Explore every episode of the podcast How I Learned to Love Shrimp
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thomas Manandhar-Richardson on why animal advocates need to use AI more (and how) | 14 oct. 2026 | 01:11:00 | |
My guest today is Thomas Manandhar-Richardson, also known as Richie, from Vegan Hacktivists, an organisation providing free technology, design and data support to animal advocacy groups. Before joining Vegan Hacktivists, Richie was Research Director at Bryant Research, and he now also helps run Amplify, a programme teaching animal advocates how to make better use of AI. There’s no shortage of somewhat vague discussion about how AI might transform our work, so we wanted to make this conversation as practical as possible. We talk about where AI can already save advocates significant amounts of time, how to give these tools enough context to produce genuinely useful work and some concrete ways they can support research, strategy and everyday organisational tasks. We also discuss where advocates shouldn’t rely on AI, why humans still need to make the final decisions and what the animal movement could look like if these tools continue improving at their current pace. Whether you’re already using AI every day or you’ve tried ChatGPT once and wondered what all the fuss was about, I think you’ll find this pretty useful. Enjoy the conversation! Chapters: (00:00:00) - Introduction Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Taj Uppal on risking 6 years in prison for rescuing animals | 29 sept. 2026 | 01:07:33 | |
My guest today is Taj Uppal, an animal rights activist and lawyer. We recorded this conversation while Taj was facing two felony charges and more than six years in prison for rescuing two baby goats from an industrial dairy farm in California. Since recording, a judge has reduced those charges to misdemeanours. The case is not over, but the most serious threat discussed in the episode has now been removed, which is great news. Nonetheless the consequences for Taj have been substantial, including losing a job offer at a major law firm and potentially putting his legal career at risk. In this episode, we have a pretty personal and reflective conversation about civil disobedience and open rescue and the role these tactics have in helping animals. Taj explains why he no longer sees direct action as a silver bullet, but still believes that the sacrifice it involves can generate dialogue, give activists credibility and be a deeply transformative, even spiritual, experience. We also discuss when civil disobedience is most likely to work, why it should often come after other campaigning methods have been exhausted and the legal, practical and community infrastructure needed to support people taking these risks. We even reverse the interview for a while, with Taj asking me about my own experiences with Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rebellion. This is a topic very close to my background, so I really enjoyed having this conversation with Taj, and thought it was a pretty interesting and even coverage of some of the benefits and risks of taking more high-risk action. A quick plug, unrelated to this great conversation with Taj: A group I volunteer with, UK Voters for Animals, is hosting a mass lobby day on the 10th of November, where we're bringing over 100 people to Parliament to meet their MPs about ending frankenchickens, which is a cruel fast-growing breed of chicken. We had over 100 people come last year, with 30 meetings with MPs, which was a huge success for the first-ever mass lobby day for animals. This year, we want it to be even bigger, so if you're in the UK and want to come along, you can sign up here. Chapters: (00:00:00) Introduction Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Nina Friedrich on why (and how) you should transition your career to high-impact animal advocacy | 03 sept. 2026 | 01:10:48 | |
My guest today is Nina Friedrich, the Executive Director of High Impact Professionals (HIP). HIP helps experienced professionals move into work tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems, including farmed animal welfare. Nina has a PhD in mathematics from Cambridge University and previously worked as a software engineer and strategy consultant before making a career change towards more altruistic work herself. In this episode, we talk about why moving into animal advocacy can be such an impactful and fulfilling choice, particularly for people who already have years of professional experience. We discuss which skills the movement needs most, the trade-offs involved in changing careers and how people can test the waters for what they might want to do, before quitting their jobs. We also explore HIP’s different programmes, common mistakes job applicants make and also what animal advocacy organisations could do better when trying to attract experienced professionals. As a heads up, this episode is pitched at a slightly different audience than usual. If you already work in the movement I think you'll still get something out of it, but I think this conversation will be most useful for someone who is wondering whether they should transition to working in the movement. Also, if you know someone who has been considering changing careers to help animals, please share this with them! Chapters: (00:00:00) - Introduction Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Jiri Krupa (& Jesse Marks) on using fundraising to win campaigns | 09 juil. 2026 | 01:16:02 | |
