“Reflections on FarmKind’s January media campaign” by Aidan Alexander, ThomNorman

Summary

In January 2025, FarmKind ran a provocative media campaign which used controversial media messaging and materials to promote ‘offsetting’ as an option for individuals who are concerned about factory farming but are currently unwilling or unable to change their diet.

The campaign raised an estimated $16,700--$59,300 (explained in our Results section below) and generated a number of media ‘hits’ including TV and created some debate that many advocates have told us they found productive. However we made mistakes in its execution and generated unproductive controversy within the EA and animal advocacy movements.

This post aims to explain our theory of change, what happened, what we got wrong, and what we learned.

We still believe mobilizing the meat-eating majority to take action for farmed animals requires meeting them where they're at, which sometimes means provocative framing that distinguishes us from vegan advocacy -- though we understand many in the movement disagree. However, we regret specific execution failures, particularly our insufficient stakeholder consultation, which risks sparking infighting within the animal movement.

Context

FarmKind is a donation platform that aims to bring more money into the movement against factory farming. People donate through our platform directly to six highly effective farmed [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(01:23) Context

(02:06) The goals of our campaign

(02:51) Primary goals

(03:16) Secondary goals

(04:06) How we envisaged it working

(05:24) Launching the campaign

(07:18) Coordination with Veganuary

(07:22) Did you tell Veganuary about the campaign in advance?

(08:21) Did Veganuary object to the campaign?

(09:07) Is there bad blood between you and Veganuary?

(09:50) Does Veganuary endorse this campaign?

(10:13) What we got wrong

(10:16) 1) Underestimating the risk of movement infighting

(12:29) 2) Insufficient stakeholder consultation

(13:11) 3) Internal coordination failures

(13:52) How we responded to concerns

(17:20) Results

(20:12) FAQs

(20:15) Are you anti-vegan?

(22:35) Aren't you concerned about dissuading people from being vegan?

(26:07) Have you measured whether you're dissuading people from being vegan or supporting animal advocacy?

(29:03) Why not just do something much more nuanced?

(29:45) Why did you pitch to tabloids and right-wing outlets?

(30:50) Conclusion

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First published:
January 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/c2buSr3oatKQJZi6F/reflections-on-farmkind-s-january-media-campaign

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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