think when you go into that relationship with your supporters thinking, what do they need in this moment? How are they feeling? It's definitely possible to go too far in that direction and never actually leverage that sort of attention and energy for social change. But holding intention, like how do we need them, but also how can we give something meaningful to them that keeps them wanting to come back and engage in this work is something I think we could calibrate a bit more in our campaign as a movement.

SPEAKER_01:

Feels like a really nice callback to the, yeah, one of your first points about like having this autonomy over decision-making. I wonder if some of that's been born out of the more kind of divisive way that we live now, very black and white, very like one side or the other. And it's all, I feel as though, unless someone's in the cause, we often just see them as like the enemy all in one group, whereas the people will be on the scale in so many different ways. like people would class themselves as an animal lover. So if they're already there, like that's only a couple of nudges. Like we were all there, right? Like unless you were born vegan, like unless your parents raised you vegan, like we've all been on what some people would now class as like the enemy, the other side. So I think that is super important to remember that people might be quite close to thinking, to taking action and joining in the things that we're asking them to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, and suddenly when I've seen people organizations and our movement grow most significantly and have a very large and engaged base, I would guess most of those people are not vegan. They're not vegetarian. They just like self-identify as an animal lover. And to me, that's like amazing. That's such an excellent starting point. And if you start there and have people believe that they can do something meaningful for animals and then find themselves surrounded by other people who they see as like them. Oh, you take action for animals as well. You're an animal lover. Oh, you don't eat them. Oh, wow. Cool. I could do that. This is like very powerful effect in like growing a movement around that sense of like, I care about animals.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think if we don't, build like more public support then we're just going to hit a ceiling and what we can achieve through its systemic change and then like also not be able to protect the change that we've already achieved

SPEAKER_03:

one very cynical take i heard recently from someone is that the corporate engagement side of things i just talking with companies is actually a waste of time because You know, the companies, they love to meet with you. They love to waste your time. They can almost like tick, oh, yes, I met with this NGO. And they're like, yes, all these things sound really good. And they're going to go in, not actually do anything. And this person thought is like, really, you just need pressure. Pressure is the only thing that actually makes companies move. There's like zero incentive for them to do anything you want, unless it's in their interest, which it usually isn't. What's your take on this question? Like, how much do you think we should be spending of our resources on It's campaigning and pressure. It's outside game approach versus, you know, meet with the companies and a bit more collaboratively try to get them to make progress on animal welfare. I

SPEAKER_02:

think we need both. And I think this sort of ties into what I was saying earlier about appreciating the different approaches that different people have. You know, I think at its best, inside actors can build a strong relationship and trust and hold a decision maker's hand through making changes. Or alternatively, read the room to know what will influence them to make a decision. And then I think at their worst, I worry sometimes about inside actors becoming too close and uncomfortable with putting pressure on decision makers when it's actually needed. And I've seen that. I've experienced that myself. It's very hard to sort of build a relationship with someone and then think okay this person needs to feel some pressure and then i think on the outside like at its best we couldn't like use pressure on decision makers or incentives external incentives on decision makers to really influence their decision making and at its worst that can just get incredibly impatient ineffective because there's no insights as to like what the decision maker is actually thinking or what will influence them and so like unless you have someone in the room who's building those relationships sometimes it's like very hard to know whether anything you're doing on the outside is actually working and so I think like if those two can work well together that's the perfect scenario and either one by itself like sometimes works and sometimes just falls flat

SPEAKER_03:

nice well We don't want to take any more of your busy time, especially if that means less money is getting out the door. So we need to actually finish this podcast immediately. So Jesse, if you can indulge us for a bit longer, what's a bit of news that you're grateful about or excited to hear

SPEAKER_02:

recently? We've been talking a lot about corporate campaigns. So like two big wins that I've been very excited about in the last month or so is Lidl Germany. agreeing to adopt a broiler welfare policy. I mean, this was massive campaign that took inside actors, outside actors, and a whole coalition to pull off. And I think it could really unlock progress in Europe. And then CUPE in Japan, I think is like a very similar story where this is the largest egg purchaser in the country, like larger than even McDonald's. It's like 10% of Japan's egg. So I'm sure it's going to be huge. Like a mayo company. So it's not surprising that like they use a lot of eggs. And so I think this is, again, just like a really good example of like we needed inside negotiations. We needed outside actors to put pressure on the company. And again, I think this could unlock a lot of momentum in Asia on the cage-free work.

SPEAKER_01:

You've made reference to lots of really great books throughout the podcast, which we will link in the show notes. Is there anything else you want to plug that's been particularly instrumental in your journey?

SPEAKER_02:

I've rattled on about power building. If anyone is actually invested in digital power building, Karen Nilsen, who is both my partner and was the communications director at Animals Australia for a very long time. When we left, Animals Australia sponsored her to write a blog and a book that offered for free to the movement that basically capture Anything I could tell you about digital power building, she has said better. And it sort of reflects a lot of our experience in building that power at Animals Australia. I think one of the best documentaries I've ever seen on campaign strategy is How to Survive a Plague. This is about the AIDS crisis in New York and ACT UP and some other players who were basically pressuring the government to do something about it. It's such a good example of how inside actors and outside tactics can play well together and are essential to making progress. I think it just shows the spectrum of interventions really well. And it's just incredibly moving as a story. And then Beautiful Trouble is one of my favorite websites for campaign strategy and theory. And they have a toolbox on their website where you could dig into case studies from other social justice movements. theory, principles, and I just like browsing it occasionally. I find it very useful for inspiration.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, nice. I can confirm Karen's stuff was super, super helpful. Like we've just been referencing a lot of Karen's blogs to clients that we work with. It's not only like obviously baked in Karen's experience, but also just super helpful. easy to adapt and to try and to test and actually implement into your digital comms like now. We will for sure link all of those. I think they are incredibly helpful.

SPEAKER_03:

Last question. So how can people get more involved in your work or follow you or the Navigation Fund? So is there, do you guys write blogs and website? Are you on social media? How can people stay updated with what you guys are doing?

SPEAKER_02:

Certainly jump onto navigation.org if you want to learn more about our work. What I didn't mention is we have four other program areas. And so if you're interested in sort of like what we're doing beyond the farm animal space, you can certainly check out those, like what we're doing in those other spaces as well. We don't have a blog at the moment. We may do in future. I suspect that we may start. Thanks, James. I appreciate

SPEAKER_03:

it. Well, praying. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

maybe next year we'll launch something where we start to sort of share some thoughts. And then beyond that, I mean, you can introduce yourself on our website and I'm just like, keep doing awesome work. There's so many amazing people out there and I'm just grateful for what they do for animals and keep inspiring other people to believe that they can change the world as well because that's how we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. Thanks, Jesse. I'd also recommend if anyone sees Jesse at a conference to talk about his circus performing, which we had a little chat about prior to starting the podcast, which I feel like is incredibly interesting. So yeah, ask Jesse questions about that next time we see him.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you might wonder why they put a clown in charge of the program over here.

SPEAKER_01:

But yeah, honestly, Jessie, thank you. It's been really, really interesting. I think similarly, as I said to Amanda's episode, I think we have to have these conversations with funders to talk about the openness and thoughts behind how the funding is disseminated. I think it's really helpful for applicants. I know we've heard from people that have found it incredibly useful. So thanks equally for your openness during the episode. I hope that people find their applications easier and just get it a greater sense of what the Navigation Fund is looking to fund and excited about now.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks for having me. And look, I know it's like I've been on the other side. I know it can be intimidating to talk to a funder, but we're just fallible people. Happy to chat.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.