This is a new kind of episode! I am trialling something where I am asking other people to be the interview host, rather than me. This has many benefits, one of them being you get a break from hearing my voice. But you also get to hear from a broader range of talented advocates who know much more about a certain area than I do, giving a much richer conversation. The first guest-hosted episode is run by Jesse Marks, Program Officer at The Navigation Fund, who interviews Jiri Krupa, who runs the Growth & Impact Group. This episode focuses on how campaigning organisations can better engage their supporters, members and activists, to win more campaigns. Jesse & Jiri both discuss the power you can build via better supporter engagement, as well as the strong financial engine of regular monthly donors to support your work long-term. Chapters: (00:00:00) - Intro: more effort means more impact Links & resources from the episode:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Anne Hilhorst on hitting companies where it hurts | 04 juin 2026 | 01:10:51 | |
My guest for today is Anne Hilhorst, CEO of Wakker Dier, a Dutch animal welfare organisation. She joined Wakker Dier when she left university 15 years ago and plans to be there for another 15 years! Besides the impressive longevity of their staff, Wakker Dier is a really impressive and interesting organisation that I knew very little about. Thanks to them, no supermarket in the Netherlands has sold eggs from caged hens since 2006, no fast-growing breeds of chicken since 2021 and over 90% of the retail sector has a meat reduction goal. This is already an amazing list of accomplishments, and far from all of what they’ve achieved too. There seem to be a few things about them that helped, which I’ll unpack with Anne in this episode. Some key themes include that they spend over 90% of their effort & resources in getting companies in particular to stop supplying the cruelest products, spending around one third, yes that’s 33%, of their budget on advertising for campaigns and they even read books about the companies they are targeting, to learn what makes them tick. Chapters:
Resources: Enjoy the episode! With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Toby Schiønning on "fair cop" and a new model for corporate campaigning | 24 mars 2026 | 01:26:13 | |
My guest today is Thorbjørn Schiønning, also known as Toby, who is the Director of Communications and Campaigns, and co-founder of Anima International. He’s been involved in animal rights for 15+ years, specialising in corporate outreach, campaigning and media work. In this epsiode, we speak about the recent huge success for chickens in Norway – where the Norwegian chicken industry agreed to phase out fast-growing broiler breeds, affecting over 70 million animals, by the end of 2027 – the first time a country has taken such major action to help chickens raised for meat. More importantly, we spend a bunch of time discussing Anima International’s strategy when it comes to corporate campaigning, and why they’ve come up with a new term, “fair cop” which they feel is a better approach to the well-known concepts of good cop and bad cop. Toby has lots of useful advice for anyone interested in campaigning and advocacy: why threatening big campaigns can be counterproductive, why more campaign groups should build a war chest of campaigning funds, why most campaigners should wait longer before escalating and much more. I learned a lot about corporate campaigning strategy from this one and this is coming at a really critical time in the movement, both for cage-free and our work on broilers, so hope you all enjoy! Chapters:
Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Seth Green on why reducing meat consumption is hard and what actually works | 26 févr. 2026 | 01:11:57 | |
This episode, I spoke with Seth Ariel Green, a research scientist at the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab at Stanford university. He recently published a meta-analysis called “Meaningfully reducing consumption of meat and animal products is an unsolved problem” (EA Forum summary here) where he reviewed over 30 papers and hundreds of interventions on the topic. Seth also writes about the science of meat reduction on his Substack, called Regression to the Meat, which I highly recommend checking out for some accessible and fun to read writing about meat reduction. We talk about why Seth is more sceptical than most about plant-based defaults, what actually works when it comes to changing people’s food choices, why some research in this space is misleading and new interventions to shape diets and food choices that he is excited about. Chapters: (00:00:00) Cold intro (00:00:53) Introduction to Seth and his work (00:05:38) What are defaults and why is Seth sceptical (00:19:55) The best paper on defaults - what does it mean for advocates? (00:28:50) What does the research on meat reduction say? (00:34:25) Is 5 percentage points a small or big change in meat consumption? (00:43:20) What actually works in reducing meat consumption? (00:50:18) Potential interventions that Seth is excited about Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| 2025 Highlights: All the best bits from How I Learned To Love Shrimp | 27 janv. 2026 | 01:07:04 | |
Today, we’re bringing you a special highlights episode! It’s a roundup of some of the most interesting conversations we had in 2025. They include:
Chapters:
For those who miss Amy as a co-host, you’ll be very happy to know that a bunch of these snippets include her too. Hope you enjoy the episode! With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Dawn Neo on the 4+ billion hens in cages in Asia and how we can help them | 16 déc. 2025 | 01:02:37 | |
