Solutionary Vegan LEVEL-UP Podcast

“The kids get it immediately.” – Monica Chen

In this episode, we learn from a teacher and farmed animal advocate, how she reaches people where they are, without shame, and with the acknowledgment that the task is large but that we each can and indeed should, use our unique passions and strengths toward creating a more compassionate world. She makes a great case, replete with tangible, actionable suggestions.

Monica Chen

Monica Chen is Executive Director of Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, an educational nonprofit that contributes to the eradication of factory farming through a range of educational programs. FFAC explains the devastating impacts of industrial animal agriculture in schools, environmental and social justice organizations, faith- and values-based communities, and governmental entities. Monica has overseen the development of a unique internship program for high school and college students combining research, service, and advocacy. A veteran teacher, she has taught at all grade levels and as an instructor for the Prison University Project at San Quentin. Monica earned her BA at UC Berkeley and her Master’s in Education, with a focus on the environment, at the University of New Mexico.

Resources from this episode

FFAC Website: http://ffacoalition.org

Social Media:

https://www.facebook.com/ffacoalitionhttps://twitter.com/ffacoalitionhttps://www.instagram.com/ffacoalitionhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/ffacoalition/https://www.youtube.com/user/ffacoalition

Full episode notes
Wake-Up Experience

“People can come to their own guilt around not wanting to be a part of that. But if we push it on them and say, “you should feel badly about supporting this,” that’s where people shut down and stop hearing us.”
In this episode...We cover alot. Caryn’s an expert on strategic communication and marketing, and a long-time vegan and animal advocate, so we focus on delivering our message in a way that it can be received.

Caryn Ginsberg

Caryn Ginsberg has more than two decades of experience helping animal protection groups and advocates move more people to action. She does this by sharing the most effective ways to get results, based on best practices in outreach, including using data to guide decisions. Her nonprofit clients have included Animal Legal Defense Fund, Animal Rescue League of Boston, the ASPCA, the Fund for Animals, Farm Sanctuary, the HSUS and PCRM.

In addition to consulting, Caryn designs infographics, including live, to make important ideas and information more useful and fun for advocates at any level. She also serves as board president for Faunalytics and as an advisor to the Institute for Humane Education and JewishVeg. She is a popular speaker at events and conferences, including Taking Action for Animals, Human Behaviour Change for Animal Welfare (U.K.), Animal Care Expo and the Animal Rights National Conference. Peter Singer called Caryn’s book, Animal Impact, “the practical handbook every animal advocate should read.”

Caryn taught strategic planning and marketing for Humane Society University as well as marketing in the MBA program at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to focusing on animal protection, she was marketing director of an $11B bank and consulted to a variety of businesses. She earned her AB in economics and math from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Resources from this episode

Priority Visions - http://priorityvisions.com
Faunalytics - http://faunalytics.org

Faunalytics:
How to Make and Keep a Vegan
A Summary Of Faunalytics’ Study Of Current And Former Vegetarians And Vegans
Going Vegan Or Vegetarian: Motivations & Influences
Attitudes Towards Chickens & Fishes: A Study Of Brazil, Canada, China, & India
Request customized notifications of new studies based on your area(s) of interest
Corona to Collaboration, Innovation to Inclusion: Issues and Opportunities in Farmed Animal Advocacy (report summary)
Foodstyles: The Missing Link in Plantbased Proselytizing, by Victoria Moran
Animal Impact - Secrets Proven to Achieve Results and Move the World *free digital download*
Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us about Spreading Social Change
The Animal Activist's Handbook: Maximizing Our Positive Impact in Today's World
Full episode notes
Wake Up Experience

The Solutionary Vegan’s LEVEL-UP Podcast explores the inspiring range of strategies used by animal protectors, environmental activists, and social justice warriors to LEVEL-UP the playing field for all Earth’s inhabitants.

By engaging in challenging conversations with leading-edge changemakers, this podcast will help you up your game in a world that needs joyful, solutionary, NEXT-LEVEL action.
In this trailer, hosts, Ella Magers, vegan wellness coach and icon, and Jennifer Tourkin, vegan humane educator, describe future podcasts.
We’ve created this podcast so that we can learn– right alongside you, our listeners – how to spread the vegan message in the most impactful ways, and with compassion towards all beings and our beautiful planet.

