further to use of photographs

[Guest guest]

>It must be noted that while Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is an

>excellent organization, they only campaign on companion animal issues

 

 

This is incorrect. Companion animal issues is the Best

Friends focus, but quite a few organizations on the AAPN list can

testify that they have received significant help from Best Friends in

developing other programs and campaigns, for example Wildlife SOS of

India.

 

Best Friends is a vegetarian organization, and always has

been. It promotes vegetarianism with a very soft sell, but is quite

effective. There are two organizations that I often hear described

with a sentence beginning, " I became a vegetarian after visiting... "

Farm Sanctuary is one of them, Best Friends is the other, and both

are receiving about 25,000 visitors per year.

 

Best Friends does not do confrontational campaigning on many

issues, but they do publish quite a lot of educational material

pertaining to issues other than their own. The Best Friends humane

education program certainly includes opposition to hunting,

trapping, fishing, classroom dissection, etc., always stated in a

positive rather than negative way.

 

Of note is that Best Friends leases more than 10,000 acres

for the use of wildlife, and keeps that land off limits to hunting

and trapping, in an area which was formerly heavily hunted because

it includes the major water sources in the region, where the

wildlife tends to congregate.

 

In very early years Best Friends had a fairly conventional

anti-vivisection campaign. Cofounder Michael Mountain wrote a book

attacking vivisection, more or less in the Hans Reusch mode. The

Best Friends antivivisection campaign was not very successful, and

was put aside at a certain point to focus on the sanctuary.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

for free sample, send address.]

[Guest guest]

I think the discussion actually shows that different people in different

places do things in different ways and can be successful in many ways.

 

 

 

What might not work in the almighty developed world as people are further

from reality faced in developing countries, might actually work well in

developing (or culturally different) countries. It might be a good idea for

people in the western world to open their eyes for different ideas under

different circumstances instead of always trying to project their own ideas

and opinion on other societies.

 

 

 

Maybe Best Friends is growing bigger because of better fundraising, a

different target group or a different approach. I don't believe you can put

it just on the use of horrible pictures only.

 

 

 

Edwin Wiek

 

WFFT Thailand

 

 

 

 

 

_____

 

aapn [aapn ] On Behalf Of

Merritt Clifton

Tuesday, 01 August, 2006 19:51

aapn

Re: further to use of photographs

 

 

 

This discussion is basically demonstrating that many

activists are more interested in sharing their feelings of revulsion

and anger with the public than in enlisting public support.

 

The hard evidence, meanwhile, is overwhelming that while

horrifying photos and other negative material may reach and influence

some people, they don't have even a fraction as much value in

building an organization or cause as positive imagery.

 

PETA, as the leading exponent of shocking material, has

enjoyed a growth rate of 5.7% over the past 10 years. This would be

considered excellent performance for a for-profit business of

comparable size, but it would not be considered changing-the-world

success. It would be basically holding a strong slice of market

share in a specialized niche.

 

Best Friends, going completely the opposite way in their

campaign imagery and promotional material, enjoyed a 53.6% growth

rate over the same 10 years, as an organization that came out of

nowhere to rival PETA in size (and in several respects is actually

larger, with more staff and volunteers.)

 

That is change-the-world level performance: growth at the

speed of the computer industry, leaping beyond competition within

the niche, to expand the market

 

So, why do so many activists choose to emulate PETA, with a

campaign approach whose appeal and efficacy is limited to the niche?

 

Apparently PETA expresses those activists' negative feelings.

They identify with the " negative rebel " approach, as the late

sociologist Bill Moyers put it, rather than with successfully

relating to mainstream people.

 

That's fine if all you want is a nice comfortable church

within which you perpetually preach to the choir. Thousands of such

churches do quite well for themselves and their congregations--but

they are not moving the world.

 

To do that, you need to practice the sort of evangelism that

moves others who are not already like yourselves, and are not moved

or influenced by what moved you--which they too probably saw.

 

In this regard, activists are particularly blind to the

evidence. There is a pervasive belief that people who are not

motivated on behalf of animals just haven't seen the literature about

whatever is going on.

 

This is dead wrong. Currently, in the U.S., one household

in four actively supports animal causes. That household receives,

on average, about 80 solicitations from more than 20 pro-animal

organizations per year.

 

The other three households, who don't donate, hear from

only 6-7 pro-animal organizations per year, about 21 times.

 

That's a lot of junk mail to be junking. That it is all

being junked indicates what whatever most of it is doing is not

working with those particular people. They are seeing enough of it

to be moved, if it is going to move them, but for whatever reason,

the approach doesn't succeed.

 

Instead of assuming that people just haven't seen what goes

on, activists need to start considering that maybe a lot of them

have seen, and are just turned off by the style and format of the

pitch.

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl (AT) whidbey (DOT) <anmlpepl%40whidbey.com> com

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

for free sample, send address.]

 

 

 

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