For CAA’s Board Meeting on January 21, we once again gathered remotely. The technology worked very well, and we’re thinking of continuing this format going forward.

After reviewing updates from the Executive Director and the Communications & Events Coordinator, we discussed the results of our year-end fundraising campaign. The number of unique donors and the amount raised were both up over last year. We also reviewed a donation history report that tracks donations over time. The board was pleased to hear that our new staff person, Brita Bengtson, will take over as our bookkeeper.

Next, we turned our attention to our upcoming strategic planning session. We will be taking time in late March to discuss what kinds of objectives we see as most important for the organization. Should we focus more on outreach or on community building? Or should we focus on both? Should we concentrate on helping those who’ve transitioned to a plant-based diet stick with it or should we work on getting people who eat animals to begin eating fewer of them? And how can we measure our progress once we’ve decided on our objectives?

We’ll also be working to articulate in some detail how exactly we see each of the programs we plan to engage in as connecting with our objectives, as well as how to assess them. As a way to help with the project of planning and evaluating programs, we will be reviewing the work of Humane League Labs and Animal Charity Evaluators.

If you find this kind of work interesting, please consider participating in our strategic planning session. We’ll be meeting on Saturday, March 26.

We are still looking for board members. If you’re interested, please contact Unny Nambudiripad at [email protected] and plan on attending our next board meeting, which is tentatively scheduled to follow the strategic planning session on Saturday, March 26.

Though Brita Bengtson just started a new part-time staff position as Bookkeeper with Compassionate Action for Animals, she’s been volunteering with the group since 2011 and a making a difference for animals long before that.

Brita went vegan in the 90s when she was about 15 years old. Looking back, she laughingly calls it “The Dark Ages of Veganism” and can relate to a buzzfeed-type list on the VegNews website called “You Know You Were Vegan in the 90s If…”.

Long story short, there weren’t nearly so many vegan specialty foods available back then. According to Brita, the only vegan cheese available was called “Vegan Rella” and was made out of Irish moss. (What?!)

When asked what made her go vegan, Brita says, “That’s a hard question for me because I don’t remember — and that’s not because of the B12 deficiency.” LOL! Did we mention Brita has a hilariously dry sense of humor?

No, she doesn’t have a B12 deficiency, but she does have a lot of compassion for animals. She’d always felt a sort of moral conflict about eating animals and naturally moved away from eating meat by the time she was 12 years old. Then at an Earth Day festival, she found a little booklet called What’s Wrong with Eating Animals, which also revealed the problems with the egg and dairy industries. That’s when she went vegan.

Fast forward about 15 years to 2011. Plant-based food options were on the rise, and veg fests were popping up everywhere, including right here in Twin Cities. Brita was inspired by the idea of the veg fests, as they reach thousands of people in one day and make compassionate living out to be what it really can be: fun and delicious. It was then that she jumped into volunteering for CAA, taking on the role of Advertising and Media Outreach Coordinator for our first annual Twin Cities Veg Fest.

Since then, Brita has been a vital organizer for the festival. She moved on to be the Social Media Coordinator a couple years later and has done a phenomenal job with the festival’s Facebook and Instagram pages. She sees social media as a good opportunity for free advertising, and, with her savvy approach to online communications, she has brought lots of positive exposure to Twin Cities Veg Fest and ultimately to our mission to help the animals.

When she’s not helping out with CAA, Brita has a job helping people with disabilities with their daily activities. She also enjoys finding creative ways to make vegan food and has three cats: Precious, Chibi-san, and Mr. Biscuit.

As an animal advocate, Brita is always contemplating how she can be more effective. That’s one reason she appreciates working with CAA; as an organization, we’re always thinking about how we can do better for the animals.

Her commitment to the cause has her always learning new things. It’s this passion that led her to apply for the part-time position as Bookkeeper for CAA. We’re grateful that she is taking on this new behind-the-scenes role; these kinds of administrative tasks are really instrumental to the stability and longevity of the group. It’s also wonderful when we can hire someone whose heart is so much in the work.

Welcome, Brita!

Meet CAA’s new intern Sydney Terwey. Sydney majors in Media Arts and Animation at The Art Institutes International of Minnesota and will be helping develop a variety of our design materials for the next three months.

Sydney hails from Long Prairie, a small town in rural Minnesota. Growing up around farms, she had a behind-the-scenes perspective on animal agriculture. Even on small farms, she witnessed the inevitable suffering and slaughter that are part and parcel when animals are used for food. She formed friendships with pigs much like people do with their dogs and cats, but then one day, the animals she had grown to love just weren’t there. Such intense experiences led her to stop eating meat.

