Vegan Outreach

Vegan Outreach is an American animal advocacy group working to expose and end cruelty to animals through the widespread distribution of printed informational booklets. As of October 2006, over five million hard copies of Vegan Outreach brochures have been handed out by the local members of Vegan Outreach around the world since the group's inception.

History
Vegan Outreach founders Matt Ball and Jack Norris met in in Cincinnati, OH in 1990. As members of the Animal Rights Community of Cincinnati, Matt and Jack (along with Phil Murray, now co-owner of Pangea Vegan Products) spent the winter of 1990-1991 holding fur protests outside of cultural events. Their focus turned to vegetarianism in 1992, and the Animal Rights Community of Cincinnati funded the printing and distribution of 10,000 pro-vegetarian flyers entitled "Vegetarianism."

In June of 1993, twelve activists -- including Matt and Jack -- held a three-day "Fast for Farm Animals" in front of a Cincinnati slaughterhouse (the logic behind this being that most animals typically go three days without food before slaughter). On the last day of the fast, some of the protestors took a large banner reading "Stop Eating Animals" to the University of Cincinnati campus. Though the fast itself generated some media coverage, many of the people involved felt that holding the banner in the university district was the most effective part of the fast.

Following this event, Matt and Jack formed Animal Liberation Action (ALA) and started a campaign of holding "Stop Eating Animals" banners on street corners. This would become the foundation of Vegan Outreach's current tactic of disseminating information on college campuses and in other high-traffic areas.

In conjunction with an upswing in civil disobedience relating to the animal rights movement, in 1994 ALA developed a booklet called "And Justice For All." It focused on the reasons to adopt a vegan diet, including the abuse of the animals involved, the impact of industrialized farming on the environment, and the benefits of consuming a plant-based diet. The following year, ALA's name was officially changed to Vegan Outreach, and the campaign to hold banners -- generally poorly received by the public, who did not understand the reasons behind the request -- was set aside in favor of the distribution of printed booklets.

Another revision of the booklet, now called "Vegan Outreach," was printed in 1995. The initial 10,000 copy run was stapled, folded, and collated by hand to save money. That autumn, Jack Norris embarked on a tour of the Midwestern United States, distributing the Vegan Outreach brochure at nineteen universities.

The first "Why Vegan" was printed in 1996 and distributed at 171 colleges during that year. Jack continued his traveling until funds ran out in 1997. Jack decided to become a Registered Dietitian, which entailed three years of school and an internship. He did this to become educated on the science of nutrition and to figure out what could be done to minimize the number of failed vegetarians in the future.

In their June 1998 newsletter, Vegan Outreach published a very long article called "Veganism as the Path to Animal Liberation" (now called "Activism and Veganism Reconsidered" ). This article questioned the priorities of the animal rights movement (in part by pointing out that ~99% of all animals killed in the U.S. died to be eaten, while only a minority of the movement's attention went to exposing factory farms and promoting vegetarianism) and also argued against the movement's focus on trying to get media attention through protests. The essay also questioned the effectiveness of civil disobedience and direct action, and a perceived tendency towards self-delusion and dogmatism in vegetarian and animal rights promotion. Until veganism was more widespread, Matt argued, animal liberation could not succeed on any major front. The essay made a wide impact on activists and shaped Vegan Outreach's guiding principals of advocacy.

New booklets were developed in 1999 and 2000, including a Vegetarian Starter Guide (now the "Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating") for people who were interested in following a veterarian diet and "Vegetarian Living" (now "Try Vegetarian") which had none of the graphic photos contained in the "Why Vegan" brochure. In 2001, over 330,000 copies of "Why Vegan" and "Vegetarian Living" were distributed.

In the fall of 2003, Vegan Outreach launched its Adopt-A-College program, the animal advocacy movement's first systematic attempt to reach large numbers of students in the U.S. and Canada in an organized way. The program's first year saw 22,000 brochures distributed at 63 schools; most recently, 344,000 brochures were distributed at 385 schools during the fall 2006 semester. Vegan Outreach was able to hire a new employee, Jon Camp, whose focus was entirely on leafleting at colleges. In his first two years of employment with the group, he handed out over 145,000 brochures.

