The Core Responsibilities of Leadership in Non-Profits (Time Management for Leaders
Key takeaways:
• The core responsibilities of leadership include thinking about the vision and strategy of the organization and communicating it to the leadership team and staff.
• Leadership should set aside enough time to ensure everyone is moving in the same direction.
• Communication with staff and leadership is crucial for success.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
So when he gets that kind of level of size and the organization and kind of complexity, what does your day to day look like? What are you actually focusing on on like on a week to week basis and what are the key things on your desk every day?
Speaker 1
Well, I think some of the core responsibilities are really kind of thinking about the kind of the vision and strategy of the organization and making sure that the leadership of the group Like the leadership team and the staff that you're communicating with them about that vision and strategy that you're getting their feedback on it and then you're kind of like kind Of painting that picture for everyone of what you'll be doing. I think this is kind of like a core responsibility of leadership that you have to be setting aside enough time for to be communicating enough with staff and leadership and really making Sure that everyone is moving in the same direction. So this is like the number one thing you need to be thinking about when you wake up during the day, but that aside in terms of like what the actual day to day is looking like, it's cyclical And every day is really different. So it's a job where you have to be able to switch very quickly between all right, I'm like at a conference, I'm meeting with major donors and you know, pitching our next year of work or covering Our annual review, then all of a sudden you're like doing check-ins and managing your staff, you're doing, you know, podcast interviews perhaps like all you're talking to media, all Sorts of things. So you know, there's kind of like a quarterly board meeting cycle, there's the annual fundraising calendar you're looking at. So the end of year, you're very focused on fundraising. Beginning of the year, you might be more focused on like, you know, establishing the budget and the strategic plan throughout the year. So it's like month to month is going to be really quite different in what you're looking at. And it's really about like where you're at in the calendar, where you're at with like the big campaigns and that kind of thing. I think in area where it's easy to get tripped up is like just not allocating your time correctly. And I think that this is like a very key skill that I had to develop and where I made a lot of mistakes early on. And this is related to like not delegating enough the actual work is just focusing too much on the wrong things because there's always going to be like 10,000% available of your time That you could like demands on your time. And you just need to be able to say no, the right things and make sure you're delegating to the right people so you can focus on what you need to.)
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(highlight:: Navigating the Debate: Should Animal Welfare be a Left-Coded Cultural Issue?
Key takeaways:
• The debate of whether to engage with left-leaning or Democrat groups is complicated.
• The cost of becoming a left-coded cultural issue is a topic of discussion.
• The Vegan movement is already considered a left-coded cultural issue by the right wing in the US.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Do you think as allies, the kind of left leaning or Democrat kind of groups is a much more clear obvious ally? Or do you think we should be trying to be as bipartisan as possible? Or do you think that's just not realistic or? Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So this is a debate that comes up a lot around these questions of like, do what is the cost of becoming a kind of like left coded cultural issue? And is it better to not fully engage with one part of the other? So it's very complicated. I mean, I think realistically, we are already a left coded cultural issue. I mean, if you look at just like everything from Michelle Obama saying kids should eat more vegetables to, you know, we're going to have a veggie burger in a government building once A month. Like the explosions that come from these things from the right, it is so clearly a left coded issue to that faction that I think it's a little bit of wishful thinking that like there's This huge opportunity for us to become part of the like masculine right wing identity in the US or something like this. On the other hand, I do think that avoiding where we can on many of our kind of like single issue campaigns, we can run, there is no reason for it to become like a third rail culture thing. So particularly around issues like confinement or slaughter or like cruel treatment of animals, I do think that there's just huge bipartisan support. So there's no reason for it to become a, I think it's more issues related to diet that I see is becoming extremely partisan very quickly and out of our control. So I do think that there's no need to kind of code things in one direction or the other on many of the issues we're on.)
- Time 0:39:15
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(highlight:: The animal rights movement struggles with cohesion, absorbing newcomers, and movement sustainability
Summary:
The animal rights movement faces challenges in building cohesion and attracting newcomers due to a lack of natural organizing community.
Unlike other movements like civil rights or LGBTQ rights, animal rights is primarily an ally-based movement without a centralized community or organizing principle. Veganism, while a communal principle, is not strong enough to provide the same level of cohesion and support as other movements.
Additionally, the movement primarily focuses on personal purity and activism, which is not sustainable or attractive to most people.
To address these challenges, the movement needs to experiment and find ways to create a more accessible and exciting community.
This can include local political engagement, organizing events and conferences, and making the movement more welcoming to newcomers. Currently, the movement can be intimidating for new individuals to get involved without sacrificing their modern lifestyle.
Transcript:
Speaker 3
So I guess comparatively then to other movements, what do you think it is that we're missing? Is it just a timeline that we're just, you know, still such a new movement really in the grand scheme of things? Is it the level of resource? What do you think those key pieces are that we're missing comparatively? I mean, those are definitely two factors.