Dawn was one of the first people in Asia working on cage-free reforms – she started working on Asian farm animal welfare 10 years ago, often as one of the few individuals talking to major food companies about improving the welfare of animals in their supply chain. Dawn Neo is the director of corporate engagement at Global Food Partners. She works with food and hospitality businesses as well as various stakeholders in the industry to improve farm animal welfare. Prior to joining Global Food Partners, she was the lead for Humane Society International’s farm animal welfare program in Asia. Today, we cover lots of important things: Major trends in Asian farming, the 2025 cage-free deadline, how to deal with countries with large informal markets, cultural differences in campaigning and negotiation and much more. Chapters: (00:00:00) - Cold Intro (00:00:50) - James' intro and Dawn's background (00:08:12) - Why Asia is critical for farm animals (00:12:15) - How countries differ in production systems and why this matters (00:17:55) - Who is on track for their 2025 cage-free commitments? (00:23:17) - What if companies can't meet their commitments? & how do cage-free credits work? (00:31:13) - Which Asian countries are doing well? (00:36:48) - Rising egg consumption in Asia (00:41:09) - How to tackle informal markets? Should we get new commitments or hold companies accountable? (00:43:30) - Cultural differences in campaigning (00:57:09) - The need for patience & self-care in advocacy Resources:
For sending recommendations of future guests:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Vicky Bond on what it’s really like to lead in animal advocacy | 11 nov. 2025 | 01:17:33 | |
Vicky Bond has done lots of impressive stuff in her career – she started working as a vet and later ended up running a 100+ person organisation, The Humane League (THL), which many of you might be familiar with as one of the key organisations campaigning to get chickens out of cages. She is now the CEO of Madre Brava, an international climate campaigning group focused on food. Given Vicky’s extensive leadership and management experience, managing teams ranging from 5 to over 110, I wanted to pick her brains about leadership and management in the animal advocacy movement. I would highly recommend it for people who are leading teams of any size or want to learn more about how to do it well! Podcast news:
Chapters: Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Sjir Hoeijmakers on a small commitment that will help millions of animals | 14 oct. 2025 | 01:10:51 | |
Today we're talking about a topic that's really important to me personally: donating and effective giving. Specifically, why donating 10% of your income to the most effective animal charities might be one of the most important things you can do to improve the world. To dive deep into this topic, I’m so excited to have Sjir Hoeijmakers on the show today. Sjir is the CEO of Giving What We Can (GWWC), the global organisation promoting effective giving and the 10% pledge. Even more impressive than this, he donates around 50% of his income to effective charities, so he really puts his money where his mouth is! In our conversation, we talk about the impact your donation can have, why it also makes sense for people who work full-time in the movement and why the act of pledging really matters. We also talk about another important part of Giving What We Can’s work: Their evaluation of regrantors and evaluators, including the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund and Animal Charity Evaluators. If anything we talk about today sparks your interest, I really encourage you to consider taking the trial pledge, where you can pledge to give just 1% of your income to effective charities. It's a great way to test it out and see if it works for you. Personally, taking the pledge is one of the things I’m proudest of. Because of this, I’ll be donating £50 to Giving What We Can’s effective animal advocacy fund for each person who takes the trial pledge or full 10% pledge, up to a total of £1000. So, if you sign up via the links below, there is a special tracker that will let me know how many people take it, and I’ll donate accordingly. Chapters:
Resources:
Sjir's Recommendations:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| David Cole on what we can learn from the marriage equality and gun rights movements | 24 sept. 2025 | 00:50:43 | |
David Cole is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, a former national legal director of the ACLU and author of the popular book on social change in the US, Engines of Liberty. This book, a must-read for anyone interested in social movements, is the focus of our discussion today. We spoke about the importance of local organising for political momentum, why incremental progress has seemed to work for other issues, the role of in-person community in social movements, and other lessons from the US marriage equality and gun rights movements. Chapters:
Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Penny Tehilah on uniting “welfarists” and “abolitionists” through pressure campaigns | 09 sept. 2025 | 01:06:25 | |
Penny, the Executive Director of Animal Activism Collective, has helped bring hundreds of new activists into the grassroots animal movement, as well as supporting dozens of local grassroots groups around the US. Collectively, these groups, and AAC’s network, have been responsible for securing dozens of victories for animals, including getting over 80 companies and restaurants to drop foie gras, fur and much more. That’s why I was very excited to speak with Penny today about something that feels pretty unique in our movement: A grassroots organisation like Animal Activism Collective working on cage-free campaigns in partnership with less grassroots-y organisations. In addition to this, we spoke about how AAC manages to get dozens of people to travel across the country to join their in-person weeks of action, why Penny thinks movement unity is important, the benefits of getting people in-person and even how Penny started caring about shrimp! This is an episode with lots of fun stories and we’re also trying something new by splicing in audio of their protests, so people can get a sense of the energy they bring. Resources:
