Faunalytics’ 2026 Community Survey Results

Author: Allison Troy | Published: July 22, 2026

Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

The yearly results are in! We present the findings from our annual Community Survey, including what you think we’re doing right, what we can do better, and our plans for the future.

As Faunalytics’ Research Director, I lead our Original Research program and set our research agenda each year. I also lead our impact monitoring efforts to measure, track, and understand how our resources are being used, and the impact our resources create for advocates and animals. While impact evaluation is something we’re always working on throughout the year, our annual Community Survey is our biggest impact evaluation project. Each year, we conduct this survey to help us understand how you’re using our resources, which ones are most helpful, and where we have opportunities to grow to better support animal advocates.

Now that we’re in the seventh year of the Community Survey, we’re also able to calculate averages and track trends over time, examining how key indicators might shift or change. This kind of long-term tracking helps us understand how the needs of advocates may be shifting, and how we can adapt to best meet those needs. Below, we present the quantitative and qualitative results, and give you a sneak preview of how we plan to make use of them this year and beyond.

Survey Overview

The 2026 Faunalytics Community Survey ran for the full month of May, including during our time at the AVA Summit in Toronto, and received 593 valid responses with 400 complete surveys (67%). This is comparable to last year’s 632 valid responses — thank you all for your feedback!

Every response is valuable to us — even or especially the critical ones that provide us with constructive feedback — but it’s also important to think about how representative the sample is. This isn’t a truly representative survey of our community because we aren’t able to sample randomly; if it were, the margin of error would be roughly +/- 4.0%. Because of this, it’s best to focus on general trends in the data rather than small yearly differences, and to assume that the extremes are overrepresented: that people with the strongest positive or negative feelings about us are most likely to participate.

Quantitative Results

It’s our mission to create and share rigorous and high-quality research, and we’re extremely heartened that a whopping 97% of respondents agreed that our work is high quality; 83% said that our work is either extremely or very valuable to improving animal advocacy, the same as last year’s results; and an incredible 94% of you said that you would probably or definitely recommend us to others. For those of you who have recommended us to others — thank you! We’re grateful for your support in growing our community of informed animal advocates, which is as easy as sharing our sign-up for email alerts.

We’re also pleased to share that our work continues to make an impact for animals and advocates: 80% said that our work has helped guide their advocacy decisions, and 74% said that it’s improved their own or their organization’s advocacy efforts. 60% of respondents said that Faunalytics’ work has helped them or their organization reduce suffering and save animal lives, a decrease from 70% last year. The average percentage of respondents who have agreed that Faunalytics helps them reduce animal suffering and save lives is 63% over the past seven years. As an organization doing indirect work, this feedback is extra meaningful to us, and we are currently working with advocates across the movement to increase the impact of our work for both animals and advocates alike. We are heartened to know that our work is being applied directly to decrease suffering and save animal lives.

The majority of respondents (73%) have used our Original Research studies, 54% use our Research Library summaries, and 35% have used our Fundamentals. Use of our Original Research has spiked in the past three years, and we look forward to adding more topics to the Original Research program.

Community Characteristics

Supporting animal protection comes in many different forms, and many of you contribute on your own time: 40% of Faunalytics’ audience is made up of employees at non-profit animal protection organizations, while 45% of Faunalytics’ audience is made up of volunteers, independent advocates, academics, and students.

Similar to previous years, the vast majority of our audience is primarily focused on animals used for food (75%). In comparison, 9% are focused primarily on wild animals, 4% on animals used in science, 3% on companion animals, 3% on animals used in entertainment, and 1% on animals used for fashion and textiles. The remaining 5% of respondents selected “other,” providing either more general or more specific answers.

Because Faunalytics bridges different types of animal advocacy, we always ask participants about their alignment with the Effective Altruism (EA) movement. Similar to previous years, our community spans the whole range of perspectives, from 27% who were unfamiliar or not at all aligned with EA to 12% whose work is completely aligned with EA. In the middle, most of our community (61%) do work that is slightly to very (but not completely) aligned with EA.