Speaker 1
I think one reason that it has been slow to build is just a fundamental challenge kind of baked in to what we're trying to do is that there's no natural organizing community that animal Rights is based off of, you know, it's fully a an ally based movement, right? Like we're helping others. We're not advocating for ourselves or our own rights. And you know, civil rights had the black church in the United States. Same sex marriage had just the kind of organic LGBT community that existed, especially in all these like major cities and important places around the country or around the world. We have like, I guess we have veganism is has kind of been the communal principle, which is not, you know, this is like very weak compared to the other things. There isn't a place where we all organize in person. We don't do things where we have fun together in like a natural way. I mean, if you look at what like, if you look at the civil rights movement, the church community would provide so much kind of cohesion and support and activity outside of just purely Doing politics. See, if you look at the NRA and their success organizing the United States, you see in the same thing, you know, for every one time the NRA is asking you to speak to your Congress person, They're engaging with you many times in other ways. You're going to gun shows, you're receiving magazines, they're helping build this identity, build this community where you have a sense of like, this is really who I am. And one thing that's being asked of me is doing this political work. And I think that we're either, you know, just based on diet, essentially, where this can be like where you expend your energy is like this project of personal purity and being more vegan And kind of like spreading that to other people, very consumer focused. And then you just have like the smaller group of people who are like the die hard activists, which is just not sustainable for most people and not attractive to most people. So I think to me, this is like the foundational challenge that we have is that we just don't I mean, we have like vegan restaurants, right? This sucks. They're pretty good.
Speaker 2
Are you back off? What do you think? What do you think is alternative then? Are you thinking like vegan gun shows, vegan clubs, vegan union?
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2
It's like everything. We're just like, I mean, for animals was like, yeah, what does actually look like? What would that be to hub actually look like?
Speaker 1
You think? Yeah. Well, I wish I had a really good answer to this. And I think that step one is kind of grappling with this problem and finding something. I think we need to start experimenting a bit more. I will say going back to the local political stuff, I think this is something where you can build like a more sustainable kind of community. It's not too crazy of an ask for people. And it's, yeah, something that they can engage with as part of their normal life and still make a pretty big impact and getting, you know, just getting people more involved on that local Level. But it's a real challenge. I'm not exactly sure to be honest. I mean, I think we could go a long way towards having more kind of exciting events and accessible events and conferences that people gather together in. I think that just getting the community together in a more and more accessible way is really important. And right now, just so much of what's done is targeted towards people like us who are all just, you know, just like die hard in the movement, you know, we know all the people. I think it's quite intimidating if you're just like a new random person to walk into that kind of space and feel like how do I get involved without, you know, forsaking all of modern life And becoming crazy people. I don't know.)
- Time 0:41:24
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(highlight:: Challenges with absorbing newcomers in the animal rights movement
Summary:
The animal rights movement faces barriers to attracting new members due to low salaries and the dominance of large organizations.
There is a need to avoid glorifying sacrifice and martyrdom among activists and lower the bar for involvement. The movement should aim to make participation appealing, enjoyable, and meaningful to members, similar to how the NRA does.
While there are positive reasons to join the movement, strategists need to focus on reducing anxiety and creating a more inclusive environment for newcomers.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
It certainly is a barrier for building involved. There's no question about that though, like it's hard to hire people if your salaries are super super low. I don't I'm not going to pretend like I have a complicated question that I don't have the perfect answer to because there are real costs to like over professionalization and over. I don't know, like just having a few super large NGOs who are kind of like, sclerotic and captured by the needs of the organization running everything. So like, you know, there's plenty of examples of movements or groups that have become like that. On the other hand, I think what needs to be avoided is among activists, this like, um, valorization or martyrdom of like, if you're not sacrificing everything, you're not hardcore. You know, if you want to have any elements of like a normal life or a comfort or happiness, and you're forgetting the the suffering of the billions of animals, and that this is just to like The more we can do to lower the bar for involvement in the movement, like right now we're asking people is, you know, you're going to make very little money. You're going to be vegan. You're going to be like constantly faced with these images and videos of suffering and like, it's just all these things that are incredibly unappealing to people. Um, and again, like look at the NRA. It's like, what are they focused on? Like, how do we make this as appealing and fun for our members? Like, how do we make this like a meaningful part of their life that they get a kick out of and enjoy and make friends through? And you know, there's certainly argued, I'm not trying to just like trash the animal movement. There's a lot of incredible reasons to join. Like the reason that all of us are here is like the, uh, all the positive parts of it. But I think, you know, we need to as strategists grapple more with like, how do we lower the bar for involvement and really get away from this like, pure, a tentacle thinking that so many People in the movement are obsessed with, where it's just like the anxiety that I'm sure you two have experienced this. You meet people who just started working at a group or volunteering at a group. The anxiety people feel about being like found out, like, Oh, I still have these, these leather shoes and I wore them to this event because I got them before I went vegan and like, so like I've heard so many stories like this is insane. Like this is not a good way to operate.)
- Time 0:46:09
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(highlight:: Measurability Bias in Effective Altruim and the Animal Rights Movement
Key takeaways:
• The speaker feels frustrated with the measurability bias prevalent in strategic thinking in EA minded groups.