Another big change for Vegan Outreach occurred in 2005, when the first copy of their new brochure, "Even If You Like Meat," was printed. The brochure is explained in this way:

Vegan Outreach continues to grow, as an organization, in leaps and bounds. In 2006, Vegan Outreach was able to hire two more full-time leafleters: Victor Tsou covered the western United States while Jenna Calabrese leafleted throughout the northeastern region of the country. Anne Green was hired full-time as Vegan Outreach's vice president in 2007 after many years of unofficially contributing to the planning and management of the organization.

Today, Vegan Outreach continues its mission of disseminating this information on college campuses and at other busy venues across the globe. Their brochures have been distributed in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, ten Canadian territories and provinces, Mexico, and numerous other countries (including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Taiwan). Many of Vegan Outreach's pamphlets and articles are available in multiple languages, thanks to the translation efforts of volunteers and supporters. The rate of distribution is increasing every year, limited not by demand -- there are many individuals, student groups, and organizations who would like to distribute as many as possible -- but by availability (i.e., resources for printing and distribution).

Tactics/Philosophy
Vegan Outreach's mission is the reduction of the amount of suffering in the world. They have chosen to focus on people's food choices for three reasons:

- The number of animals raised and killed for food each year in the United States alone vastly exceeds any other form of exploitation, involving numbers far greater than the total human population of the entire world. Ninety-nine out of every 100 animals killed in the United States each year are slaughtered for human consumption.

- The intensity of farmed animal suffering: the overcrowding and confinement, the stench, the racket, the extremes of heat and cold, the attacks and even cannibalism, the hunger and starvation, the illness, etc.

- Exposing factory farms and advocating ethical eating is perhaps the most readily accessible option for reducing animal suffering. Every day, every single person makes decisions that affect the lives of farmed animals. Inspiring someone to change leads to fewer animals suffering on factory farms. By choosing to promote cruelty-free living, every person is a potential major victory.

All of Vegan Outreach's printed materials advocate for a reduction and eventual elimination of animal products from one's diet. Furthermore, suggestions for alternative foods, information on staying healthy on a plant-based diet, and tips for advocacy are included in the brochures. Vegan Outreach suggests that one's guide shouldn't be an endless list of vegan ingredients but rather doing his or her absolute best to stop cruelty to animals.

In other words, the focus isn't so much personal beliefs or specific choices but rather the animals and their suffering. Vegan Outreach encourages people to become vegan advocates because if someone believes that being vegan is important, being the most effective advocate for the animals must be seen as even more important. The impact of one's individual veganism -- several hundred animals over the course of a lifetime -- pales in comparison to what he or she can accomplish by being an example to others. For every person inspired to change his or her habits, a vegan's impact on the world multiplies.

Matt Ball suggests that minutae will actually hinder the animal advocacy movement:

Programs
The booklets that Vegan Outreach prints are primarily distributed by individuals and groups through leafleting. This person-to-person, grassroots approach to activism ensures that each person who interacts with a Vegan Outreach distributor is given comprehensive, complete information that they can consider on their own time. The group's major program is called "Adopt-A-College," in which volunteers disseminate the booklets on college campuses. Vegan Outreach has chosen to focus on students (especially college-age), for three main reasons:

- The Relative Willingness and Ability to Change: Of course, not every student is willing to stop eating meat. But relative to the population as a whole, college students tend to be more open-minded – even rebellious against the status quo – and in a position where they aren’t as restricted by parents, tradition, habits, etc.

- The Full Impact of Change: Even if students and senior citizens were equally open to change, over the course of their lives, students can save more animals. Young people not only have more meals ahead of them, but also have more opportunities to influence others.

- The Ability to Reach Large Numbers: College students are typically easier to reach in large numbers. For a relatively small investment of time, an activist can hand a copy of "Even If You Like Meat" or "Why Vegan?" to hundreds of students who otherwise might never have viewed a full and compelling case for compassion.