Finally, we collect (optional) demographic data about our audience, which helps us support the needs of marginalized and underrepresented advocates. Specifically, respondents shared the following details about themselves:

69% women, 29% men, 2% non-binary and other genders
19% LGBTQ2IA+ (i.e., Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Two-Spirit, Intersex, Asexual, and other identities that fall outside of cisgender and heterosexual paradigms)
13% Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color (BIPOC)
10% people with disabilities

New this year, we also asked respondents to indicate (optionally) their country of residence to help us get a sense of how global our audience is. Respondents this year live in 41 countries around the world, with 54% of respondents residing in the U.S., 8% in Canada, 7% in the U.K., 3% in India, and the remainder of the sample living in other countries including Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Japan.

Key Performance Indicators

With the exception of first-time website visitors and those who responded “no opinion/don’t know,” respondents provided the following feedback:

VALUE

97% of the sample agreed that our work is high quality.
83% thought our work is either extremely or very valuable to improving animal advocacy.
94% said that they would probably or definitely recommend Faunalytics to others.
47% of people often or always turn to Faunalytics first for help finding or conducting animal advocacy-related research.

IMPACT

80% of the sample agreed that Faunalytics’ work has helped guide their advocacy decisions.
74% said that Faunalytics’ work has improved their own or their organization’s advocacy efforts.
60% agreed that Faunalytics’ work has helped them or their organization reduce suffering and save animal lives.

KPIs OVER TIME

The graph below shows the percentage of positive values (e.g., very/extremely valuable, probably/definitely) for all KPIs from 2020–2026. Most have remained fairly similar over the past few years.

Specific Resources

USE OF RESOURCES

This year, the percentages of people who indicated using each of our main resources are as follows:

Original Research: 73%
Library summaries: 54%
Fundamentals: 35%
Research Advice section of website: 13%
Video summaries of research: 10%
Pro bono support: 12%
Customized Research Ambassador presentations or research webinar: 7%
Fauna Connections symposium: 13%

The Research Ambassador presentations and our Fauna Connections symposium are some of our newest offerings. Note that we only began asking about these two resources in 2025.

USE OF RESOURCES OVER TIME

Below, you’ll find a year-over-year comparison of the use of our resources. Most results are similar to previous years, though there are some notable patterns over time. The use of our Original Research has spiked in the past three years to rates over 70%, while the use of our Library summaries has decreased slightly for the past two years. Use of our Fundamentals has decreased in the past two years, likely because we have not published a large number of new Fundamentals, and instead have focused on updating and translating existing resources.

AWARENESS OF RESOURCES

This year, the percentages of people who were aware of our main resources are as follows:

Original Research: 82%
Library summaries: 59%
Fundamentals: 48%
Research Advice section of website: 21%
Video summaries of research: 19%
Pro bono support: 36%
Customized Research Ambassador presentations or research webinar: 21%
Fauna Connections symposium: 28%

AWARENESS OF RESOURCES OVER TIME

The figure below reveals how our audience’s awareness of our main resources has changed over the past seven years. Awareness of study summaries has shown a decrease over the past two years compared to previous years. However, reported use of the Library (seen above) was steady with previous years, and reported use of Faunalytics to “stay up-to-date on the latest relevant research” (seen below) also remains high and consistent with past years. This mismatch in results may be due to confusion over resource nomenclature (knowing the difference between our Original Research and our study summaries in the Library), and will be something we consider further.

HOW ARE OUR RESOURCES USED?

Since 2021, we have asked respondents how they’ve used our resources. Overall, a whopping 90% of our sample this year said they’ve put our resources to concrete use.

People said they’ve used our resources in many different ways, including the following:

To stay up-to-date on the latest relevant research: 84%
To improve or change advocacy techniques, tactics, or activities (e.g., outreach method): 40%
To help choose, improve, or change an advocacy strategy or intervention: 34%
To increase the credibility of advocacy efforts by using research and evidence in materials (e.g., adding facts, data, or infographics): 36%
To learn about why research and data are important: 26%
To help design their own research or impact evaluation: 26%
To help progress in an animal advocacy career or volunteerism: 18%
To improve internal governance, HR, communications, operations, or other practices: 8%
To help obtain funding or increase donations: 6%
Other ways: 10%
New item in 2025: To find new partners or improve existing partnerships: 10%

WAYS OF USING OUR RESOURCES OVER TIME

The figure below provides a year-on-year comparison of how people use our resources, keeping in mind that we slightly changed the wording of some of our indicators and added one new indicator in 2025.