We’re going to engage in healthy conversations with, and between change-leaders, who sometimes have differing opinions about how to best move the needle. We’re going to hear what’s working and how to make more of THAT happen - and we’re going to examine the systems that need to be revolutionized to find the most effective solutions.

Speaking of solutions, we explore what a solutionary is in our first episode.

THEN, we’ll talk with solutionary heroes – people doing great work in areas like education, strategic communication, plant and cell-based innovations, animal law, research, social justice, environmental sustainability, artists, authors, podcasters, musicians....and more.

AND we have some super fun and silly segments planned!

We’re so excited to join you on this journey of connection, understanding, passion, purpose and change!
Website: solutionaryvegan.org
Social:
https://www.instagram.com/solutionaryvegan/
https://www.facebook.com/solutionaryvegan
Music Credit: The Wake Up Experience, Nu Human

“A solutionary is somebody who can identity unjust, unsustainable and inhumane systems and then devise solutions that do the most good and least harm for everyone– for all people for animals and for the environment.”
The concepts we discuss in this episode are the framework for our podcast. Zoe defines “solutionary” and explains how this methodology can change the world in big - impactful - sustainable ways. She talks about humane education, her method of advocacy, and how education is one system that affects all the others. We also dig into meaty questions about vegan misanthropy, balance, how we sometimes, in our passion to do good, cause harm, different modes of advocacy, and why we should care about injustices toward human animals and the environment.
Zoe Weil
Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), where she created the first graduate programs (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., Graduate Certificate) in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection, offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. IHE also offers a Solutionary Micro-credential Program for teachers, a free Solutionary Guidebook for educators, How To Be A Solutionary guidebook for students and changemakers, Solutionary Workshops, and award-winning teacher resources to help educators and changemakers bring solutionary practices to students and communities so that together we can effectively solve local and global challenges. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, “The World Becomes What You Teach.” She is the author of seven books including The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm, Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. Zoe was named one of Maine Magazine’s 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and is the recipient of the Unity College Women in Environmental Leadership award. She was also a subject of the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series and received the Distinguished Alumnae Achievement Award from the Nightingale-Bamford School. She holds master’s degrees from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Valparaiso University.

Full Show Notes and resources from episode
Wake-Up Experience

This episode is chock full of data-driven, actionable information about how to advocate for animals. Faunalytics is a nonprofit that collects and conducts research on animal issues. Jo Anderson shares her own experience and insights, and delivers findings through the lens of a thoughtful, careful researcher with compassion for all beings–including those who disagree, or aren’t there yet, and for the people who do this hard work on behalf of our animal friends.
Faunalytics’ resources, available to anyone, can help you inform why and how to advocate. Here, for instance, is a 2 minute video on when and how to use graphic images, in Faunalytics’ Explains video series. Here is the low-down on farmed animals, in beautiful, easy to absorb and share, graphics. This stuff is gold.
Jo Anderson, PhD

Dr. Jo Anderson is a social psychologist and the Research Director at Faunalytics, a nonprofit that conducts research on animal-related issues. She is an advocate for animals and evidence-based decision-making, with many years of experience in social science methods and statistical analysis. Jo became Faunalytics' Research Director in 2017 and since then has led and supervised studies of attitudes and behavior pertaining to animals and veganism, advocate retention, donation decision-making, and many other topics. Her other roles include serving as co-leader of the RECAP researcher collective, ad hoc research advisor to ProVeg and Animal Charity Evaluators' Animal Advocacy Research Fund, and Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University. Jo has a PhD in social psychology from the University of Waterloo and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University.

Resources from this episode

www.Faunalytics.org[email protected]Office Hours: https://faunalytics.org/ask-us/Faunalytics Explains videos
Fundamentals infographic series
Animal Product Impact ScalesHow to support new vegetarians and vegans in maintaining their diets (first and second reports)
How advocates can use beliefs about chickens and fishes to shape how they talk about these animals U.S, Brazil, China, Canada, and India

Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/faunalyticshttps://twitter.com/faunalyticshttps://www.instagram.com/faunalyticshttps://www.linkedin.com/company/faunalyticshttps://www.youtube.com/c/Faunalytics

Full Episode Notes
Wake Up Experience