Think of the big-name organizations in the animal protection movement — HSUS, ASPCA, Farm Sanctuary, RedRover — and you’ll find Caryn Ginsberg’s fingerprints all over their strategies and campaigns. Caryn has spent more than a decade helping animal protection advocates utilize strategy and marketing approaches to get better results, and her new book, Animal Impact: Secrets Proven to Achieve Results and Move the World, is designed to help both beginning and experienced activists create more effective change for animals. Caryn’s book has been endorsed by many well-known advocates, including Wayne Pacelle, Gene Baur, and Bruce Friedrich, and Peter Singer called it, “the practical handbook every activist should read.”

In addition to her expertise merging business skills with activism, Caryn has also served on boards of directors and advisory boards, including for the Institute for Humane Education and the Humane Research Council, and has taught social marketing, marketing, and strategic management courses for Johns Hopkins University and Humane Society University. I talked with Caryn about her book and how it can help transform activism.

MR: Why did you write Animal Impact?

CG: Like many advocates, I got my start by volunteering for outreach tables, leafleting, and demonstrations. It became clear to me that some of these activities were more productive than others.

Hard-working, committed activists deserve to get results that match their efforts. That’s why it pains me when I see interactions, outreach, and campaigns that aren’t as effective as they could be. Our goal must be to be “passionately productive.”

MR: What’s unique about your book amongst the other books about animal protection or general advocacy?

CG: There are many excellent books about advocacy in general and animal protection specifically. I reviewed a number of books before writing Animal Impact precisely to define what would make it different:

• It  introduces, explains, and illustrates a seven-step process to create change, so that readers get an approach they can remember more easily and apply to get better results.
• The success stories and lessons learned from leading advocates around the world make the book enjoyable as well as instructive.
• The book includes thought exercises and questions, so you experience the material. You can begin to put the information to work before you even finish reading.
• There’s a free companion journal pdf that repeats the key points and provides space to answer questions and take notes, letting you create a personalized executive summary.

MR: Your book looks to business practices, including marketing strategies, as a core part of effective advocacy. Why is that important?

CG: You’d probably agree that businesses are good at getting people to do things, whether or not you support all the actions they motivate. Advocates can use the same approaches – ethically and without big budgets – to get people to take different actions. The field of social marketing, applying business marketing principles to motivate people to act in ways that benefit society, began in 1971. The public health, environmental, and animal protection fields, as well as others, have used social marketing successfully to advance change.

MR: In your book, you talk about the ACHIEVEchange system as a guide for effective activism. Tell us a little about it.

CG: The ACHIEVEchange system gives advocates a way to remember seven key steps to effective advocacy. Each letter in the word “ACHIEVE” stands for a phrase that represents a key step in the process of effective advocacy. For example, “C” is for “Create benefits and cut barriers.” People change when they believe it is in their interest to do so. As advocates, we have to help them tip the scale, so to speak, where they see more benefits than barriers to taking the animal-friendly action. Saving animals by going vegan may be an appealing benefit, but if the food doesn’t seem delicious, convenient, nutritious, and affordable, there are too many barriers. That’s why giving people the tools and support they need to make veganism work for them is so important.

MR: Give us an example of “top-notch” advocacy.

CG: Although some people experience an epiphany and become vegans overnight, most people make dietary changes over time. They move from awareness to interest to decision to action and maintenance.

As people move closer to taking action, they focus more on potential barriers and less on benefits. That’s where they need help to feel confident and comfortable with plant-based eating. Typical outreach that involves a single conversation or even sharing a veg starter kit may fall short.

Vegan mentoring programs, such as from the Animal Rights Coalition in Minnesota, address this problem by providing ongoing assistance. The veg-inclined can choose a mentor who will answer their questions, invite them to veg events, and just be a veg friend. One vegan mentee even won ARC’s Vegan Iron Chef competition! About four to six weeks into the relationship, the mentee provides an evaluation to ensure the relationship is productive.

Although ARC’s program is small to start, I believe this type of program, whether delivered in-person or online, is an exciting model that helps people move from awareness to action for veg eating.

MR: What are some of the most common mistakes activists make?