Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan
and today I want to ask you, which do you think
is the most effective animal charity out there?
The one that has moved the animal rights movement
forward the most? Well, for the last 12 consecutive
years, there is one animal charity that has been
evaluated and recommended again and again and
again by animal charity evaluators and its name
is the Humane League. Have you heard of them?
I think of them as the smart kid of the class
always getting an A+. That got me curious. Why
has it been deemed such a successful charity?
What explains their success? To get some answers,
I have with me none other than the CEO of the
Humane League, Dan Shannon. Dan and I discussed
among other things who is his favorite employee,
does he think Big Ag spies on his nonprofit,
the secret agenda of the welfare reforms he is
passing, and how he takes care of the mental
health of his employees. Check the episode notes
for a link to connect with the Humane League.
And as always, thank you so much for listening.
Follow or subscribe to the show and don't miss
next week's 100th episode. Share the episode
with the vegans you know. Let's shed light on
the important work of the Humane League. Thank
you. So last Wednesday, the Science of Activism
episode was about the animal charity Evaluators.
and they described their list of 10 recommended
charities. And I looked the Humane League up
and discovered that you were part of that list
since forever, since the creation of the Animal
Charity Evaluators initiative. And so I guess
my first question for you is, what explains how
efficient you are at doing progress? Yeah, we're
delighted to be named for the 12th year in a
row very privileged and honored to be a part
of the list I think Our work is cost -effective
by nature. And I think that's one of the things
that animal charity evaluators looks for in us.
And it's cost -effective by nature in that our
core theory of change at the Humane League is
changing institutional policy to eliminate the
worst abuses of farmed animals. So particularly
corporate policy and then public policy. And
when we're working in that way, right, individuals
like you or me, we can make decisions in our
lives that might impact dozens of animals, hundreds
of animals. I've been vegan for almost 30 years.
Maybe I've affected a thousand animals with my
personal choices. But companies can make decisions
that affect millions of animals at scale. And
so when our work is about applying public pressure,
activist pressure, primarily to companies, to
get them to make policy choices that eliminate
the worst abuses of farmed animals in their supply
chain, with relatively little effort, And I don't
want to undervalue the very important work folks
on my team do. It is hard work. But we can make
changes to corporate policy that affects animals
by the millions. And with that formula, I think
we can be very cost effective with the number
of animals lives that we can improve. phone calls,
meetings, and negotiations. Of course, we will
often have to go to a public campaign, a public
activist pressure campaign, if companies aren't
willing to make changes through dialogue and
negotiation alone. But the majority of change
that we make is actually just through dialogue
and negotiation, which leaves us being very cost
effective, which is, I think, one of the things
that animal chariot evaluators has really valued
in our work. Amazing. Yes, hard work. but also
expert work, you know, I would not know where
to start, you know, in order to make a corporation
receptive to my message of compassion for animals.
And so let's talk about this. Starting with how
do you decide, you know, which corporation to
target? So we have a large research team at the
Humane League that does extensive research to
understand where our best leverage points are
with the industry. And that looks a couple of
different ways. One, it looks at scale of animals
impacted by supply chains. As you can imagine,
most companies are not publishing, oh, we have
six million hens living in cages in our supply
chain right now. We have to do digging and research
and get into industry publications and government
reports to really be able to construct a picture
of what corporate supply chains and industries
look like. So a lot of research goes into understanding
which are the companies that are abusing the
most animals in their supply chain, what regions
of the world. are those concentrated in, et cetera,
so we know who are the biggest targets to go
after. A second stream of research is around
then sort of how feasible it is for companies
to make the kinds of changes that we're advocating
for. So we often advocate, we primarily advocate
for companies to move from using cruel battery
cages, right, where you've got four to six egg
-laying hens living in a wire cage the size of
a file cabinet drawer for their entire lives.
to what we call cage -free environments. We should
be clear that cage -free environments are also
not great from an animal welfare perspective,
but they do represent a meaningful improvement
over battery cages. But then we also try to understand
how feasibly can companies make that change as
their existing supply in the regions of the world
that they purchase from, where they can actually
get access to cage -free eggs for their supply
chain. So we look at scale, we also look at tractability,
whether or not a company can actually do what
we're asking them to do. And then the third thing
that we look at is the vulnerability of companies
to public pressure. Different companies have
different levels of tolerance for how much consumer...
Pushback they're willing to absorb right companies
that have had a lot of other kind of issues or
campaigns launched against them and they have
been unresponsive to them maybe more likely to
not do what we're asking, right? Whereas companies
that have a proven track record of responding
to activist demands are more likely, right? And
so we try to understand how likely is a company
to say yes to what we're asking for. So it's
sort of the combination of those three factors
that our team research is kind of independently
of one another, that that informs our campaign
strategy and who we choose to go after. And going
back to that strategy of being cost effective.
I guess the corporation needs to be like a big
corporation in order to have a greater impact.
