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The State Of Animal Advocacy In The U.S. & Canada- Experiences & Turnover (Faunalytics)

Background

This study examined the experiences of advocates in the United States and Canada, with most respondents coming from the U.S. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at a comprehensive survey of animal advocates in English-speaking North America. The main purpose was to determine why animal advocates leave the movement or move from organization to organization. Our central research questions were:

Key Findings

  1. Most animal advocates are satisfied with most aspects of their work, but there is room for improvement in a number of areas. Across almost all measures, the majority of advocates felt satisfied and supported in most aspects of their work for animals. At the same time, there are several areas where changes would likely improve advocates’ experiences and increase retention, as described below.
  2. Advocates left animal advocacy organizations for a variety of reasons, staying a median of 2.3 years with each. The most common reasons included problems with leadership (40%), finding a better opportunity (35%), not wanting to do a particular type of advocacy anymore (27%), and burnout (21%). Overall, 85% of respondents in our sample had left at least one animal advocacy role in the past, including 11% who had left the animal protection movement altogether.
  3. To retain paid animal advocates in the movement, we need to provide a rewarding professional environment with reasonable demands and strong leadership. The following were the strongest determinants of paid advocates’ intentions to stay (in descending order):
    1. How reasonable the demands of their advocacy role were,
    2. How well their skills and values fit with their organization’s,
    3. How satisfied they were with the resources, support, and opportunities available to them,
    4. How satisfied they were with their organization’s leadership,
    5. How much of a difference they felt they were making,
    6. How satisfied they were with their pay and benefits, and
    7. Whether they were experiencing burnout.
  4. The majority of paid advocates are satisfied with each of the above domains, but there is room for improvement on all of them. In particular, as many as one-third of paid advocates were not satisfied with aspects of their organizations’ leadership, up to one quarter are experiencing compassion fatigue (burnout and traumatic stress) and/or overly demanding work, and more than one-third were not happy with their rate of pay or opportunities for career advancement and training. These are all areas where organizations may want to focus attention on measuring and, if necessary, improving their own performance.
  5. To retain unpaid animal advocates in the movement, we need to provide strong leadership, connection with other advocates, and a safe environment. The following were the strongest determinants of unpaid advocates’ intentions to stay (in descending order):
    1. How satisfied they were with their organization’s leadership,
    2. How much they identified with other animal advocates, and
    3. Whether they had experienced harassment.
  6. Most unpaid advocates were satisfied with their organizations’ leadership and felt a strong sense of identification with advocacy, while 13% had experienced at least one incident of harassment, bullying, or abuse from other advocates or members of the public. There was more room for improvement in certain aspects of the support or resources available to unpaid advocates: About a quarter did not feel understood by their supervisors, a third did not feel that they received enough training to do their job well, and more than half did not feel that they received enough support for career advancement.
  7. Finally, a substantial proportion of advocates had experienced one or more instances of discrimination or harassment in the past five years, and advocates who are members of marginalized groups were disproportionately impacted. Overall, 49% of paid advocates and 28% of unpaid advocates had experienced discrimination or harassment. This included 50% of advocates with disabilities, 33% of female and non-binary advocates, 29% of advocates of color, and 14% of LGBTQ+ advocates who reported having experienced discrimination, unfair treatment, harassment, bullying, or abuse based on their group membership. (Though note that sample sizes for some of these groups were very small so the findings may not generalize well.)

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