How to Outreach Effectively
Great outreach will:* follow the CALMaction Guidelines
* be targeted at a specific audience
* be tailored (but not compromised) for the audience
* be carried out with passion, conviction, and strength
Great activists will:
* improve their skills
* help get others active
Targeting an Audience
It is important to think of the following when picking an auidence to outreach to: the quality and quantity of the people, how new the tactic/message is to them (novelty), and if its possible to outreach to a high percentage of an isolated population (intensity).Quality - Is the audience in favour of the message? Good audiences are often young, female, progressive, and discontent with the state of the world/society. Targeting a good audience is essential to increase the impact your actions have (more people going vegan and getting active).
Quantity - Is there a large number of people concentrated in a certain location within a certain time period? Quantitiy is important because vegan outreach is a numbers game - the more people we outreach to, the more animals we can help. However, note that relying on quantity without quality, novelty, and intensity will lead to very poor and possibly counter-productive results.
Novelty (newness)- Is the method of outreach/message new and exciting to the audience? Has the message and/or method been exhausted? (e.g., if there are 1000 posters up for random things and you add one about animal liberation the outreach lacks novelty.) Novelty is important because it makes your audience more likely to pay attention and consider the animal liberation message from a fresh perspective.
Intensity - Does the outreach successfully reach a high percentage of an isolated population? Is the audience your targeting connected to each other? Will each person get several outreach hits (get a leaflet, see a poster, and watch a video)? To a certain point, the more intense outreach is, the significantly more effective it is (e.g., 1 leaflet to every student in a school of 1000 is extremely more effective than 10,000 leaflets to a sea of 50,000 people in downtown toronto). Intesity increases effeciveness because it creates a buzz and the momentum needed for people to take the leap and go vegan and get active.
Note- When targeting an audience it is important to think about the context. For example, quality could change because of the weather - people may be receptive in sunny weather but unreceptive when its raining or windy.
When doing outreach you should ask yourself:
- is the audience good quality?
- is the audience large quantity?
- is the message/tactic new to the audience?
- is the outreach intense (high percentage of an isolated population covered)?
An Example: Assess this Audience
The Action: Leafletting to the entire student population of a middle school (grades 7-8).
Quantity: ~400 within 30 minutes (leaving the school at the end of the day)
Quality: great - they are young, curious, compassionate, idealistic, and discontent with their situation.
Novelty: the message is new to them and so are most tactics (leaflets, lockers cards, etc)
Intensity: high - its easy to get a leaflet to 80%+ of the entire school. This is a very high percentage of the isolated population.
The difference between a good and bad audience can be the difference between getting only one person to go vegan in 10 hours of outreach and getting 10 people to go vegan in an hour.
Choosing a Location -Where can I find the audience I'd like to target?
Choosing a localtion will flow from targeting the audience.
Q. Where can I find young people in high quantities isolated from other populations?
A. Schools, recreation centres (parks, sports fields, etc), certain music shows, certain festivals, etc.Q. Why is it important to target isolated populations?
A. Because it is far more effective. You can't tailor your message to a general population with 100 conflicting sub-cultures. If the population is isolated people within it will now have the common knowledge/experience and be more likely to talk about it with each other.
For example, if you get a leaflet on the bus and you get to school and no one else got this leaflet, you will find it harder to start the conversation "so... billions are dying". Compre this to if every one of your classmates got a leaflet - then you can jump right into "can you believe this, its horrible" responded to with "yeah i know, i think i'll go vegetarian".
Tailoring the Message
(but never compromising)
Q. What do a
12 year old, retired professor, punk,
refugee, hippie, homeless teenager, and college student have in common?A. Very little, beyond their capacity to care about injustices. What causes tears in one audience could anger another.
Important poitnts to think about when tailoring the message -
- keep language simple (if an 8 year old can't understand, it is over-complicated)
- understand the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen medium (conversation, video, photo, poster, leaflet, newsprint, billboard, sticker, megaphone, etc). For example, newsprint is logical but not emotive.