You won't be targeting like the local butcher
shop. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we try to go
after companies that both, you know, are abusing
animals by the hundreds of thousands or the millions
in their supply chain where we can create the
most impact. And also where a win with one particular
company can help create progress in industry.
overall. To give you an example of what I mean
by that, here in the U .S., where I'm based,
we are currently, over the past 20 years, you
know, THL is celebrating its 20th anniversary
this year, and over the past 20 years, the U
.S. egg -laying industry has gone from, you know,
maybe one to two percent cage -free, right, in
terms of the number of hens that are living outside
of caged environments, to now at about 45 percent.
just over about 20 years, which is meaningful
progress over a relatively short period of time.
What we're left with here in the U .S. is primarily
the grocery industry. So most of the 55 % of
hens that are still living in caged environments
are part of the grocery industry supply chain
that they're the largest retailer and seller
of eggs as an industry in the U .S. And we have
made very little progress, if we're being honest,
in the grocery industry, right? So when we look
at target selection for an industry like grocery,
where we're trying to get in the door and really
create is that we need to find a campaign that's
winnable enough so that we can get a company
to be the first to make this kind of change in
their industry. Because often companies are very
reluctant to be the first company in their industry
to want to make any kind of change, whether it's
animal welfare related or anything else. But
once you have a proof point that you can point
to, then a lot of the other victories become
a lot easier, right? Because you're not asking
them to be the first to do it. So along with
other coalition partners and allies in the movement
that we work with, we've identified a company
called Ajo Del Haze, which is a grocery company
that owns a bunch of regional grocery change
in the US, Stop and Shop, Food Lion, a bunch
of other ones. They're not the biggest player
in the industry. I believe they're the seventh
largest grocery chain. But we believe they're
the one that would be the most susceptible to
public pressure and the most likely to concede
to our demands. So our strategy is if we can
get this company to go first and go 100 % cage
-free in their supply chain, the bigger companies
will follow suit. Right. So campaign target selection
is often about kind of what would the domino
effects on the rest of the industry that these
companies operate in as much as it is the individual
scale that that company is operating on. I want
to go back to talking about what kind of changes
you're asking those corporations to implement.
You mentioned, you know, going cage free. Now,
is there an underlying I guess another agenda
to, you know, asking to those corporations to
make that change, you know, so we're not only
doing it for, you know, the welfare of animals,
but also with a bigger strategy, long term strategy
of maybe making it more costly to exploit those
animals. Yes, it's exactly what you said. I think
there are There's several ways that I think about
this. As I said, I think we have to be realistic
with ourselves that even a company, even a leg
-ling hen going from a battery cage to a cage
-free environment, this animal is still suffering
and is still living a life of misery. We have
to be realistic with ourselves about that. It
is both meaningful progress and a significant
improvement and yet far from ideal or what I
think any kind, decent person would think would
be appropriate for an animal to live in. So we
have to be clear -eyed about that. But as you
said, I think there are two additional benefits
to doing these kinds of corporate welfare campaigns
that are beyond the meaningful suffering reduction.
I think the meaningful suffering reduction is
enough in and of itself. I want to be clear about
that. And I think it accomplishes two long -term
objectives. So when we talk about the worst abuses
of factory farming, even through the lens of
ending them, we are increasing people's awareness
about how animals suffer on factory farms. And
I think the more that we talk about the cruelty
of this industry and the more that we shine a
light on the reality that the industry spends
millions of dollars, billions of dollars to prevent
people from understanding, the more we build
a shared collective understanding that factory
farming is bad for animals. And I do think that
that moves us closer to a world where no animals
are being raised and killed for food, which is
the world that... We all, well, those of us who
are listening to this podcast, all of us would
like to live in. So I do feel like it helps advance
the cultural saliency of the issue of factory
farming and does cause people to think differently
about their relationship to animals raised for
food. And then what you said, I think it's the
second way that I think about it, which is that
it just makes, it shrinks the factory farming
industry's ability to operate. I think that every
industry has to operate within what I call a
box, right? A box that's kind of defined by kind
of three things. So what is financially viable,
right? These are companies that are trying to
make money. What's legally permissible and what's
socially acceptable. What customers and consumers
will be willing to tolerate, right? And I think
corporate welfare campaigns meaningfully reduce
the size of the box that the factory farming
industry has to operate in. I think it demonstrates
to the companies directly that there is a limit
to the amount of suffering and abuse that customers
and consumers are willing to tolerate, including
people who are not vegetarian or vegan, right,
which is. obviously the overwhelming majority
of the audience and the customer base for the
grocery industry, for instance. And it does,
you know, to your point, it does increase the
cost of operation and reduces profit margin within
the factory farming industry. It is more expensive,
right, to raise egg -laying hens in cage -free
environments than it is caged environments. the
industry overplays how much more expensive it
is. And actually most of the markup at retail
is actually profit for the industry, right? They're
sort of the humane tax, right? Where they mark
up the price of the eggs. But the fact is that
it does, I think incrementally each of these
campaigns. shrinks the box that the factory farming
industry can operate within. I don't think that
corporate campaigns are going to bring us in