Chapters:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Lewis Bollard on the strategies that win, the traps to avoid, and why. | 19 août 2025 | 01:23:53 | |
Lewis Bollard should be a familiar name for those trying to improve the lives of farmed animals. For almost 10 years, he’s been running the farm animal welfare program at Open Philanthropy, the largest funder in the fight against factory farming. It's hard to think of someone who's had a large positive influence on the modern farm animal welfare movement. In this conversation, we discuss the many different approaches we can take to help animals. We talk about why some strategies are less promising than they initially seem, common misconceptions he sees amongst advocates, why creating good strategy is hard, where the movement is under-investing and what he’s learned from other social movements. See the full transcript on our Buzzsprout. Chapters:
Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Cass Sunstein on why people self-silence about animal welfare | 29 juil. 2025 | 00:39:41 | |
Cass Sunstein has one of the most impressive track records out there. He’s the author of the social change books Nudge and How Change Happens, a Harvard Law professor and former US government official in the Obama administration. He has been writing about animal rights law since as early as 1999 and has written several seminal papers on the topic. He has a forthcoming book, with the working title Animals Matter, discussing how we can normalise and popularise caring about animals in mainstream society. In this conversation, we speak about understanding the contradictory views held by the public on animal welfare, how our advocacy can help them overcome these contradicting views, how he was smeared by the media and even called “the most dangerous man in America” for his views on animal rights, and how we can get more people to speak only about pro-animal issues. For those interested in hearing more about his previous book, How Change Happens, and his views on social change, you can listen to this great episode of his with 80,000 Hours, which covers that topic in more depth. Referenced resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Thom Norman on whether diet change is a counterproductive ask (and what we could do instead) | 02 juil. 2025 | 00:59:27 | |
There are never-ending conversations in the animal advocacy movement about whether diet change is an effective ask for the public. Today, we speak with Thom from FarmKind on why he thinks asking people to donate, rather than change their diet, can be a much more promising approach. We speak about why behaviour change is difficult, the many benefits of donating, what other social movements have used as their asks, as well as the different experiments FarmKind has run in their quest to figure out how to best raise funds for animal advocacy. Mentioned resources
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Alice Di Concetto on why EU animal welfare reforms failed (and what we can do next) | 12 juin 2025 | 00:58:47 | |
The EU is one of the most important institutions in the world. They had amazingly ambitious plans to transform the lives of the billions of farmed animals in the EU which sadly, were put on hold last year. Today, we speak to an expert in EU animal welfare policy, Alice Di Concetto from the European Institute for Animal Law & Policy, about what happened, what animal advocates might hope to win in the next few years and how we might improve our lobbying efforts. Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| James on Changed My Mind, talking about disruptive protests and social movements | 12 mai 2025 | 00:48:27 | |
Today, we’re sharing a different kind of episode. Not an episode of How I Learned to Love Shrimp but an appearance that I, James, made on another podcast, Changed My Mind. It's all about what causes people to change their mind and this time, I talk about my experience with changing my view on disruptive protests and social movements. This podcast is run by Aidan and Thom from FarmKind, who some listeners may know about, as a great new charity working to raise funds for animal issues. You can listen to more of their podcast here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. How I Learned To Live Shrimp will be back as normal next week. Enjoy! With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Katie Cantrell on shifting millions of meals to plant-based | 06 mai 2025 | 01:03:59 | |
There is an age-old debate within animal advocacy on the importance of educating the public. Is it simply enough to tell people about the harms of industrial animal agriculture and then they will change their behaviours? Sadly, not it seems. Many people have been disappointed about the amount of behaviour change that’s actually happened over the past few decades due to education, as seen in relatively stagnant numbers of people going vegetarian or vegan. That’s why I’m excited that this week’s guest, Katie Cantrell from Greener by Default, is trying a new approach to get people to change their behaviours – by changing their diets with them barely even noticing. Stick around for a great discussion on the importance of nudging, choice architecture and making the plant-based option the default path. For those who didn’t listen to our special 50th episode (which I think was awesome – go check it out!), this is a reminder that it will just be me hosting the podcast for the foreseeable future, as Amy sadly had to take a step back. Resources
