by Allie Molinaro

With nearly ten billion animals suffering in factory farms in the U.S. each year and over 50 billion worldwide, it is normal to feel overwhelmed at times. Animal advocates commonly struggle with feelings of helplessness as one individual wanting to change a large and powerful system. CIWF often sends our supporters petitions to sign, letters to send, and invitations to in-person rallies and events. But sometimes we are asked the question—does taking action really make a difference?

The answer is a resounding "yes." Even as one person, your actions can make a huge difference for animals. We have seen the positive impacts of individual and collective action time and again. In this blog, we'll dive deeper into each type of action and why they are essential to creating a better life for farmed animals.

Emails and Calls to Decision-Makers

The difference an email or phone call can make is amazing. While many people may care about an issue, only a handful of them contact decision-makers about it. In our busy modern world, even taking two minutes to express your opinions to a legislator goes a long way.

Email and call actions typically go to either an elected government official, such as a Senator, Governor, or President, or to an executive at a company, such as a CEO or a board member. In both cases, these decision-makers are incentivized to listen to their constituents or customers. For elected officials, their jobs are directly tied to their constituents—if their constituents are unhappy with their actions, they risk not being reelected. The same goes for corporate decision-makers—if customers stop buying, they stop making money.

Typically, legislative offices will tally the number of calls and emails they receive about various topics and report on them internally weekly. Thus, receiving a large volume of emails about a certain topic sends a strong signal that constituents are concerned, and raises the topic on the legislator's priority list.

Phone calls to legislative offices are especially effective. To them, even 5-10 phone calls about a topic are considered a lot, and as a colleague recently put it, receiving over ten calls about an issue is the political equivalent of a five-alarm fire.

Corporate decision-makers are driven to maximize their company's competitive edge and customer satisfaction. As long as the messages they receive are polite and within reason, they will often pursue action if enough customers are asking for a change.

Petitions

Due to their relative ease to participate in, petitions are effective in showing sentiment from a large number of people. A well-timed petition delivered before an important event such as a vote, a board or shareholder meeting, etc. can give decision-makers pause before making an ill-considered decision. Like call or email actions, petition targets are often elected officials or corporate executives whose success is dependent on aligning with the will of their constituents and customers. Petitions can also be delivered on icon days, such as World Food Day or World Octopus Day, to help garner media attention.

Peaceful Protests

Peaceful protests and rallies are effective in garnering media attention, which then raises awareness about an issue among a wider audience. This is an effective tactic for several reasons. First, protests raise the profile of an issue to the public consciousness, building solidarity and bonds with other people that instill a sense of belonging around a common purpose, which helps build long-term dedication to a cause. Second, to inspire more people to act on an issue. Third, protests are also effective in enabling advocates to control the narrative, especially with memorable slogans. 

Further, raising the profile of an issue in this manner can motivate elected officials to incorporate it into their campaign platforms and companies to incorporate it into their corporate social responsibility. Protests and rallies can also indirectly help companies and startups identify new value-added products, services, certifications, or labels to make them more competitive in the marketplace or identify new products and markets (ex. USDA Organic, cage-free, plant-based meat alternatives). Protests were instrumental in the civil rights and climate action movements, and more recently, in banning farmed animal overseas transport in the UK.

Public Comments

Public comments are often solicited by government agencies when proposing new regulations. Agencies are legally obligated to read each comment and either incorporate them into final rules or explain why they were not incorporated. Agencies tabulate the comments by category and tally the requests (for example, "comments recommending better welfare labeling" or "comments recommending to ban cages").

Therefore, submitting public comments is important because they are legally obligated to influence the final rule. Even if a request is not incorporated into the final rule, having an agency's response on record regarding why they did not incorporate a popular request can help inform future tactics. Having many comments with similar asks can also be useful in litigation if agencies fail to create meaningful regulations.

Letters and Postcards

Unlike email, letters and postcards can be impactful because a large volume offers a visual representation of the number of people united around an issue. Handwriting also adds a human touch and shows thoughtfulness and intention about engaging on the issue, raising its importance to the decision-maker.

A Word on Personalization

While many organizations, including CIWF, offer a pre-written template for supporters to submit when taking an action such as emails or public comments, personalizing your message is important. Personalized emails can help prevent your email from being deleted or marked as spam. The Federal Register website strongly encourages commenters to write custom comments, and the site's commenter's checklist states that "one well-supported comment is often more influential than a thousand form letters." Your writing need not be long, it just needs to express your opinion and when applicable, how a policy would impact you. You can add personalization by including personal stories, changing template copy to your own words, and when relevant, including (non-sensitive) information on how certain policies impact where you live, your job, etc.