and of themselves to the end of factory farming
over any time horizon. I think more other work
is needed. We need public policy reforms to enshrine
into law protections for farmed animals. And
of course, we do need behavior change at scale
and a significant reduction of the consumption
of animal products. At the Humane League, we
try to be very focused in our work. And going
back to the idea of cost effectiveness and sort
of why I believe we've been effective as an organization,
I think one of the reasons we're effective is
that we try to stay in our lane. I believe many
strategies are required to bring about the end
of factory farming and the end of the abuse of
animals used for food. But I think each individual
organization is more effective if we focus on
a strategy. Our strategy at the Humane League
is applying public pressure to companies to eliminate
the worst abuses. And that's what we do. And
I think we do it very well. And other work will
be required to get us to the outcome that we
want in the long run. And we respect that. And
we welcome all the other activists and organizations
in the movement that are doing that important
work. I think for most activists out there, the
default You know mode of activism is to convince
people to go vegan And so to address, you know
the general public but there is a You know the
issue of you know our corporations actually shaping
those Behaviors from the public and shouldn't
we you know target the source of? That marketing
Have you discussed that or done something around
that at the HumaneLink? Yeah, our focus is really
exclusively about applying public pressure to
companies to eliminate the worst abuses. So in
the past, THL has gone through different iterations
over the years. There have been times in our
past where we've done a lot of vegan outreach
work and vegan advocacy work. We've moved away
from that. strategically. Again, not because
we don't think that it's important work that
somebody ought to be doing, but we think we can
best play our role in the movement if we are
focused and pick one job to do and choose to
do it very well. So I would say it is a strategic
decision. that we do not kind of engage in vegan
outreach and advocacy. Again, not that we don't
think it's important and we don't think it's
part of the solution. There are many organizations
who do that work very well, right? And we support
them and celebrate them doing that work. And
our focus is on doing the work that I think we
do well. which is improving as we work towards
that long -term vision of bringing about an end
to factory farming and to the animals being abused
for food, make meaningful progress in reducing
their suffering in the meantime, which I do believe
we have a moral and ethical obligation to do.
Great. I want to ask you about, yes, you ask,
you know, companies to adopt, you know, welfare
practices, but if there is the option of going
full vegan, for instance, by adopting cell based
meat or something of the sort. Would you consider
adopting that tactic? Certainly in the future,
as those technologies become more readily available,
I think that could be an option for us. I think
at THL, we will always do what we think is going
to be the most effective at reducing the suffering
of farmed animals. That's our mission, right?
At the moment, I believe and we believe as an
organization that the best role that we can play
in doing that is by advocating for, again, you
know, the end of the use of battery cages and
things of that nature. That may change over time.
I think it will. I'll rephrase that. I believe
that in the next five years, we're going to get
to a point, at least in the U .S., where the
use of battery cages is reaching a tipping point.
We're currently at about half of the industry
is currently cage free. Within five years, we
think we can get to about two thirds. And you
do get to a point with these industry wide changes
where once you've reached a certain threshold,
market factors more or less kind of finished
the job from there. You know, it becomes untenable
to be one of the very few producers in the industry
who's relying on this outdated technology, whatever
that technology happens to be. So as we get closer
and closer to that point, our strategy will need
to change, right? It's unlikely that we will
still be doing cage -free work in 20 years because
we probably will have won on that issue, right?
Perhaps at that point. cell -based meat is at
a point where corporate advocacy to encourage
companies to use that as opposed to real animal
protein, that could very well be the direction
that we choose to move in. But yeah, I like to
say that THL, we are not a particularly ideological
organization. We are a very practical organization.
Our ideology is that we're trying to end the
abuse of animals used for food. And then we are
very tactical and practical about what... choices,
what kind of work we engage in to try to do that.
So we're not particularly attached to any one
approach. It's really going to be what's going
to be the most effective at reducing the suffering
of farm animals. I love that. I'm also a practical
person, so it appeals to me. And yeah, cell -based
meat, you know, that has been on my mind this
morning because of the whole Campbell scandal.
I don't know if it reached you. No. Anyway, let's
not get into it. Dan, I want to ask you about
your role as CEO. And let me start with this.
Who is your favorite employee at the Humane League?
I feel like I can't, I have a professional obligation
not to give a straight answer to that question.
But I will, so I'll say this. Just last week,
I was out at a, we've been, I was at a series
of protests organized by the organizing and campaign
staff at the Humane League at Ajo Del Hay's headquarters
in the United States, the grocery chain that
we're targeting right now. We were very. happy
to be joined not just by a number of THL staff
and local volunteers, but also volunteers and
staff from other grassroots animal advocacy organizations
across the movement. It really felt like many
organizations coming together and working in
tandem to apply public pressure to this company
to make this meaningful progress. And so I think
about the team, like I am an organizer by training.
That's my professional background. It's the work
that I started out doing in my career. So I have
a bias towards our organizing team and our organizing
program, both because that's my skill set, but
also because I think that's some of the hardest
work that we do in the movement is kind of bringing
people together and actually getting people to
come out and take action, right? It's one thing.
to listen to a podcast, for instance, right?
