Building The Next Generation Of Effective Advocates
When 8-year-old Emily wanted to know more about endangered species, her online search brought her to Faunalytics. She and her friend Nellie had started a club at school focusing on endangered species. Their favorite animals were snow leopards and pangolins and they were saddened to learn that for many endangered species, their biggest threats are from humans. Through Faunalytics, Emily learned about other animals that are critically threatened and ended up with a list of many species of wildlife that need help from people like her. She signed up to receive weekly emails to learn more about wildlife issues each week.
Emily is using what she’s learned from Faunalytics to talk with friends and family about endangered species, and she’s also raising money to help save them. Over time, her focus has expanded to include polar bears, pandas, and tigers. Though starlings aren’t threatened by extinction, Emily wants to help protect them too; government agencies often poison starlings when they are considered a nuisance in urban areas or farmland.
According to the Faunalytics Animal Tracker, 73% of U.S. adults think protecting endangered species should be a global priority. But only 37% feel very knowledgeable or somewhat knowledgeable on the issues. We’re proud to be helping Emily share important information to save animals threatened with extinction.
Miranda Zhang is a university student currently based in Hong Kong, and she found Faunalytics when her explorations of animal rights, ethics, and philosophy piqued her interest on the subject of veganism and privilege. She had already written about the idea of “the whole world going vegan” on her blog, The Green Mirmaid, and wanted to dive deeper. Her search led her to our Research Library, and an article considering the concept of vegan privilege. Bingo!
After absorbing the content of the article, as well as other resources, she wrote a blog post exploring the topic of inequality and veganism, and published it to her followers. Though her interest in animal issues goes back about five years, her recent interest in sharing her ideas publicly came after connecting with people who started their own charities. Considering that she herself went vegan because of a friend, sharing her ideas with others seemed like it would be a good way to connect with others and potentially change hearts and minds.
Among the broad range of research that we publish in our library, we have extensive resources relating to effective advocacy. Faunalytics helped Miranda to understand how tolerance, tone, and flexibility of ideas can improve animal advocacy, and that advocacy benefits from a variety of nuanced approaches. Since finding Faunalytics and publishing her thoughts on vegan privilege, she’s connected with others, and has thought about starting a newsletter, believing strongly in them as an outreach tool.
We’re delighted that Emily and Miranda are using the Faunalytics library to learn more about endangered animals and how to save them, and issues around vegan advocacy and how to make it more effective. If you’re a new advocate, our research library offers a wide range of material to get you acquainted with the issues that matter most to you. If you’re already an advocate, we can help you to refine your work, increase your effectiveness, and help more animals in the process. Stories like Miranda and Emily’s show how our Research Library can help you learn, craft your message, and execute your ideas.
How about you? How have you used our resources to advocate more effectively for the animals you care about – endangered or not? Please comment below or send us an email, so we can share your story too.