First-Time Website Visitors

Visitors who reached the Community Survey via our website were asked whether or not it was their first time visiting the site. 69 first-time visitors responded. 42% of those found us through a Google search (up from 29% in 2025), 13% via social media (down from 26% in 2025), 5% from Animal Charity Evaluators, and 5% via word-of-mouth. 36% of first-time visitors indicated they found us some other way — their written responses indicated that most of these “other” sources were from AI.

70% of first-time visitors said Faunalytics is a good fit for their needs (completely or very much), an increase from 44% in 2025.
36% of people were visiting to look for research on a specific issue, 22% to read a specific article or blog post, and 17% to browse the site.
89% said they would probably or definitely visit the site again in the future.
87% said they easily found everything they were looking for, 13% with difficulty, and 0% did not find what they were looking for.

Qualitative Highlights

We love numbers and statistics, and the ones above help us understand how Faunalytics’ audience uses our work, especially when looking at trends over time. But numbers are limited. At the end of the Community Survey, respondents have the opportunity to share feedback about how they’ve benefitted from our resources and what we can do to make our work more useful. To get the full story, we always read your qualitative feedback thoroughly to get a better sense of what we’re doing well and how we can improve.

One of the most prominent themes across responses was that advocates are using Faunalytics research to move from intuition to evidence in advocacy work. Respondents described using research to refine messaging, choose between interventions, justify organizational priorities to funders, and ground strategic decisions in data rather than guesswork. For example, Ben Williamson at Animal Outlook told us:

Studies of different interventions have guided our tabling and outreach efforts. Studies of animal welfare vs animal rights approaches have guided my advocacy asks.

Another anonymous respondent stated that:

Faunalytics resources have had a very concrete impact on how we plan and prioritize our work. In particular, we have used your research to help shape our annual strategic and operational plans, ensuring that our efforts are more aligned with interventions that have stronger evidence of effectiveness.

Many respondents described Faunalytics as a reliable first stop for finding relevant existing studies and tracking new developments across topic areas. The value here was less about any single study and more about the ongoing function Faunalytics serves as a curated, trustworthy resource hub.

One anonymous respondent stated:

I appreciate knowing that there is a place where I can find updated, research-based insights and that we don’t have to fly by the seat of our pants when putting information together.

A significant number of respondents described using Faunalytics research to develop or strengthen external-facing content — from social media posts and outreach materials to donor communications, grant applications, and educational resources. Infographics and data visualizations were frequently called out as particularly useful assets. For example, one anonymous advocate stated:

Infographics — they are extremely valuable both for my own learning and to help others educate themselves. It’s so helpful to put things into perspective which is super important in animal advocacy work.

In addition, another anonymous advocate shared that:

Being able to refer to resources, data and studies in outreach, advocacy and learning materials has been helpful as people never tend to take you at your word and want hard evidence.

Beyond day-to-day advocacy, several respondents described Faunalytics playing a role in higher-level organizational decisions — including compensation benchmarking, strategic planning, geographic prioritization, and program design. This theme reflects Faunalytics’ value, not just to frontline advocates, but to organizational leaders and operations staff.

For example, one advocate stated that:

We have used your research to help shape our annual strategic and operational plans, ensuring that our efforts are more aligned with interventions that have stronger evidence of effectiveness in improving animal welfare and diet change.

Another advocate shared that:

My role is in operations; Faunalytics’ compensation study was a critical resource for benchmarking our own compensation and revising our compensation policy and benefits.

And finally, the direct support we offer via our free Office Hours program is another benefit lauded by the community. Respondents highlighted the value of direct consultation for survey design, methodology review, and research strategy — not just receiving answers, but having their thinking challenged and strengthened. Gem from Tracks Investigations noted:

Faunalytics’ pro bono office hours were particularly valuable for one of our investigators while developing background research for a global investigation into the ostrich industry … having access to experienced researchers to sense-check approaches, identify potential gaps and discuss research strategy was extremely valuable.

And an advocate from Piedmont Animal Refuge shared:

The office hours feedback for our survey design have been very helpful. The consultant helped me identify the categories of feedback we were seeking and think through how to frame our questions appropriately for the type of information I wanted.