It's another thing to make personal choices.
These are all great things for people to do,
but really the way that we change the world and
we make progress towards the end goal that we
want is by people taking advocacy actions. I
feel very strongly about that. And so I think
our organizing team, that's their job, is to
try to build relationships with activists and
supporters, connect them with opportunities in
their community to take action in meaningful
ways that can move the ball forward for farmed
animals. And so I'm not going to pick a single
favorite employee, but I will say, I think that
work of kind of building community power and
deploying it to create change for animals is
the most important work that we do as an organization
and as a movement. Yeah, it was a bit of a tongue
in cheek question. I mean, it's important to
humanize, you know, the the people, the the organizations.
Often we focus too much on the brand, you know,
but who are the people behind, you know, the
Humane League? Okay, let me ask you about how
to keep your employees motivated and I guess
how to take care of their mental health. It's
a problem in this community. I would even say
it's a crisis among animal rights activists.
And there are too many, you know, groups and
communities that just don't focus on that and
keep things, you know. Just unsupervised and
so what kind of you know Culture do you put in
place in the Humane League to make sure that
everyone is happy? It's a great question and
I agree with the premise of the question. It's
What we really need as a movement is longevity
we need to build a movement that people feel
like it can be a part of their lives for their
entire lives. You know, whether that's as a paid
professional staff member at NGO or an activist
or supporter, right? There's a lot of ways to
be involved in the movement, but it does need
to feel like a sustainable movement to be a part
of, particularly in the professional wing of
the movement. So a couple of things I think a
lot about at the Humane League. I think one is
that Because, you know, we're a big nonprofit
organization, so we have lots of campaigners
and corporate outreach, you know, people who
are doing the work that we do directly. And then
we also have accountants and HR professionals
and operations staff, right, people who do kind
of quote unquote normal jobs, right, at the Humane
League. And I think it's very important as a
mission -driven organization to help people in
those roles understand the critical importance
of their work to achieving our mission. It's
obvious if you're a corporate negotiator, you
understand that by negotiating with companies,
you're helping us reduce the suffering of farmed
animals. But also somebody's got to process all
the expense reports for the travel for those
meetings, and somebody's got to make sure they
have a computer that works so that they can send
the... And so I think helping people understand
that connection between the role that they play
at the organization and the impact that it makes.
And regularly communicating that back to them,
helping them understand, we won this victory
and you made it possible with your work. And
really drawing direct lines of connection between
the effort that staff put in and the victories
that we're able to achieve, especially where
that's less obvious than it might otherwise be.
One of the things that we talk a lot about at
the Humane League is this idea of we are all
campaigners. And that's sort of what that means,
right? Some of us are literally campaigners.
It's our job to manage and run campaigns. And
other folks have roles with whom those campaigns
are not possible, without whom those campaigns
are not possible. And so even if you're an accountant,
right, you are a campaigner because your work
makes our campaigns possible. We encourage people
then to also like get involved personally, right?
Like if there's a protest taking place in your
community, like... you can come out and join
us there even if that's not a core part of your
job. We had staff retreats this year. We had
three different staff retreats and as part of
those staff retreats we held protests against
our campaign targets and encouraged all of our
staff to join just so that people have a sense
of what that work looks like and can sort of
have an experience of being a part of it directly.
So I think that's a big motivational factor is
people really understanding the nature of what
we do, how the role supports it, and having some
opportunity to participate in it directly. And
then in terms of mental health, as you said,
and protecting against burnout and kind of ensuring
that people can do this work for the long run.
We try to be to the degree that we can as a,
you know, budget limited nonprofit. We try to
be generous with things like health benefits,
mental wellness benefits, ensure that people
have their healthcare needs met, including their
mental health care needs met. They have access
to mental health services when they need them.
We try to be generous with our time off policies
and our breaks so that people can rest and recover
from the hard work that they do and then get
back into action on the other side of it. A lot
of that is just, I think, good. nonprofit management.
I think it's just good organizational management
in general. But this is very hard and difficult
work. And we really it's important to me that
people feel that the organization recognizes
that right in the way that we compensate people
in the way that we in the benefits that we provide
in the celebration that we provide the staff
for the victories that we win. nothing's worse
than working hard and feeling invisible. And
so we work very hard to try to help our staff
be visible in the victories that we achieve for
animals. What about your corporate partners?
