Hide table of contents

On February 15, 2024, Impactful Animal Advocacy helped facilitate a Digital Platform Coordination call to start conversations between members of the animal advocacy movement and see where work might intersect. Several common themes arose with potential opportunities that will be followed up on. We invite anyone involved in digital platforms, either using existing solutions or building your own, to join the conversation on Slack.

 

Background

In the past year of managing a community on Slack, we have seen several cases where duplication was avoided by people posting questions in the #help-requests channel. As we started considering building our own custom digital solutions, we found that others were eager to share and coordinate. 

 

Goals

  1. Conserve movement resources by resolving unintentional overlap & duplication
  2. Address current tech challenges by finding common solutions

 

Themes

Diversity of projects: A wide variety of projects, platforms, and initiatives were discussed during the conversation, including customer relationship management (CRM) databases, matching solutions, event databases, job boards, directories, and more. 

Some seem similar but target different audience segments. There was no consensus about whether pure project duplication was good or bad for the movement – competition can sometimes increase innovation, but limited funding/nonprofit incentive structure may reduce our capacity to compete. We have updated the collaboration’s goal to avoid unintentional duplication.

 

Technical challenges and solutions: Much of the movement relies on digital tools in their animal advocacy efforts, and some individuals expressed having difficulties finding or bridging solutions for their projects. Some issues that came up include obtaining users, having/retaining technical expertise, and keeping updated on what others are working on. 

 

Sharing of digital tools: Many participants were open to sharing platforms, APIs, resources, or select data to help the movement having to reproduce it. Many were also open to collaborations and cross-promoting relevant platforms. We found that there is some overlap in several existing solutions, such as CRM-style databases (both to store/track information and for candidate matching), events, and existing audiences. In addition, many groups could benefit from future technologies, such as animal advocacy-trained AI models.

 

Next steps 

Share info about your platform use

If you are needing help or could offer help, feel free to add that info in this form.

 

Collaborate & participate 

If you are using digital platforms in your work, please join us in the #s-platforms IAA Slack channel. (If you aren’t yet a member, fill out the application form to join and then add the channel after) 

We’ll use the Slack channel to ask for questions with technical/platform bottlenecks, share experiences with different solutions, and offer/request collaborations. Several threads have been started to continue ongoing conversations from the meeting.  Any future collaboration calls will also be announced in the Slack channel.

 

Reach out with questions

Do you have a lot of experience with certain platforms? Or specific data that may help others? You can reach us in Slack, email, or FAST Forum DM.

 

Thank you to all participants from the following organizations (a→z)!

 

The Impactful Animal Advocacy team are not platform experts, but rather see Slack as a space that can foster conversations and collaboration. While we kicked off this Digital Platform Coordination conversation, we do not see ourselves as the owners and would be excited to see the community own this important work. 

5

0
0

Reactions

0
0

More posts like this

There are no more recommendations left.

Comments


No comments on this post yet.
Be the first to respond.
Curated and popular this week
Luiz Rezende
 · 6d ago · 1m read
 · 
Hi all! We’re happy to share that Super Festval, a supermarket brand part of Grupo Beal (former “Companhia Beal de Alimentos’), has officially published a commitment to exclusively source pork from group housing systems during gestation in Brazil by 2028, considering preferably preimplantation systems where sows are housed in stalls for no longer than 7 days. You can read the announcement in Portuguese on the company website here. Super Festval is a traditional family business with a local well-known brand and 39 stores in the state of Paraná, south of Brazil. The organizations Alianima, Fórum Animal, Humane World for Animals and Sinergia Animal engaged in corporate relationship with the company for 5 years of negotiations, combining strategies of friendly negotiation, technical support and public campaign warning to accelerate the commitment. The negotiations were positively influenced by the fact that Super Festval has a cage-free commitment fulfilled in 2024 (see their report to the Egglab audit). This is a successful case to strengthen animal welfare policies negotiations with retailers in Brazil. At the moment, it's important to increase the number of animal welfare policies implemented in Brazilian retail in order to promote progress in this sector that is traditionally less receptive to animal welfare policies. We will continue monitoring the implementation of Super Festval commitment, encouraging the company to report their evolution annually, asking to participate in Alianima’s Pig Watch report and extending its animal welfare policies to additional species, for example nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). For the animals,
 · 7d ago · 1m read
 · 
Today marks a historic win for animal advocacy in Brazil, thanks to the combined efforts of Humane World for Animals, Te Protejo, , Fórum Animal and Change.org .  On July 9, 2025, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies approved the Senate substitute for PL 6602/13 (now PL 3062/22), banning federal animal testing for cosmetics, personal hygiene products, and perfumes. Why this is huge: •⁠  ⁠1.6 million+ signatures delivered a powerful public mandate. •⁠  ⁠A decade in the making—originally filed in 2013, it finally broke its long legislative stalemate. •⁠  ⁠Brazil moves closer to becoming the world’s 45th country to outlaw cosmetic animal testing, sparing millions of animals from suffering. Besides us, the project had the support of many activists and other organizations and institutions such as the Department of Animal Protection that was created within the Ministry of the Environment in Brazil. Next steps: The bill goes to presidential signature. After enactment and a 60-day vacatio legis, ANVISA and other agencies will have up to two years to implement alternative testing methods and enforce the law. This breakthrough proves what we can achieve when we unite. Let’s keep up the momentum—share this news, raise your voice, and push for a cruelty-free future! 
 · 3d ago · 1m read
 · 
Iceland Foods committed to eliminating eyestalk ablation and implementing pre-slaughter electric stunning across their own-label prawn range by the end of 2027. ICAW has been running a campaign against Iceland for several months inclusive of digital actions, in-person demonstrations (including 70 people gathering in London in May) and other pressure tactics. Only 3 retailers have yet to commit to higher prawn welfare in the UK: Aldi, LIDL and ASDA. Thank you to everyone involved for supporting our campaign! For any additional information please contact Justine at jaudemard@i-caw.org