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| 50th Episode Special: 5 leaders on key changes and opportunities in the animal movement | 15 avr. 2025 | 00:57:14 | |
To mark our 50th episode, we're bringing you something special: Five movement leaders talking about some of the biggest developments for animals in the past two years as well as what advocates should focus on next for the next two years. Highlighting advancements in policy, corporate campaigns, alternative proteins, and investment in overlooked species, this is an information-packed episode so don't miss out! Our guests:
Please give the podcast a positive review on your podcast provider of choice. You can also find us on YouTube if you want to see these podcasts in beautiful color and video. With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Kelvey Vander Hart on appealing to wide range of political and religious beliefs | 02 avr. 2025 | 00:57:00 | |
Kelvey Vander Hart from the Wilberforce Institute joins us to share her approach to animal advocacy from a politically right-of-center view and how her Christian faith guides her activism. Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| David Kay on the emerging cultivated meat industry | 18 mars 2025 | 01:07:36 | |
David Kay shares his experience as the first employee at Upside Foods, offering a deep dive into the cultivated meat industry's challenges, successes, and political landscape. As an animal advocate who entered the alternative protein space, he provides unique insights on depolarising the conversation around cultivated meat and building bipartisan support.› Add David on LinkedIn to follow his work and learn more about his perspectives on the alternative protein industry. Resources:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Julia Reinelt on why supporting parents is integral to the success and sustainability of our work | 04 mars 2025 | 01:07:42 | |
A critical look at the entwined relationship between parenthood and the animal advocacy movement. Julia Reinelt shares her insights on how organisations can become more supportive to parents in the advocacy space. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Aarti Bhavana on mental health and keeping companies accountable to their commitments | 18 févr. 2025 | 01:18:44 | |
This episode discusses the intersection of mental health and animal advocacy, highlighting the critical need for self-care among advocates. Aarti Bhavana shares her experiences with emotional tolls from animal suffering, corporate accountability, and practical strategies for sustaining passion in the long term. Resources;
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Haven King-Nobles on why high agency is critical for entrepreneurship | 04 févr. 2025 | 01:19:11 | |
Haven King Nobles brings us a really refreshing topic this week as we explore high agency and the importance of this particular trait when it comes to entrepreneurship and continuous innovation. We talk through Haven’s experience of being a young entrepreneur, the mistakes he made in the early days of founding the Fish Welfare Initiative, and some advice on the skills to develop to really excel in entrepreneurship. Whilst this week's topic was high-agency, we of course talk to Haven about his experiencing the first organisation dedicated to working on fish, talking about some of their programmes and the challenges of working in India on this topic. Resources
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Ben Newman on campaigning against the RSPCA and the role of welfare labels | 21 janv. 2025 | 01:05:04 | |
Ben Newman has had a colourful past few years, being one of Animal Rising’s co-directors and being arrested multiple times for various bits of direct action and disruptive protest. Now, Animal Rising has turned its attention to campaign against the RSPCA, the world’s largest animal charity, for running the RSPCA Assured scheme. This has been quite a divisive campaign within the animal advocacy movement, with some, including both co-hosts, having fairly big questions about the effectiveness of this campaign. With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Almira Tanner & Aidan Kankyoku on their grassroots ballot initiatives and how to lose forward | 17 déc. 2024 | 01:17:18 | |
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Aidan from Pro Animal Future and Almira from Direct Action Everywhere. A really interesting episode about their recent US ballot initiatives which actually has a lot of cross applicable learnings about fighting strong opposition to campaigns, the benefits of loosing forward, and how frequently narrative outperforms spend when it comes to campaigns. Almira and Aidan share insights on collaboration, leadership, and the courage to experiment with new strategies in the face of fierce opposition. Their stories underscore the importance of perseverance and adaptability in the fight against well-funded adversaries.
Almira
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Jesse Marks on becoming a major grant maker, The Navigation Fund and corporate campaigning | 05 déc. 2024 | 01:12:47 | |
Jesse Marks is the newly appointed Farm Animal Welfare Program Officer for The Navigation Fund, a new major funder in the anti-factory farming space.