Do you, and it's kind of a weird question, but
do you ever invite them to mix with the rest
of the Humane League team? When you say corporate
partners, you mean the companies that we're negotiating
with yes, we're campaigning. Yes Not really is
my answer. It's an interesting. It's an interesting
question. Um We talk a lot at the humane league
about what is the nature of our relationship
with companies? Is it a or you know, do we answer
to visit? Is it a friendly relationship or is
that an adversarial relationship and there are
different schools of thought about this? but
I think there is a And I think this may be perhaps
another tongue -in -cheek question, but I think
there's a real risk in thinking that our job
is to build kind of positive relationships with
the companies that we work with. I think that's
not quite the right way to think about it. I
think we need to be a feared and respected adversary
is sort of how I think about it. I feel very
strongly and I think anybody who does campaigns
work would agree with like companies don't do
don't make positive forward progress on any issue,
whether it's animals or any other issue, out
of the goodness of their hearts. They do it because
these are profit maximizing machines. They're
soulless corporations. They do not have any sort
of sense of a heart, let alone a good one. And
so our job is to apply pressure and to force
them to act. That pressure can simply be through
negotiation, right? It doesn't always need to
be through the form of a campaign, but implicit
in all of our negotiations is the threat of a
campaign, right? Because they can see us campaigning
against other companies in the world. So I think
it is very important that we sort of hold the
line that we are not your friends and we are
not here to make friends. We can have a productive
and constructive relationship if we can work
together to achieve the outcomes that we want.
But if we can't, then it will go the other way
in the form of a public campaign. And if they
are unwilling to do that, then it is going to
become an adversarial relationship. And that
always needs to be an option. So for those corporations,
they also have accountants and people who work
from the office. They're not the ones. handling
the animals or slaughtering them. But just like,
you know, every employee at the Humane League
is a campaigner, they do collaborate in that
suffering. I wonder, after one of your campaign
pressure campaign, did you hear of any employees
from those corporations deciding to leave? you
know after understanding after you exposed you
know the suffering and what's happening behind
closed doors i'm not aware of an instance where
we've heard of an employee like leaving their
job full stop we do pretty regularly get messages
like anonymous messages from employees saying
things like hey i work here and i really support
what you're doing and keep it up so um you know,
when I say these companies don't have any, you
know, like individual people who work at these
companies may very well be supportive of the
issue. And, you know, often we do have a counterpart
that we're negotiating with who seems to mean
well and want to work collaboratively together
to make progress. But I think at the end of the
day, we have to be clear -eyed that at the end
of the day, these are business decisions and
we need to make a business rationale, right,
for making that decision, which is basically
that the cost of Not doing what we're what we
want will be greater than the cost of doing what
we want The cost is not necessarily, you know,
you mentioned accountants and things like that
like Our movement isn't really at a scale, if
we're being honest with ourselves, that we can
sort of boycott a company and sort of make a
meaningful kind of impact on the bottom line.
The impact is often more reputational. These
companies really just don't want their name and
animal cruelty appearing side by side in the
same news story or tweet or video or what have
you. But yeah, we have to incentivize them to
make through negative incentives to make the
changes that we want. What's the role of subsidies
in all of that? I guess many of those corporations
get a boost of confidence that you won't harm
them because there are all of those subsidies
in place. I often say that if I could change
a single thing about the animal agriculture industry,
it would be, at least in the US, it would be
the heavy subsidies that are provided to the
industry by the government. I think, honestly,
it's a linchpin that holds the whole industry
together, again, at least here in the United
States. It artificially suppresses the cost rate
of animal products significantly. I think the
cost would be prohibitive for most. people, if
those subsidies weren't in place, it does protect
these companies financially and gives them, allows
them to have allowed them over the years to scale
and to grow and to reach the kind of market saturation
that they have. So yes, that's subsidies, particularly
of, you know, the animal agriculture industry,
a huge barrier that we will eventually have to
find a way to overcome as a movement to ultimately
get to the end state that we want. Do you ever
get paranoid by the power that those corporations
hold. So for instance, there have been several
environmental organizations, foundations that
have released reports stating that those big
corporations and interests have spied on animal
rights activists or have launched, you know,
social media campaigns against those animal rights
organizations. Have you been the target of that?
Do you think of it often? I don't think it's
paranoid at all. I think it's just reality. I
do have reason to believe that I myself personally
in my career have been surveilled and watched
by government agencies. Certainly companies have
their own as you acknowledge private security
and kind of intelligence apparatus that they
use against activists. Absolutely. I think that
is we have to assume that that's happening to
us at all times. I don't think that I think it's
practical and realistic to engage in that. And
then also we just have to be confident. that
we are doing the right thing. This is where,
you know, having lawyers on staff is important
to understand kind of, OK, we are operating within
the boundaries of the law, whether it's things
like, you know, whether it's about protest activity
and what's permissible, you know, things like
libel and slander laws. Right. It is very important
that we are correct and defensible in all the
messaging that we use. And so, you know, we have
to pay attention to that. But as long as we are
doing the right things and protecting ourselves
in the way that we need to, I feel strongly that
we can't let it bother us. We just have to go
move full steam ahead and do our work and trust
that if we are operating within the boundaries
that we should be that that we're going to be
OK. It doesn't mean that they may not try to
make our lives difficult, but it's hard work
and we have to keep doing it. Just a way to measure,
you know, how big of a threat this is. Um, have
you implemented measures when recruiting employees,
you know, to see if they're generally, you know,
um, caring for animals or, um, their spies or
something of the sort, you know, trying to infiltrate
the humane link. Yeah, we don't do necessarily
a sort of full full -blown background check on
every on every applicant But obviously we do
our screening, you know, I think the same I think
we do similar practices to what most mid -sized
nonprofit organizations would have call references
You know ensure that people are who they're representing
themselves to be But yeah, I this is just one
of those areas where I think we just have to
accept a little bit of risk sometimes and And
be confident that, and I am confident about this,
right? That there's nothing we're doing at the
Humane League that in terms of our communications,
in terms of our tactics, in terms of what we
talk about internally, that I wouldn't be comfortable
seeing the light of day. I don't necessarily
want every company to have insight into all of
our different planning and our strategy and all
that, but I'm very confident that even if somebody
were to be inside the organization and kind of
release a whole bunch of documents or whatever,
we're not doing anything wrong. You know, so
I think we have to just feel confident that we're
doing the right thing and carry on with our work
and not. I think we can twist ourselves up into
knots trying to play defense. And I think that
distracts us from our important work to play
offense. Definitely, I agree with that. Okay,
so earlier, you mentioned how it is important
to make the work of your employee, make them
feel like this is meaningful work and make them
feel like they have a share in the victories.
