Animal Ask is a research charity dedicated to optimising and prioritising future farmed animal asks to assist animal advocacy organisations in their efforts to reduce farmed animal suffering.
We provide organisations with in-depth research, narrowly targeted at key decisions between different animal asks, supporting organisations, individual activists, policymakers and donors so that they may do more good in the long-term.
WHAT IS AN ANIMAL ASK?
This is the specific request for industry, food companies, or government to improve the welfare of animals in their care e.g. asking the UK government to ban cages for laying hens. These animal welfare asks are implemented over a set period and if successful, can change the lives of millions of animals. However, not all asks are equally impactful - good prioritisation of potential asks has the potential to greatly increase the effectiveness of our efforts.
There are a huge number of potential asks we could make, with many complex factors to consider when prioritising an optimal animal ask. Research into these key consideration is essential to making well informed decisions, for example:
How much does this specific species care about one welfare improvement vs another?
How would implementation work with respect to industry and regulatory bodies?
How many animals would likely be affected?
Which asks are the most likely to be successful?
Given all of this, what is the largest and most effective ask we can make for animals?
Systematic research is required in order to answer questions such as these as applied to different species, locations, and organisations.
Animal advocacy organisations are already doing good work to select asks. However, many organisation leaders and research professionals in the space have indicated that they do not have the capacity to investigate asks in more depth, and that research support in the optimisation and prioritisation of asks would have positive effects.
Given the impressive level of effort and resources animal advocacy organisations currently put behind each ask, we think that supporting our community in prioritising the best asks is key.
HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?
We are currently in our pilot phase and in line with our implementation plan are now focussing on developing proof of concept for our organisation. We are looking to support organisations in their decision making considerations for an upcoming ask. This will help to increase the impact of the ask that is ultimately used while simultaneously helping test our model. We will use our findings to iterate on our research process and integrate any feedback from the organisation into our future plans. We encourage any groups who could benefit from this additional research resource to get in touch.
We plan to most likely hire a senior researcher in early 2021 to support us with our intervention. Information on this decision will be released towards the end of the year.
Charity Entrepreneurship has awarded us a seed grant of $100,000, which will enable our organisation to operate for our first year. In early 2021 when we have evaluated our organisational worth to the movement, we will be seeking further funding for the development and expansion of our intervention.
We greatly value your feedback and suggestions. Please feel free to reply with any questions or comments or reach out to us directly through our contact form.
Animal Ask was founded through the 2020 Charity Entrepreneurship incubation programme.