Now vegetarian for the past 8 years, Sydney was drawn to working with CAA for her internship. She appreciates that CAA is passionate about the issues but not pushy. She tries to bring this tactic into her design work and creates images that are warm and inviting, rather than gory or shaming. In this way, she hopes to make a difference for animals, grabbing attention and then getting people to think about their food choices.

Sydney’s association with CAA began before her internship. For one of her design classes, she created an informational 2D and 3D animated advertisement for Twin Cities Veg Fest. (We’ll be sharing the video in the next couple months to coincide with the announcement for this year’s festival date and location.) The video was so impressive that we welcomed Sydney as an intern and very much look forward to all that she will contribute to the group and for the animals.

As advocates for animals, we want to reach people with our message of compassion for animals and help others make compassionate choices. We have many opportunities to engage in online discussion, but the conversations can be fraught with conflict, misunderstanding, and pain. However, we can do things differently.

The first thing to remember is that online discussions are not the best way to communicate. If you can talk about animals with other people face-to-face, then do so. Be proactive in starting those conversations, whether at an outreach table or by sharing vegan food with friends. When online discussions start and you find that people are interested in discussing the topic further, invite them to have a face-to-face discussion. In-person discussion allows for nonverbal communication, including gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice, all of which can increase empathy and understanding.

Sometimes it’s impractical to speak in person, and online discussions are the only opportunity to discuss issues. For those circumstances, here are 10 tips:

1. There’s generally no need to respond right away. Give yourself time.
2. Stop and breathe. Find peace in yourself before responding.
3. Treat each person as an individual with their own needs, desires, and autonomy. You are much more likely to understand their perspective and also have them understand you.
4. Listen to the other person. Start your comment or message by paraphrasing to show that you understand. Ask sincere questions to understand their perspective better.
5. Show respect. Avoid sarcasm and condescension.
6. Model open-mindedness. When people see that you’re listening and trying to understand, they are more likely to do the same.
7. Since empathy works best in person, accommodate for the medium. When you communicate, imagine your words being interpreted in the worst light and then edit your comment to help the other person understand your perspective. And on the flip side, interpret their words in the best possible light.
8. Speak from your own perspective. Don’t claim that your views are universal. And…
9. When providing factual claims, cite sources that most people are likely to agree are reliable (e.g. industry or academic sources).
10. Build bridges. Use the debates as an opportunity to find shared values and common interest that will keep the discussion going.

In public or group discussions, most readers (especially those who are undecided) never comment at all. This means that the people you’re most likely to influence are not the people who are commenting, and those people are more likely to listen to you and agree with you if you are respectful and seek to learn the truth.

None of this is to downplay the real anger we may feel about animal cruelty or the frustration we may feel when those we care about are engaging in animal abuse. Those feelings are real, yet acting them out is not helpful. Cool down and respond with compassion and goodwill for both the animals and your audience.

Our mission at Compassionate Action for Animals is to encourage people to embrace their empathy for farmed animals and to move toward a plant-based diet. All of our activities are designed with that goal in mind, and, as we grow as an organization, we look for new ways to assess how our outreach methods are having an effect. Are we actually fulfilling our mission and moving toward our goal of a cultivating a more compassionate community?

In 2014, we undertook our biggest initiative for evaluating our methods, and we used our largest annual event, Twin Cities Veg Fest, as a platform to do that. In creating a plan for the research, we consulted with a variety of experts, including Kathryn Asher and Che Green of Faunalytics (formerly Humane Research Council), food scientist Chris Homsey, psychology student Sonal Markanda, and Brandon Whited of Statistics in the Community. We incorporated their ideas into designing a research plan that would help us assess whether the 2014 Twin Cities Veg Fest had an effect on the behavior of attendees. Did the festival inspire them to take action for animals, either by moving further toward a plant-based diet, volunteering, donating, or sharing information about farmed animals? Continue reading →

“…I want to become vegan.”

“It was a great presentation and very inspiring.”

“It was an eye opener.”

These quotes are from students at Blaine High School in response to a Bridges of Respect presentation on factory farming and veganism that was given on November 6. Shannon Kimball, who coordinates CAA’s humane education program, Bridges of Respect, had scheduled me to speak to two agriculture classes that had a total of 60 students.

During the presentations, I shared my story of what caused me to change from an avid meat eater to a vegan animal advocate; talked about the emotional lives and intelligence of pigs, cows, chickens, and fish; and exposed the link between animal agriculture and environmental destruction, including climate change.

Students were also invited to watch Mercy For Animal’s documentary Farm to Fridge. This 12-minute video shows the sad reality that animals face in factory farms and slaughterhouses. Because of the video’s graphic nature, students were empowered to take care of themselves and given the option to not watch. Most of them did watch it, and, because of their compassion, many of them were deeply moved and lots of tears were shed. Continue reading →