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Joyce Tischler: 45 years in animal law | 19 nov. 2024 | 01:26:57 | |
Known affectionately as the mother of animal law, this weeks guest Joyce Tischler has over 45 years of experience advocating for animal rights through the law in the US. Starting off in 1979 by co-founding the Animal Legal Defense Fund where Joyce would serve as executive director for 25 years, we hear about the first cases Joyce worked on as well as her bold decision to take on the US Navy. Joyce now lectures at the Lewis and Clark Law School in the Centre for Animal Law, specialising in Industrial animal agriculture law teaching students both locally and internationally. We hear from Joyce on some great case study examples of effective campaigning and her decision to switch from circumstantial cases to prioritising cases to develop legal theory. 00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Tom Harris on the SHAC campaign and the significance of grassroots advocacy | 05 nov. 2024 | 01:24:56 | |
There are not many people who have spent time in prison for their commitment to help animals, but Tom Harris is one of them. We spoke with Tom about his time in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign (SHAC), one of the most well-known animal rights campaigns of the last 20-30 years. We speak about why he thinks the campaign was so effective in applying pressure to companies, things he would do differently, common misconceptions about the SHAC campaign and the importance of grassroots advocacy in the animal rights movement. We also spend a bit of time talking about his future plans for rebuilding the grassroots advocacy scene in the UK so stick around to the end for some exciting plans. Resources:
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Jakub Stencel on defining and maintaining organisational culture | 22 oct. 2024 | 01:20:34 | |
Jakub Stencel is the recently appointed interim director of Anima International. A refreshingly candid conversation about organisational culture, transparency and its limits, as well as the constant journey of testing and learning that Anima undertakes. Jakub talks us through his thinking on culture in an expanding organisation, split across multiple countries and how his first important task as interim director is to assess whether Anima International should continue to exist, or, if other organisational structures could save time, resource and increase impact for animals. Resources:
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl on winning the largest government investment in plant-based foods | 08 oct. 2024 | 01:29:18 | |
Rune-Christoffer is an impressive person. In addition to being almost 10ft tall, he led the Vegetarian Society of Denmark’s efforts in getting the Danish government to invest over 110 million Euros in plant-based foods and develop an Action Plan to boost plant-based foods in the country. Given this is one of the most significant policy wins the animal advocacy and plant-based movement has seen in recent years, we chat about how they built the political will to achieve this. We speak about the importance of building coalitions, developing relationships with politicians, and even engaging with the animal agriculture industry. We also speak about their plans to scale this work in the EU so stick around to the end if you want some optimistic and ambitious next steps. Resources:
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Giulia Malerbi on banning octopus farming globally | 24 sept. 2024 | 01:09:27 | |
Giulia Malerbi is attempting to prevent octopus from being intensively farmed for food. As head of Global policy at The Aquatic Life Institute, Giulia’s important work aims to stop intensive octopus farming before it even begins and has hopefully contributed to the passing of some groundbreaking legislation to support this ban. A really refreshing episode about the complexities of advocating for such an unknown species with the ins and outs of why farming this inquisitive species is so problematic from multiple perspectives.
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Wu Hung on how Buddhism has influenced his 30 years of activism for animals in Taiwan | 10 sept. 2024 | 01:03:29 | |
Wu Hung trained as a monk before his journey into animal advocacy began and it is these teachings in the ‘inconsistencies of life’ that led him to believe he could change the future for animals in Taiwan. Through liaising with government officials, top business people and the general public, as well as predictable pushback from the industry, navigating the complexities of a relatively new movement in Taiwan has not been easy for EAST. We hear about these challenges and also how members of the global north can support this important work in Taiwan. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show: 00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Léo Le Ster on creativity in campaigning | 27 août 2024 | 01:09:22 | |
Léo Le Ster is a campaigner at L214, a French NGO focused on helping farm animals. Léo talks to us about L214’s creative campaigning tactics and the importance of open and collaborative brainstorming when it comes to generating new ideas. Léo gives us an update on the state of the movement in France and insight into their organisation with a multi-tactic approach from investigations and campaigning to education programmes and lobbying. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Co-hosts Amy & James on a summary of our best bits and a brief hiatus | 30 juil. 2024 | 00:10:53 | |
In this short 10 minute clip we announce a brief hiatus and use this time to chat through some episodes we want to highlight which we recommend checking out in the short break. With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Mahi Klosterhalfen on progressive strategies for animals in Germany and the importance of sharing mistakes | 16 juil. 2024 | 01:24:20 | |
Mahi Klosterhalfen from Albert Schweitzer Foundation brings us exciting progress for animals in Germany. Mahi walks us through his work on cage-free, broilers and also now fish and shrimps and why Germany seems to be one of very few countries where meat consumption per capita is declining. We also dive into some thought provoking questions around running an organisation and why as a movement leader, sharing of mistakes is so important. Super interesting chat from a really knowledgeable long-term member of this space - well worth a listen. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Tania Luna on the importance of employee health and well being for animal advocates | 02 juil. 2024 | 01:23:27 | |
Tania Luna brings us a wealth of knowledge this week as she walks us through the best working practices of organisations seeking to support animals that must integrally include the human animals that work to protect others. Tania’s team apply their wealth of experience in the tech space to the animal advocacy space supporting organisations to prioritise employee health and well being in pursuit of our common goal: increasing the sustainability and efficiency of our work. Tania offers top tips, learnings from supporting organisations so far and explains more about their service at Scarlet Spark and how they can support you. If you are interested in movement health and especially if you are a leader who could benefit from advice on running an organisation, no matter how big or small or someone who has the desire to run an organisation in the future - this is the perfect episode.