I want to ask you about the victories, but first
the failures. I'm sure you have some failures.
Can you name a few of those and how you dealt
with the aftermath of those failures? I can.
I'm relatively new to my role here. I've been
in my role for about six months. So hopefully
I haven't had too many big failures in six months.
I will say that looking at the Humane League
though, historically and before my tenure, there's
a well -known example in the movement. Some of
your listeners may be familiar with it. There
was a big campaign. that a number of organizations
led several years ago against McDonald's, trying
to get McDonald's to make progress on broiler
chicken welfare, welfare for chickens that are
raised to be eaten as opposed to raised for eggs.
A lot of time and energy was put into the campaign.
It was, I think, a well -run and strategically
sound campaign, but it ultimately didn't bring
about the victory that we had hoped, and ultimately
organizations had to make the decision to move
on, rather than continue to kind of bang their
heads against this wall. And we can look at that
as a failure. I think that would be one way to
look at that, because it was. We set out to achieve
a goal, and we didn't achieve it. And a lot of
time and energy was put into that, and obviously
that's always a shame when that happens. I also
though, another way I think about this though
is I think we can't be afraid to fail as a movement.
I mean obviously we want to win and we don't
want to fail, but I feel very strongly that if
we never fail at anything it means that we're
not trying hard enough and we're not stepping
outside of our comfort zone. If we only do things
as an organization or as a movement that we know
are going to work, then we're never going to
try anything new. And we're never going to innovate.
We'll never find new approaches that may be even
more effective than what we're doing currently.
So I'd always prefer to win a campaign than lose
a campaign. And I'd certainly prefer not to spend
a lot of money on a campaign that we don't ultimately
win. But I do feel like when we have those moments,
the important thing to do is just kind of figure
out what we can learn from them and how that
can inform our work to be more effective in the
future and not sort of beat ourselves up over
the fact that we didn't win this one. There will
be failures. There have been and there will continue
to be. And I think we can't be afraid of them.
We have to be we have to embrace failure as a
part of the path to success. I love that entrepreneurial
spirit. Okay, let's talk about the victories.
Which victory from the Humane League is your
favorite one? It's a great question. I'm going
to go with a relatively recent one just because
I'm relatively new to my role. Earlier this year,
we won a campaign against Subway to get them
to go 100 % cage -free in all of their North
American operations. And it was probably the
biggest campaign that we've won in my tenure
with THL, so that kind of makes it my favorite
by default. But beyond that, it isn't necessarily
our single biggest campaign victory. That victory
impacted about 300 ,000. hens who will now live
outside of battery cages as a result of the victory,
which is not nothing, but we've also won campaigns
where the hens are measured in the millions as
opposed to the hundreds of thousands. But what
I liked about the win with Subway is that it
demonstrated a couple of things. It demonstrated
a long -term strategy. This is a company that
we've been working with for 10 years or more,
not necessarily always in a public campaign mode.
But in terms of working with them to try to get
to this outcome, it's been a very long time coming.
And I think it speaks to the value of sort of
never giving up and not walking away. I also
think that it Subway, and I'm going to nerd out
on the campaign strategy here for just a moment,
but Subway is a heavily franchised company, right?
So most Subway locations are franchise owned.
And we took a different strategy with this campaign
than we have taken with some previous campaigns,
which is that we really focused on applying pressure
to the franchisees in addition to the kind of
the corporate mothership, if you will. And that
seemed to work very effectively. Because if you
think about the incentive structure, Subway is
a big multinational organization, billion dollar
company. But a Subway franchisee, they might
own three Subways in their community. It's almost
like a network of small businesses that have
a lot more to lose. If we were to decide that
we're going to target one of their franchisees
with a kind of pressure campaign. So what we
found through this campaign is that actually
applying pressure to those franchisees in addition
to the kind of corporate mothership was very
effective at building incentive across the corporate
structure to adhere to the commitment that they
had made. And I really liked that we found something
new that we think works and we think can be applicable
to future campaigns. Am I hearing that you gained
an appetite for replicating that with other businesses
with the same business model? Yeah, exactly that.
