Animal advocacy career guide

Key takeaways:

• There are many ways to contribute to animal welfare, even without a background in working with animals directly
• A variety of skills and experiences are needed, including campaigning, research, entrepreneurship, operations, legal research and policy advocacy.
• While animal advocacy work is growing, there are still limited opportunities due to the lack of funding
• We provided a number of resources at the end to orientate you into the world of animal advocacy

Introduction

At this moment, there are trillions of wild and farmed animals that are suffering around the world. Even though the scale of animal suffering is immense and effective interventions exist, it is still a highly neglected area of concern. In many countries where animal suffering is significant, it remains challenging to raise and spread awareness and affect change, for a variety of complex social, economic, or political reasons. One consequence from this is that there is still a lack of funding being directed towards for animal advocacy in general, especially organisations or initiatives focused on the alleviation of suffering of farmed animals. Nonetheless, there are still a number of animal advocacy organisations and initiatives that presently exist that can provide an idea of what it is like to work in the animal advocacy space. In addition, there’s a lot of room for (non-profit) entrepreneurship, in particular if new projects are able to crowd-in new funding sources.This guide is written for people who are curious as to the work being done, as well as those seeking opportunities or leads for their next role.

What are some relevant skills needed to work in animal welfare advocacy?

Animal advocacy work consists of a variety of activities and requires a range of skills. As with most organisations, animal advocacy organisations require some essential departments to operate, and they include human resources, accounting, marketing and communications, research, funding, legal, IT, and strategy. The set-up of an organisation of course depends on its aims and objectives. For some of these specialist roles, animal advocacy organisations struggle to find good hires, so talented people can have a large impact by boosting these organisations.

Most roles in animal advocacy do not directly work with animals, and instead serve to support initiatives that support animal welfare such as research and development, funding, or awareness and marketing-related activities. Often these animal advocacy organisations work together with other stakeholders such as governments, universities, or businesses to achieve a variety of goals (e.g., knowledge exchange, advisory, and so forth). 

Furthermore, you can also indirectly support animal welfare without directly working in animal welfare such as doing work in the area of alternative proteins (check out our career guide to alternative proteins).

What are some suggestions for organisations and resources?

Not every animal advocacy organisation uses the principles of effective altruism to help animals as much as possible. Regardless, people who want to use their career to have a large impact would be well off in trying to support an animal advocacy organisation such as the ones listed below, especially when it comes to their work on the more numerous animals and with a strong, evidence-based theory of change.

Dutch:

1. Dierencoalitie - a foundation that works with 16 other animal welfare organisations to support their activities
2. Bite Back - an organisation that creates awareness about animal issues through campaigns and organising activities
3. Compassion in World Farming - an international organisation that creates awareness about farmed animal issues
4. Eyes on Animals - an organisation that works to minimise the suffering of farmed animals during transport and slaughter
5. World Animal Protection - an animal protection organisation that focuses particularly on wild and farmed animals
6. Wakker Dier - an animal advocacy organisation that focuses on creating awareness about farmed animals
7. Dierenbescherming - an animal protection agency that helps animals in need as well as lobbies for animal protection laws and regulations
8. Varkens In Nood - an animal advocacy organisation that focuses on combating the suffering of farmed pigs through campaigns, lobbying, and legal procedures

International:

1. Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund
2. International Fund for Animal Welfare
3. World Wildlife Fund (Dutch office)
4. Euro Group for Animals

Where to find more opportunities:

1. 80,000 hours job board
2. Animal Advocacy careers job board
3. Effective Altruism opportunity board
4. Good Food Institute career portal
5. Probably Good job board
6. Hive

This article is part of our animal welfare section.