• There needs to be a balance between focusing on measurability and being open-minded to other approaches.
• The speaker would like to see more open-mindedness from the metric-minded individuals.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
When I'm talking to the more like EA minded or whatever you're going to call it, folks, I'm often very kind of frustrated that the, the measurability bias that comes out where it's like A lot of the strategic thinking to me is so bounded by what is measurable and how do we compare that to these kind of like safe bets, like a, where we can really get a sense of like how many Animals are impacted. And then on the other hand, when I talk to folks who are outside of that world, it's the opposite response of like, well, how are we going to measure this? And how are we going to have any sense of whether it's working? So I think we really need a balance. And I think what I guess what I'd like to see is definitely more open mindedness from the metric heads)
- Time 0:59:25
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(highlight:: The Misapplication of Effective Altruist Mindset to Animal Advocacy
Summary:
There is a misapplication of the Effective Altruist (EA) mindset to animal advocacy.
The EA mindset of measurement and maximizing makes sense in the context of global development and health, where there are numerous resources and organizations. However, in the animal movement, which is still in its early stages, this mindset may not be appropriate.
The animal movement requires more of an exploratory mindset and the willingness to try different approaches.
While continuing with what works is important, it should not come at the expense of experimenting with new strategies.
The idea that the first discovery will always be the best and that no further experimentation is needed is flawed. This misapplication can be attributed to measurability bias.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
One thought I've had in the last year talking a lot to advocates about this topic is that I think there's this, this misapplication of the EA mindset to animals where I think where they Got started with global development and health. I think it makes a lot of sense to have this measurement and maximizing mindset because they're stepping into a essentially an industry with thousands of nonprofits and hundreds of Governments involved and the UN, where it's just like an endless amount of resources and people and researchers involved in this project. And in that environment, you should be doing this kind of maximizing thing where you're like, okay, well, there's 10,000 options. What are the best three? And how do we get money to them? Because everything else is funded and like we're just trying to like on the margin have some impact. But this is a totally different context in the animal movement, which is quite nascent where we're still kind of stumbling around in the dark. Like we've, we've discovered a few things that seem to be working, but the idea that that's what we should be doing in, I don't know, 15 years is totally not persuasive. Like we, you know, we might be doing something totally different or we should be doing 10 other things that are different. And like the idea that the first thing we discovered will forever be the best thing and that we should never experiment again is just very different than stepping into an industry that's Been around forever and has tried everything. So I think that there needs to be a kind of different modes that we, a different lenses, we look at different contexts through. And I think the animal movement, we need to have a little bit more of an exploratory mindset. I think obviously we need to keep doing the things that are working for sure, but not at the expense of trying out other stuff. And I think that like this is where measurability bias can really bite us.)
- Time 1:02:33
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(highlight:: Veganism as a barrier to involvement in the animal rights movement
Summary:
The concept of personal purity associated with veganism adds a fundamentalist religious element to the animal rights movement, which is unhelpful.
This creates a gap in support for the cause, as many people are sympathetic to the overall political project but refuse to join due to veganism. Veganism is often seen as unrealistic for most people, making it a challenge to attract non-vegans.
This limited perspective results in a smaller and weaker social organization within the movement.
In contrast, other movements like climate change and labor unions have a broader acceptance criteria that allows for greater participation.
There is a need to address this issue by creating a stronger sense of community and expanding the movement's inclusivity.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
It's essentially built around this concept of personal purity that adds this kind of like fundamentalist religious element to this like foundational piece of the identity that I Think is quite unhelpful. And when I did, there's just something missing to me where so many people are sympathetic. So many people are sympathetic to our cause and generally agree with most of our like political project what we're trying to achieve. At least the first, you know, the first many steps people really are more with us and just the number of people who would never get on board because of veganism. I mean, this is just a huge gap to me. It's something we need to address. So I don't know exactly what the solution is, but this is something I've been thinking more and more about like this need for community, this need for stronger social organization and Just the weakness of veganism as this thing that most people see as, and you hear from people like who would critique this point of view like, it's actually really easy to be vegan and Beans are cheap and all these things, but like this is just not realistic for most people. Like if you talk to non-vegans, like that is just not how they view things. And this is a real challenge. And I think like we're just leaving so much power on the table by having this small tent. Now, obviously like I'm vegan.
Speaker 2
So that would be controversial if you weren't. Wow, that wouldn't be it.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I guess that that for me is something I've really been thinking. I've been thinking about a lot in the last year as one of these core problems.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I was thinking how much smaller would the climate movement be if you couldn't be part of it if you flew, had a car, ate, read, meet, well, it basically did like so many things. It would be probably much smaller, much less politically active and like serious, what is now, but there's no clear defining line. If you care about climate change, you're in. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1
Like what if you couldn't, you know, support labor unions if you ordered from Amazon, you know, like it's a really high level of demanding, demanding us.)
- Time 1:08:09
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- [note::GREAT point on inclusivity in the climate movement - Imagine if people felt like they were not welcome into the climate movement if they flew or drove cars? It'd probably be so much smaller than it is today.]