Different companies are different, right? And
it requires different types of tactics and strategies
to win against different kinds of companies.
And I do feel like, yeah, we found something
that works with a particular kind of company
here. And now we know that and we can have that
in our toolbox for the future. Yes, that's amazing.
I love how this is a whole chess game. It feels
that way. I guess, since you're a very successful
nonprofit, what should other animal charities
out there, animal causes, learn from the Humane
League? Well, I think, as I mentioned earlier,
I think one of the secrets to our success is
focus. And I think the movement needs a range
of different approaches. I don't think everybody
should be doing the same thing. But I do think
organizations are stronger when they sort of
pick one core theory of change, one core strategy
for creating impact and going all in, right?
For us, it's corporate welfare campaigns. For
another organization, it might be vegan advocacy.
For another, it might be public policy change.
You know what I mean? But I do feel like, and
I've worked at many organizations that are very
scattered in their approach. They try to do a
lot of things. And then by definition, they only
do each of those things so well. So I think one
piece of advice I would offer if folks are interested
would be to kind of think about how to focus
in on like a core thing that you can do really
very well. And if we have enough of those groups
doing enough of those core things very, very
well, we'll have the coordinated movement wide
strategy that we need. I think it's good advice.
I've heard that before from successful entrepreneurs,
you know. at least in the business world, it's
something you hear often, you know, how important
it is to stay focused. Do you have a timeline
in mind on, you know, when we could see true,
you know, substantial progress in this movement?
Yeah, it all depends, I think, on what we mean
by true substantial progress. One of the ways
that I think about this question is factory farming
is a relatively recent invention in the grand
scheme of things. I'm sure your listeners are
familiar with this, but you know, humans have
been doing agriculture of various kinds for like
10 ,000 years, quite a long time. And factory
farming has got about 100 years of history. And
so if you look at it as a kind of moment in time
in the history of human agriculture, it's really
quite a short moment. And I say that for because
I think for many people, you know, perhaps not
your listeners, but for most kind of normal,
typical consumers, I think they have this idea
that this is just the way we've always done things,
right? When I talk to people, I don't talk to
anybody for the most part who says, I think it's
great that animals suffer on factory farms. I
think most people have some amount of sympathy
for the idea that like, yeah, that sounds pretty
bad when you tell me about it. But I think it
often runs up against this barrier of, but I
don't know what else we would do. And I think
you see this a lot. You see this at the previous
stage of my career, I worked in the movement
to end global poverty. And we saw there's a similar
dynamic with the anti -poverty movement. If you
try to convince somebody that poverty is bad,
it doesn't really move the needle because people
either already know that, like of course it is,
or they don't care, in which case they're not
going to do anything anyway. But if you can convince
people that it's possible to end poverty, That
message is very motivating, because it actually
does cut through what people's real mental barrier
is, which is that like, I know that it's bad
that people live in poverty, but this is just
the way that it's always been. And so I think
about that point about factory farming being
a relatively new invention, really just a factor
of the past hundred years of human history, as
a way to help people understand that we don't
have to do it this way. Right. And it's one thing
to even talk about obviously living in a world
where no animals are raised or killed for food
at all. I very much hope that we live in that
world one day. But I don't think I'm going to
see that world. I don't think my daughter is
going to see that world. I don't think her children,
if she has them, will see that world. I think
that world is a very long time coming. Whereas
I don't think it's crazy to think that if it
took 100 years to build the factory farming industry,
maybe it'll take 100 years to dismantle it. And
I think we're actually already into that hundred
years as we speak, right? As I mentioned, you
know, even just using the use of the battery
cage as a kind of proxy for the worst abuses
of just over the past 20 years, we've gone from
basically zero, right? To 45 % of the entire
industry in 20 years. That's significant progress.
I believe we could end the use of cages in the
next 20 years. And now, you know, does that bring
us all the way to the end of factory farming?
Of course not, let alone all the way to a kind
of vegan future, but that would be meaningful
progress and a meaningful reduction in suffering
for tens of millions of animals every single
year. So I think that kind of progress is very
doable on maybe a shorter time period, measured
in decades, than people might think. And I think
that kind of full dismantling of, of the industry
of factory farming, right. And going back to
something that might've looked more like the
industry looked a hundred years ago, I think
is very doable if not in my lifetime, but perhaps
in my daughter's lifetime. It makes me feel optimistic.
What you just said, I don't want you to be right,
but still, you know, there's a positive spin
to that reality. Um, yes, I agree with. your
assessment, but do you think we'll see more progress
maybe in certain countries versus others? And
maybe even we'll see in our lifetime, the kind
of world we wish existed, but only in a couple
of countries. It's certainly possible. I agree
with you that industry change is very kind of
geography dependent, right? A big part of our
work at the Humane League is outside of the US.