Constructive Feedback & Next Steps

Each year, we carefully review respondents’ suggestions for improvement. We aim to pull out recurring themes as well as helpful ideas. Specific ideas require additional thought and planning, but key themes include the following:

More geographic diversity and Global South focus: As in previous years, our community is telling us loud and clear that they love the research from countries in the Global South that we share and conduct, and want to see more. The most common suggestion we received on the Community Survey was for more research focused on the Global South — Asia and Latin America in particular. For a number of years now, we’ve been emphasizing global research in our Original Research and study summaries, and now have a sizable collection of translated content on our website. Going forward, we’re continuing to strategize new ways to expand our international scope and involve advocates from traditionally underrepresented regions. Last year, we updated our research prioritization process to more heavily prioritize international work in line with our updated strategic plan — especially collaborative projects in China, India, and Brazil. So far this year, we have published two studies focused on India: The Multi-Generational Kitchen and a framework for Food Systems Advocacy In The Global South. Moving into 2027, we plan to conduct more research in India, Brazil, and China, and all of the research we conduct will be informed by advocates on the ground in those regions. We’ll also continue to translate useful resources, reach advocates around the world via our multilingual Office Hours, offer customized Research Ambassador presentations, and attend global conferences to get to know our community.
Advocates want more practical and actionable resources in a number of different formats. Several respondents expressed a desire for content that bridges the gap between research findings and on-the-ground application. This included suggestions for “how to use this research” guides, intervention playbooks, and resources tailored specifically to grassroots or smaller organizations with limited capacity. We’re already planning to expand our research resources to include more interactive and actionable offerings and will be excited to begin sharing those offerings soon. Currently, we share detailed infographics on our website; many more simple, visually appealing stats on our Instagram, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn; and increasingly include figures and infographics in our study summaries and Original Research reports.
Better content discoverability and navigation. Respondents described the Faunalytics website as rich but sometimes difficult to navigate, with content that can be hard to find, filter, or distinguish by type or rigor. Suggestions included subcategories, clearer labeling of research depth, and easier access to original source materials. Over the past two years, we’ve been continuously working to improve the website. Updated features include a clearer structure and more immediate navigation, improved search functionality, and a more user-friendly design. Based on your feedback this year, we will continue to make improvements to our website. Just this month — but after the completion of the survey — we were also thrilled to launch the Faunalytics Lens, an AI-powered research and synthesis tool that can be used to search our entire Library, Original Research studies, and other published resources on our website. The Faunalytics Lens uses our research and resources to provide synthesized, evidence-based answers to your questions, providing citations and also highlighting gaps in our knowledge where more data is needed. This tool will make it even easier for you to find relevant research that is specific to your advocacy needs.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll dig further into these suggestions and others to identify how we can put them into action. As always, we’ll update you on any changes and improvements we make.

Thank You!

Whether or not you completed our Community Survey, please know that we value your input. If you have feedback on our work, we encourage you to reach out to us year-round and let us know what you think. You can do this by:

Sending us a message on Instagram, X, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Leaving a comment on a blog post or study summary in our Research Library.
Contacting us privately through our website.
Dropping into our Office Hours (this is especially helpful if you have questions about what we do or how we do it).

We do our best to respond to every comment and email, but we request your patience, as thoughtful responses take time.

On behalf of all of us at Faunalytics, thank you for completing our Community Survey and helping us improve our work. In the fight to end animal suffering, we’re all in it together.

This year, 180 people entered our Community Survey prize drawing, so we drew four winners. Three of those four winners kindly preferred to donate their prizes to animal protection organizations, so we are happy to announce donations on their behalf to Open Sanctuary Project, Transfarmation Project, and Greener by Default. Thank you for your participation and generosity.

Meet the Author: Allison Troy

Allison is passionate about translating research into evidence-based strategies to make the world a better place for animals and people alike. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Denver, where she conducted research on emotion regulation and resilience to stress. She has authored dozens of scientific publications and her work has been used to inform evidence-based mental health interventions. More recently, Allison has used her research background and her passion for understanding human emotions to inform advocacy efforts across the U.S. by conducting research that identifies effective strategies for advocates working for global justice. She has used this research to develop messaging guides, digital resources, and trainings that have been used by thousands of advocates across the country. Through this work, she has witnessed the power of using evidence to help people successfully advocate for change in the world around us. In her role at Faunalytics, Allison is thrilled to be able to bring her love of research, writing, and community organizing to support the incredible animal advocacy efforts taking place across the globe. In her free time, Allison enjoys watching community theater productions with her daughter, practicing improv comedy, and cultivating her herbal tea garden.

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