Monica Chen on theories of change, collaboration and leadership within the animal advocacy movement.

Today, we speak with Monica Chen, the Executive Director of New Roots Institute, formerly Factory Farming Awareness Coalition.
 
We speak about several big topics: 

• Theories of change for the animal advocacy movement
• Why collaboration between organisations isn’t always easy,
• The importance of focusing on changing culture and social norms
• The difficulties around management and organisational leadership, as well as some lessons Monica learnt along the way

Monica is an inspiring organisational leader who spends lots of her time thinking about what can benefit the movement as a whole so it was a real pleasure to speak with her about these topics.

Resources from our conversation:

• ACE 2023 Recommended Charities
• New Roots Institute strategy and theory of change
• Washington Post poll on climate solutions
• Naito, Rumi, Jiaying Zhao, and Kai M. Chan. “An Integrative Framework for Transformative Social Change: A Case in Global Wildlife Trade.” - Link
• Forge organizing articles: 
  • Maurice Mitchell: Building resilient organisations
  • How not to dismantle white supremacy
• New Roots Institute website

If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - we would really appreciate it! Likewise, feel free to share it with anyone who you think might enjoy it. You can send us feedback and guest recommendations via Twitter or email us at hello@howilearnedtoloveshrimp.com. Enjoy!

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:05 ACE sponsorship
• 2:34 Monica's journey into animal advocacy
• 3:47 What is New Roots Institute
• 6:07 Why focus on students
• 8:43 NRI theory of change and strategy
• 12:06 Concrete cultural and social norms shifts
• 15:49 How can we influence cultural and social norms
• 19:10 Communities open to pro-animal views
• 24:59 Long term strategy for the animal movement
• 27:05 Challenges of movement-wide collaboration
• 29:05 What are we doing well in terms of collaboration
• 32:02 Theory of change for ending factory farming
• 41:27 Management and leadership
• 47:12 Organisational DNA
• 47:35 DEI
• 50:45 Reacting to COVID
• 53:30 Advice for organisation leaders
• 1:02:09 Closing questions