We coordinate a coalition of organizations called
the Open Wing Alliance, which is about 95 organizations
operating in 75 countries around the world, all
working to end the use of extreme confinement
in the factory farming industry. So in a lot
of places that they operate, like Sub -Saharan
Africa, for instance, we actually haven't seen
the full industrialization of the agriculture
industry as we have in North America and in Europe,
for instance. So in places like that, we're not
necessarily trying to dismantle a factory farming
industry. Rather, we're trying to prevent it
from taking hold in the way that it has in other
parts of the world. So actually, another thing
I feel very optimistic about is I think there
are parts of the world where we could maybe prevent
the full industrialization of agriculture before
it even happens. You know, because they're just
further along. They're not as far along in their
journey yet. And that's actually quite exciting
to think about. It's sort of a counterfactual
way of thinking about it. But, you know, we're
never wide scale uses of battery cages in some
parts of the world. Right. And we were to just
head that off entirely. I think that kind of
progress is very, very meaningful and very possible
for sure. Open wings. I love the name. I. Wish
to ask you about, you know, backyard chickens.
Uh, this is something I covered on my show. Um,
I'm against it. You know, do you think this is
good PR for the poultry industry that people,
you know, um, cannot differentiate backyard chickens
to the chickens they get at, you know, grocery
stores or at least they develop a certain insensitivity
towards. chickens because they are turned into
farmers or they get that farmer mindset. How
do you have any reflection around that? Yeah,
it's not something we have a sort of institutional
position on at the Humane League. It's sort of
outside of our line of work on a personal level.
Yeah, I don't think people should raise animals
for food. And so I don't think people should
raise animals for food. I do think that it I
think one of the challenges of things like backyard
chickens or the kind of like I do think it creates
a perception that it's possible right to sort
of at scale right at the scale of the hundreds
of millions of animals right. raise animals for
food in a way that people would feel comfortable
with. I just don't, I don't think there is any
version of that that's possible. And as you're
saying, right, sure, maybe you can rate maybe
somebody with who knows what they're doing can
raise a chicken in their backyard and they can
live a happy life. I don't, I don't know, you
know, maybe that's possible, but it's like, I
think it creates an unrealistic expectation that
there's a version of that that's kind of scalable
to meet the kind of demand, you know, of the
hundreds of millions of people that live in this
country. And I think there is a real a real risk
with that. Dan, I think I asked you everything
I wanted to ask you. Did you want to add something
before I stopped the recording? I think we've
covered most of what I had hoped that we would
talk about. I think I think the main the main
thing I would encourage people to think about
is that there's a role for everybody to play
and kind of bringing out bringing about this
Future that we've been talking about right and
I do feel like you know again I made the choice
to go vegan 30 years ago It's best choice ever
made in my life and I'll never go back and I
think it's important that we make those kinds
of choices and also I think participating in
the movement as an activist, you know, it is
as Important, you know as sort of making individual
personal behavior change choices I think partially
because and I because I think it's important
that these companies hear from everybody Right.
Who feels the way that we do about farmed animals,
even if you're never going to buy a cage free
egg. I'm never going to buy a cage free egg.
And here I am advocating for companies to go
catering and their supply chain. Right. But I
think the more vocal all of us are and the more
visible we are with our beliefs and the more
we translate our beliefs into pressure on the
industry. Right. Both direct and indirect. I
think the more progress we're going to make.
And I want more people to be to adopt the same
practical approach that the humane league has
towards this issue, which is a more nuanced and
strategic approach, one that meets people where
they are. Yeah, I really like it. So if people
want to, you know, support your mission, or be
part of this effort, what are the best ways you
know, for them to connect with you? So Folks
who want to learn more about our work can visit
thehumaneleague .org and learn more about our
corporate campaigns, the victories that we've
won. They can find ways to get involved in their
local community. They can sign up to be a part
of our Changemaker program, or they can connect
with other local activists in their area to take
action to support farmed animals. And of course,
we always need more financial support, as every
organization does. We recently released a cost
effectiveness study that says that it costs us
50 cents to free an egg laying hen from a cage
through a programmatic work. So even a donation
of a dollar, right, will help us get two hens
out of cages for the rest of their lives. So
as people are thinking about, you know, their
personal giving, especially at the end of the
year, we welcome all the support that we can
get. Yes, it's giving Tuesday, actually. And
And, you know, yeah, be part of the Humane League,
be a hero. I kept thinking about the Justice
League. I like that part of our name. It does
feel like it's a team you want to be a part of.
Exactly. Yes. So be a hero, be part of the Humane
League. and join Dan in the good work that he's
doing and leading. Dan, thank you so much for
your activism. Thank you for having stopped by
and discuss your amazing work. Truly amazing
conversation. Thank you. Thank you for having
me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you everyone
for listening. I kindly invite you to share this
podcast with the vegans you know. Let's encourage
more people to take action. Again, thank you
so much for caring, and I will see you next Tuesday
for a new episode.