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Leah Garcés and Sharon Núñez: Timeless lessons from 40+ years of animal advocacy | 17 juin 2024 | 00:59:13 | |
An absolute treat of an episode this week as we were asked to interview long-time advocates Leah Garcés and Sharon Núñez, live from the Animal and Vegan advocacy summit in Washington DC in May earlier this year. From anger in Leah’s 20’s to some eye opening potential prison-time in the past for Sharon, our esteemed guests walk us through their experiences over the last 20 years of their tireless work for animals. A nostalgic and powerful look back and projection forward from these two powerhouse leaders. Leah Garcés is president of Mercy For Animals and author of Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry. She has nearly 20 years of leadership experience in the animal protection movement and has partnered with some of the world’s largest food companies on her mission to build a better food system. Sharon Núñez is the co-founder and president of Animal Equality, a leading international animal protection organization ranked as one of the most effective animal rights organizations in the world for three consecutive years by Animal Charity Evaluators. 00:00:00:00 | Intro With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Doug Waley on the lives of farmed fish and how we can help them | 14 mai 2024 | 01:06:40 | |
Long overdue conversation on the important topic of fish this week with the lead for fish at Eurogroup for Animals, Doug Waley. Doug’s expertise lies in working for fish at the EU level however most of the episode is filled with important information relevant to fish farming across the globe. It’s a technical one but really insightful as we explore the everyday life of a farmed fish, the challenges they face and what can be done to secure meaningful wins for the billions of fish farmed each year. As always please check out the episode on youtube if you’d prefer or listen in, it’s a great episode!
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| 10 Years Since Veganuary: Co-founders Matthew and Jane reflecting on the past and envisioning the future | 14 mai 2024 | 00:51:40 | |
Matthew and Jane co-founded the online campaign Veganuary in 2013, which has encouraged millions of people across the globe to try being vegan for the month of January and beyond. More recently, Matthew launched Veg Capital, an organisation that provides early-stage capital to companies striving to replace the use of animals in our food system and founded vegan chicken brand VFC. Jane remains on the board for Veganuary as chair. Episode filmed live at the Vegan and Animal Rights Conference in Manchester in April 2024. The episode is warm and nostalgic as Jane and Matthew gave us insight into their Veganuary journey. The episode was also recorded and is available on our youtube channel. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Sofia Balderson on how rejection can help you grow as an advocate | 02 mai 2024 | 01:19:52 | |
Sofia Balderson is the co-founder of Hive, formerly known as Impactful Animal Advocacy, an organisation that aims to improve coordination and collaboration in the farmed animal movement through cultivating impactful, intentional, and serendipitous communities
Chapters With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Ignacia Uribe on some tough decisions nonprofit leaders have to make | 23 avr. 2024 | 00:48:56 | |
Short but sweet episode this week from Ignacia, author of a recently released book, CEO of a leading organisation in Latin America and mother to two small kids. We're delighted that Ignacia took time out to talk to us about her experiences right across her contributions for animals. We chat about Fundacion veg and their campaigns in both diet change and animal welfare as well as the decision for Ignacia to scale down her organisation and what led to this decision. We talk about the importance of country context in campaigning and the challenges when working in this field across Latin America. We ran into a whole host of technical difficulties during this episode with unstable connections so please bear with us during the chat and why not head to youtube to see if you can spot the point at which an entire day passes before we resume filming for the remainder of the episode. Resources:
How can people get more involved in your work? Are you hiring, do you need volunteers and where can people find you? Chapters With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Bob Fischer: The case for including insects in our animal advocacy | 09 avr. 2024 | 01:05:35 | |
Bob Fischer is the Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University. Can insects feel pain? Should people who care about chickens, cows and pigs also care about reducing the suffering of crickets or black soldier flies? In this episode with Bob Fischer from Rethink Priorities, we try to answer some of those questions, as well as talking about the rapidly growing insect industry, and possible ways for advocates to help farmed insects. We talk about lots of interesting content and research, for some of which there are excellent visualisations, which we’ll link to at the top of the show notes. I highly recommend checking out the Welfare Range Table and Rethink Priorities’ Welfare Range estimates to help better understand some of the points here, both of which are linked. Bob also had a great conversation on the 80,000 Hours Podcast about the moral weights project more broadly and how they want to try to compare welfare across different species of animals. We think they covered it very well, so we didn’t speak much about it today, so we’ll link it for interested folks. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Kristie Middleton on why engineering breakthroughs are essential for low-cost plant-based alternatives | 26 mars 2024 | 01:11:25 | |
