Our 2022 year in reviewWe're so happy to release our 2022 Year in Review! Scroll down to read all of our accomplishments thanks to your generous support, our partners, and most of all our amazing volunteers.
Providing value through Capacity-building services
This year, we leaned into our role and strength as capacity builders by expanding both our services and our professional volunteer network. We saved the movement over half a million dollars by serving over 120 organizations this year alone with our tech, design and advisory services. And we're just getting started!
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Saved by organizations using our free tech, design, and advisory services
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Total value of technology built to date for the animal protection movement
$1.7M
The cost for a company to deliver the same output per year
Amounts are in USD. Due to the nature of volunteer work, such as location of volunteer / cost of living, experience, hours contributed, hourly rate, and many other variables, these numbers are both conservative and rough estimates.
9600+ Hours
volunteered in 2022 for the animal protection movement
We partnered with 10 organizations for animal protection
We are immensely thankful for the opportunity to partner and collaborate with other organizations dedicated to animal protection such as Sentient Media, Open Sanctuary, Animal Advocacy Careers, and Animal Defense Partnerships, and others.
We expanded our network by over 1500+ volunteers
Within our Playground community, we've been able to expand our network of volunteers to 1500+ strong utilizing skills like developers, designers, writers, editors, researchers, marketers, data scientists, and many other roles.
Building projects, research and community in 2022
Beyond building technology, we work hard to find and fill gaps in our movement. This not only includes building our projects, but also launching our research study, participating in various international conferences, and investing in the growth of communities.
Building more effective teams
Communication Team
We are excited to have a dedicated comms team led by Malina Tran, our Director of Communications. This versatile team manages our blog, software content, social media, marketing, fundraising and grant application— and has been vital to our success and growth in showcasing the work we do to the public.
Core Team
We've also made several changes to our team structure! We now have a leadership team that includes key roles such as communications, product management, operations, engineering, design and lead architect supporting various teams and the organization as a whole. Branded with an apple (core), of course!
Playground Teams
As our volunteer community has grown, we've moved our signature team branding to Playground! Each team will specialize in a specific role which will allow us to connect volunteers with requests much easier. We're looking forward to building the community further there!
Featured interviews
Earlier in the year, we had the honor of sitting down with diverse leaders in animal protection. We were inspired by their origin stories, words of wisdom, and their openness and candor in sharing their experiences with us — and hope you are too.
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An update of our grant program
Last year, we announced a partnership with The Pollination Project to offer seed funding to individuals and burgeoning organizations. Here's what 2022 looked like for the program:
Additionally, our endorsement of individuals and organizations helped secure $70,000 in recommended funding through other programs to those recipients.
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New & improvedPlayground was our answer to meet the overwhelming demand of tech and design support in our movement, while staying sustainable as an organization with limited capacity. We prioritized automating the process of connecting organizations with technical, design, and other support needs from volunteers.
Over 45 requests from organizations have been supported since our launch. Over 1500 volunteers have joined the Playground community, and it's growing every day!
These volunteers are not just developers or designers, but also include data scientists, videographers, marketers, security experts, researchers, and many more roles.
Over 45 requests from organizations have been supported since our launch. Over 1500 volunteers have joined the Playground community, and it's growing every day!
These volunteers are not just developers or designers, but also include data scientists, videographers, marketers, security experts, researchers, and many more roles.
New videos
Check out our latest videos from 2022! We have more videos in the pipeline so keep an eye out and subscribe to our youtube channel if you'd like to be the first to watch.
Uplifting online community
We acquired the largest animal rights online community in the world. Founded in 2019, Animal Rights Advocates (ARA) is a platform on Discord for young activists. ARA has over 22,000 members who participate daily in vegan outreach efforts across hundreds of Discord communities. In addition to outreach events and training, this community also hosts AMA events with philosophers, activists, and influencers every week. ARA is also an inclusive community that strongly believes in intersectionality, feminism, diversity, trans rights, and more – a space where everyone is welcome.