- make your request clear (go vegan/vegertarian, get active, just think about it, reduce consumption, etc)
- provide a simple framework to understand the issue (animal liberation means animals should be free from cages, free from ownership, and free from abuse and slaughter)
- tailoring should not be compromising
- not compromising is not the same as saying how you feel without thinking about your audience
| Compromising |
Tailoring |
|---|---|
| "its OK to eat a bit of meat" | "we get that it can be hard to go vegan, but you can still work towards the end goal of not eating animals by choosing to not eat meat one day a week and then two and so on." |
| "that's great you switched to eating organic meat" | "i can understand why you think organic meat might be better for the animals, but its just a marketers lie to make people buy their products. The animals are still abused and slaughtered." |
| "Good for you for not eating red meat" | "are you trying to stop eating all other meat too? Because chickens are treated just as badly, if not worse, than animals killed for red meat" |
The Significance of the Reasons to Go Vegan...
Not all of the reasons to go vegan are equally likely to help animals. It is possible for someone to go vegan for bad reasons (e.g., to fit an unhealthy body image, to get a date, etc). *note it is possible to go vegan for bad reasons and stay vegan for good reasons (to stop contributing to oppression). The reason someone is vegan has a large impact on whether they stay vegan and how effectively or counter-productively they spread veganism.Implications - How we outreach veganism will directly impact what types of vegans and activists there will be, which will affect the strength of the movement to liberate all animals.
Going vegan or vegetarian for -
The Animals - Most people go vegan or vegetarian 'for the animals', based on ethics. When asked "why are you veg?" these people might respond "because i love animals", "because animals are treated horribly ", "to stop animal cruelty", "for non-violence", etc. People who go veg 'for the animals' usually stay veg and will occasionally try out volunteering or activism to help animals.
Animal liberation - It is uncommon for people to go vegan and immediately be able to articulate the idea of animal liberation. Those who hold the animal liberation ideology generally went veg*n "for the animals". Most people who are actually active for animals hold the animal liberation mindset. Going and staying vegan for animal liberation will result in dedicated vegans who are more likely to get active.
Environmentalism - depends on how strong one values the environment, but based upon the status quo this reason isn't as strong as animal liberation. Environmental vegans are more easily coopted by misleading promises of "organic", "free-range", "local" and "green" dead animals. Cheating/lax vegetarianism can be a serious problem as one can rationalize "I'll eat chickens only at christmas - its only a small amount of carbon and I can offset that". People who go vegan for the environment should be encouraged to switch their main reason to caring about the animals - since the behaviour is already in place they can easily begin to promote animal liberation.
Personal Health - Going vegan for health is basically a diet. In our culture, people are taught to easily give up on diets and that it is acceptable (and fun) to cheat on diets - the mentailty through which people have chocolate cake on a special occassion may be transfered to having meat at Thanksgiving. People who go vegan for health should be encouraged to switch their main reason to caring about the animals - since the behaviour is already in place they can easily begin to promote animal liberation. *note many people are bullied by social pressure into telling people they are veg*n for health when really they did it to be non-violent/'for the animals'. It is important for people to try to resist this and stay true to their reason for being vegan as it will ultimately strengthen our movement.
Worker's Rights - an uncommon but valid reason to go vegan - often also held by people who go vegan for animals.
Outreach with passion, conviction, and strength.
Show people you care, and they will respond well to it.note - Don't mistake passion/stregth for loudness or being able to dominate a conversation.
Improving your Skills
There has been very little skills training provided to activists and this is a serious problem as it perpetuates ineffective action and unfufilled activists. The Jedi padawons have their academy - animal liberation activists can now get trainings and mentors at a number of the CALM cells across Canada.Opportunities to improve your skills-
* Activist Trainings - ~3 Days of a range of workshops on effective activims and social justice issues
* Activist Internships - (1-4 months) living with a CALM Cell to gain experience and guidance
* Activist Camp - 1 week long camp at a CALM House
We also suggest reading:
* How to Make Friends and Influence People
Getting Others Active
Try and get someone else out to outreach with you. It will increase the
number of people you get through to and teach someone new how to
outreach.Remember when trying to get someone active to make it easy and simple for them.