Kristie Middleton is vice president of business development for Rebellyous Foods where she and her team help institutions add more plant-based options to their menus. Kristie’s also the author of MeatLess: Transform the Way You Eat and Live—One Meal at a Time and a long-time animal advocate. Rebellyous Foods has created novel manufacturing technology in order to make plant-based chicken more affordable to the masses. Mainly targeting food service providers such as universities and school districts, Kristie, who is Vice president of business development at the venture capital funded company, uses her experience from her days at The Humane Society to ensure that this product is a clean and price comparable product in those markets. A great episode for those interested in all things plant-based meats and how to scale a company providing this type of product to the masses. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
(00:00) START With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Jayasimha Nuggehalli on working collaboratively with the animal agriculture industry to help animals | 12 mars 2024 | 01:36:56 | |
Jaya is a seasoned operational executive with a rich history of promoting animal welfare in the food retail sector. As the Co-founder and Chief Program Officer of Global Food Partners, a Singapore-based multinational consulting firm, he helps food and hospitality businesses implement their cage-free egg policies across Asia and reduce the cost of cage-free sourcing. A fascinating episode as we unpick the many advantages of working collaboratively with the industry to advance animal welfare. We chat about the key challenges to this type of work right now, animal welfare challenges in Asia generally and try to understand some of the key barriers for companies implementing improved animal welfare standards for the animals in their care. Jaya has an absolute wealth of knowledge and experience in this area so it was a real pleasure to hear about his important work and strategic approach. A great listen. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
Chapter Headers: 0:02:38 Why GFP works collaboratively with companies 0:06:10 Market forces and why they matter 0:12:01 Making progress for cage free 0:18:21 Key insights from cage free work in India and Asia 0:20:11 Reputational risk and its limitations in Asia 0:25:59 Forecasting the Asian animal movement 0:31:18 The impact of global welfare commitments on Asian companies 0:36:45 The importance of social proof 0:39:39 Consumers or companies responsibility 0:50:00 Offset credits for cage-free procurement 0:54:51 Cost implications of going cage free 1:08:46 Pushback from other animal advocacy groups 1:12:30 GFP plan for expanding in more countries 1:19:00 Cage free vs broiler commitments in Asia 1:20:22 The need for ecosystems and GFP's work 1:23:02 Career advice for advocates in Asia 1:26:20 Cultivating personal motivation 1:29:24 Closing questions With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Lauren Mee on the career landscape for helping animals | 27 févr. 2024 | 01:22:53 | |
Lauren Mee is the CEO & Co-founder of Animal Advocacy Careers, an organisation that tries to match mission-aligned talent to opportunities that accelerate the end of factory farming. Lauren offloads all she knows about the hiring landscape right now when it comes to careers in animal advocacy. She talks us through some best practices and common pitfalls in the hiring process as well as her take on some of the more strategic questions when it comes to career progression in this space. Whether you are not yet working in the movement, a manager looking to hire or a mid-level employee looking to advance to something more senior, there is something for everyone in this episode.
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Aaron Ross on how to stay motivated and keep fighting for animals for 20+ years | 14 févr. 2024 | 01:37:09 | |
Aaron Ross has spent over 20 years working for farmed animals. His relentless dedication to this cause has seen him co-found two major organisations, The Humane League and the Open Wing Alliance and train and advise countless others around the world on corporate relations and movement strategy. In this episode, we talk through an important topic, longevity, and discuss the advantages and pitfalls of this long-term dedication to this long-term fight. Aaron offers practical advice for those wanting to dedicate their career to helping animals and why staying involved over the long-term has immeasurable advantages. We’ve really enjoyed delving into a topic that touches less on the organisation goals and more on personal experiences of a deep topic so if you or anyone you know would like to come on to talk about a different area in this same vein, please let us know. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Simon Newstead on developing alternatives to animal protein | 16 janv. 2024 | 01:21:55 | |
Simon Newstead, entrepreneur turned impact investor, is a founding co-partner of Better Bite Ventures who back food-tech founders in Asia. In this episode, we deep dive into the world of alt protein and the different technologies available in the alternative protein space. We look at Asia specifically where Simon’s work is focussed as well as the challenges this industry is facing as a whole. We also quiz Simon on his view on the timelines we should work towards to see this global shift in consumption towards animal-free alternatives. Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||
| Wanyi Zeng on building the farmed animal movement in Southeast Asia | 12 déc. 2023 | 01:24:29 | |
In this episode, we speak to Wanyi Zeng, Executive Director of Welfare Matters, an organisation that is focused on building capacity for the farmed animal advocacy movement in Southeast Asia. We speak about the findings of Welfare Matters’ detailed and insightful report into the animal agriculture landscape in 6 key Southeast Asian countries, challenges facing the movement in Asia as well as Welfare Matters’ exciting plans to incubate new projects in the Asian farmed animal space.
With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! Note: My (James') views here are my personal opinions and don't represent those of Coefficient Giving. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us! | |||