By the numbers
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Volunteer applicants for Vegan Hacktivists
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Emails successfully sent across all newsletters
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Clicks from our newsletter to our services
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Organizations suppported by Vegan Hacktivists
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Visitors to watchdominion.org
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Translators signed up on veganlinguists.org
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Words translated on veganlinguists.org
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Courses completed on veganbootcamp.org
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Users signed up on veganbootcamp.org
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Activists signed up on activisthub.org
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Global events launched on activisthub.org
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Actions performed on activisthub.org
Coming soon:State of data & technologyIn the movementDuring the second half of the year, we launched the first-of-its-kind study on the state of data and technology in animal protection. With support and partnership from Faunalytics with the design of this study, our team of researchers are seeking to understand what are the challenges and opportunities among organizations working in various fields and industries within our broad movement. The forthcoming report will provide recommendations to stakeholders and help drive our organizational roadmap.
Bonus projects
The team gathered together to build two mini projects before the end of the year that we thought would provide value to other movements and help promote our work.
PitchFTA.orgPitch for the Animals is a mobile-friendly app that crowdsources innovative ideas for the movement. The winning app idea, determined by popular vote at the inaugural AVA Summit, will be built by our team. Users participate in various in-app and in-person activities — such as quizzes, games, attending events, and participating in a scavenger hunt to find QR codes at the conference — to earn votes.Featured2022 AVA Summit
WildAnimalSuffering.orgThis educational website presents the many issues facing wild animals and how people can make a difference in an accessible, visually-stunning format. From custom illustrations to educational resources, this site brings value to the conversation of wild animals. Special thanks to our friends at Animal Ethics, Wild Animal Initiative, Rethink Priorities, for lending their expertise for this project.Featured80,000 Hours WebsiteEffective Altruism NewsletterAnimal Charity Evaluators Newsletter
Minor changes with big impact
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Designed a new UX process that drives project ideation from start to finish
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Featured in interviews by Our Hen House, Animal Justice Academy, and Vegan FTA
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Participated in LEAD Conference, and presented at CARE Conference and AVA Summit
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Utilized and launched a machine learning and artificial intelligence project
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Created a Communications team that handles our content, social, and marketing strategy
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Expanded our services to support design requests (logo, branding, and identity)
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Created an animation team to showcase our work and as a service to others in the movement
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Collaborated with various Reddit communities to prominently feature WatchDominion.org
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Developed a DevOps team to manage our servers and technical infrastructure
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Launched two new blog series, Leaders in Animal Protection and Byte Size
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Created specialized roles, both among our core team and for platforms like Squarespace and Wordpress
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Designed a book for Sentient Media and formed a partnership with its programs
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Connected Faunalytics, We Animals Media, Black Veg Society, and 20+ others with volunteers
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Welcomed new advisors, Andrea Gunn and Christopher Eubanks, to our advisory board
Sharing knowledge & support
This year, we were invited to speak at CARE Conference in Warsaw, Poland and the first-ever AVA Summit in Washington, DC. We spoke about our work for the animal protection movement and how organizations and individuals could get involved with our services to get the support they need.
Malina Tran at CARE ConferenceData & Tech in Animal Rights Activism
James Morgan at AVA SummitTech Innovation in Animal Protection
Forward & Onward
We witnessed our biggest transformation to date this year. We focused significantly on the internal workings and processes of our organization, while also doing our best to serve organizations and advocates. We launched technology using machine learning and artificial intelligence, and we delivered new features and upgrades to high-impact projects. We attended conferences, spoke on podcasts, and created meaningful connections to expand our reach and impact. We launched the first study of its kind to collect data on the state of tech in the movement, and we partnered with 10 unique organizations in the animal protection movement on various initiatives. There is so much that we’ve done behind the scenes, and there is so much more to come. We are excited to be on this journey with all of you.
