Remember that would-be activists might be shier than you expect. 

Doing this without pressure to get more involved before they’re ready will allow them to, in addition to watching, get to know the other advocates and demystify involvement. 

Previous research found that people are more likely to get involved in social movement organizations during periods of transition, and this study supports that.

As organizers, we should take care to override the impulse to recruit those like us to the exclusion of others. 

After all, people who see themselves in us will be more likely to approach, meaning that those who don’t might need more of our energy to feel welcome.

Here’s an exercise: imagine a scenario where you might be looking to recruit activists, and imagine a person you’d expect to connect with in that scenario. What is their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, ability status, education level, and class? Which of these demographics are shared with you or your co-organizers? Which of them are also dominant or majority demographics? This might help you identify some elements of diversity that you’re treating as default, and thus people who might not feel as welcome in your group.

If it's possible to have first-time attendees welcomed by someone of similar demographics, that's great. If not, organizers should mindfully correct any impulses to be more welcoming of people who are more like themselves.

This challenges us to stop using blame as a vehicle for understanding the world. 

Without bad people, no one can be dismissed. When we start to believe that regular, traumatized people do horrific things out of a desperate attempt to meet valid needs, we open ourselves to understanding the complexity of the system we’re fighting. From this place, we can experience a righteous and protective anger more focused on the needs of the victims than the crimes of the perpetrators.

Treat the movement as a marathon and model a sustainable relationship to the work. 

Step in when you hear people bragging about poor self-care or invoking a never-ending urgency. One example of this used by a participant was when an organizer would talk about the urgency of the problem of animal agriculture as a way to motivate others, and another example of this may be an organizer regularly talking about how little sleep they get as a way to explain away poor performance. While it can be appropriate to receive emotional support from co-organizers on either of these topics, beware of making light of poor self-care or citing urgency as a way to demand more or better work. These can create a culture of overworking that will lead to burnout- and burnout means less work gets done over time, not more.

Some organizers were so practiced in this that they instinctively told a story about victory when asked about a low point in their activism. 

Surely, organizers are also activists, and caring for our own motivation is a smart way to care for others. Understand that these victory framings were not delusional- organizers were articulate in where their political losses lay and what they would like to have done differently. The surprising cognitive tactic was in how fully they celebrated the victories within the defeats.

Imagine the patience you’d like to extend to a new puppy who needs to learn both that humans are safe and shoes aren’t for chewing.

Some new activists have a million ideas and many of them are pretty bad. They might seem a little too interested in the more glamorous roles. They’re blowing up the group chat and generally coming on way too strong. 

Celebrate their desire to contribute, and hold that celebration while you give them feedback if their behavior is making it hard to work with them, help to develop their ideas if they aren’t in line with your organizational values, and encourage them to learn more about nonviolence and your theory of change.

Participants often described a shift in their activism from what they saw as fun to what they saw as effective. They thought of this shift as important but also sad. 

Share around some of the exciting work to make the effective-but-dry roles more inspiring.

Don’t wait until you desperately need help to invite someone to get more involved. 

Often, participants went from just showing up at events to taking on an organizing role only when the organizers needed help, such as when a previous organizer quit.

Savvy organizers should be looking for ways to build movement capacity for its own sake and moving activists up a ladder of engagement. There is no reason to wait until you feel a pressing need to ask for help- remember that your invitation to do more work may be a crucial moment in someone’s relationship with the movement.

It’s possible that the pandemic pushed hundreds or thousands into this state- activists who still have some connection to the movement, and who are willing to come back to work if we can offer them something worth coming back for.  

In addition, organizers should be aware that activists who move up the ladder of engagement are raising their standards. Our people and our organizations must constantly be getting better if we want to retain activists while recruiting more. Organizations must have systems in place to quickly implement learning from all areas. Pax Fauna uses Scrum to make a routine of constant reflection and improvement.

The movement can certainly justify investing more resources in getting people together, especially in regional gatherings with less of a barrier to entry to newer grassroots activists.

While conflicts between us are normal and necessary, it is absolutely worth our time to resolve those conflicts. And, it is even more worth our time to prepare systems and agreements for when conflicts happen. 

Of course, conflict is exhausting work. Don’t mistake your momentary exhaustion with the belief that conflict isn’t worth the energy. 

We recommend that organizers plan ahead by creating a conflict resolution system. If possible, create this while your organization is not facing an active conflict. A conflict resolution system should answer the following questions:

How do you plan to instill norms around healthy conflict in your group, such as giving and receiving feedback and avoiding blame?

While this question is important, do not expect its answer to completely prevent the need to answer the following questions.

How do you expect people to behave in conflict? Is there a code of conduct you’d like people to agree to?

How does someone formalize a conflict? E.g., how does one initiate the conflict resolution process?

What happens after the conflict resolution process has been initiated? When do you know if it’s over?

What resources are you willing to invest in conflict resolution? Where will you turn to for mediation when necessary?

Under what circumstances will someone be asked to leave? Who decides?

What other hypothetical solutions might be available to you? Is your organization big enough to have organizers working on separate teams?

How will you make the conflict resolution system known and remembered throughout your organization?

Spending time on a regular basis to engage positively in relationships between organizers can be a stitch in time that softens future conflicts

In Pax Fauna, we participate in a biweekly reading of a moment of reflection for this purpose. Surely there are more opportunities for animal organizers to incorporate ritual to intentionally support activists’ grief.