How Hive’s Programs Can Help You
Introduction
As your goals and challenges in farmed animal advocacy evolve, we hope you will experiment with different ways of engaging with Hive’s programs! To support you in finding the right combination for your goals, we’ve published a behind-the-scenes look at each program, sharing:
What the program is
Some of the ways our community members participate
How our team runs the program
One thing we learned in 2024 about the program
How to learn more or get involved!
Hive Slack
What is Hive Slack?
The Hive Slack is an online hub where you can “choose your own adventure” for your needs. You’re one message away from over 3,500 farmed animal advocates globally.
How community members use Hive Slack
Our top tip for Hive Slack is to think about your goal, join as many or as few channels as you need, and experiment to find what works for you. Here are just a few examples of how you might participate in Hive Slack:
Getting inspiration and saying hi to new members in #01-introductions.
Connecting with a new advocate every 3 weeks for a friendly chat in #x-donut-meetings.
Learning and connecting in a niche subgroup like #s-mel or #c-invertebrates.
Asking for and responding to help requests in #03-help requests.
Sharing tips and joining monthly fundraising chats in #s-fundraising.
Getting ahead in your job search by keeping a close eye on #06-jobs-posting.
Collaborating in a private “breakout room,” like #x-marketing101-by-user-friendly.
You might also identify with one of these ways of using Hive Slack at any one time:
Keeping the conversation going with people you met at conferences or events.
Sharing exciting new content you’ve found on a particular subject.
Dabbling in a large number of channels to explore for your focus.
Keeping an eye out for ways you can help other members.
Keeping all but one channel muted to focus on your particular goal that month.
Logging in, asking a question, receiving a helpful response, and then logging out.
Being that (virtual) friendly face by actively sharing kudos, helpful hints, or kind feedback.
Building connections and exploring opportunities 1:1 in DMs.
How our team runs Hive Slack
Like a garden, the Hive Slack needs constant nurturing to remain productive and effective. Just like your use is evolving, every day our team is moderating, reviewing, and learning. Here’s a look at what we do to run Hive Slack:
A dedicated team, including volunteers, providing active, 24/7 monitoring.
Passionate volunteer channel leads encouraging collaboration in key channels.
We review key metrics weekly, monthly, and quarterly and act on what we’ve learned.
Keeping an active eye on overall movement needs, and adjusting Hive Slack priorities.
Building, testing, and monitoring behind-the-scenes Slack tools, like Your Hive Career Journey.
Archiving and other spring cleaning of channels.
Collecting and analyzing user feedback and implementing changes.
Individualized onboarding support and setting up onboarding partnerships.
Providing individualized support to community members to help them take the next step
Setting up automated processes and notifications.
Trying to bring in as many values-aligned people as we can after each event.
Curating key Hive Slack activity for the monthly Slack Threads newsletter.
Implementing tools to encourage a global community, like in-Slack translation and onboarding materials in other languages (e.g., Spanish).
One thing we learned about Hive Slack in 2024
While we’ve seen great results from community members helping others, we are noticing more and more that setting the mere infrastructure for something to happen will often not suffice. Instead, it requires prompts - more specifically, personal prompts- to nudge people to write their help request or reach out to a specific person. Our team can definitely relate to this on a personal level–actually “doing the thing” can feel hard for any number of reasons.
Learn more: Hive Slack
Hive Highlights
What is Hive Highlights?
Hive Highlights is a newsletter that provides you with a quick and comprehensive overview of the global farmed animal advocacy movement. Our movement is dynamic and diverse–it can be hard to keep up. Every day we collect new movement news, resources, and opportunities. (Thank you to everyone that submits content!) Then every two weeks we curate what we’ve collected and send out Hive Highlights to over 3,300 advocates globally, who together view it over 9,000 times per month.
How community members use Hive Highlights
Quickly getting a high-level overview of the latest news.
Searching for jobs and opportunities.
Becoming more informed about the broader farmed animal advocacy movement.
Feeling connected to the broader movement.
Gaining inspiration–this work is tough, and getting updates about wins can feel exciting.
Getting ideas for new projects or collaborators.
Diving into particular topics or resources of particular interest.
For people who just can’t bear the thoughts of another Slack Workspace, Hive Highlights can be a great place to connect and digest at your own pace without notifications.
How our team runs Hive Highlights
3-stage review process involving 3 of our team members.
Soliciting input and ideas from our community about what to include in the newsletter.
Receiving and acting on feedback to improve the newsletter (e.g., “top picks”).
Experimenting with ways to make our work more efficient like using AI.
Studying metrics and adjusting aspects of the newsletter as necessary.
One thing we learned in 2024 about the Hive Highlights
The impact of the newsletter is harder to measure, but its high open and click-through rates, as well as the qualitative feedback we regularly get, show us that it’s likely worth continuing. (We’d love your feedback about Hive Highlights–reply to any edition to start the conversation.)
Learn more: Hive Highlights
Hive Events
What are Hive Events?
Hive regularly hosts live independent, as well as co-hosted events that amplify the great work that organizations in our movement are doing. Most of the 40 events we hosted in 2024 were online, but we also hosted in-person events like coworking and conference meetups.
How community members use Hive Events
Based on our 2024 community member survey, advocates credit Hive Events for networking, career clarity, and community support. Here are ways our members interact with Hive Events:
Joining a monthly Hive Community Conversations for friendly 1:1 and group chats.
Tuning into a Hive Fireside Chat to learn from a community member on a specific topic, like Josh Balk from The Accountability Board sharing about stakeholder activism, or Hannah McKay from Rethink Priorities speaking about how to grow the shrimp advocacy movement.
Connecting with values-aligned advocates at an in-person meetup at a conference, to swap stories and insights about farmed animal welfare or effective altruism.
Connecting with peers across the movement working in or learning about a particular skill, such as the monthly fundraising calls hosted by amazing volunteer channel leads.
Gaining momentum and connection before a conference through attending a coworking meetup or afterparties like the ones we hosted around VARC or EAGxUtrecht.
What goes into Hive Events
We take a lot of pride in organizing events at Hive. From sourcing the right speaker and topic to coordinating accessible and non-conflicting dates and slots, effective promotion through various channels and appropriate post-event assessments, our event organising process covers a wide range of steps to ensure that they deliver as much value as they can.
One thing we learned about Hive Events in 2024
Based on our Community survey in 2024, It appears that some Hive Events (e.g., monthly fundraising community calls or the shrimp advocacy movement webinar) were particularly popular and useful, and we should continue running them, with increased promotion. People also seemed keen on more networking-focused events, so we are bringing back monthly community conversations.
Learn more:
Hive Resources
What is Hive Resources?
Hive has evolved largely out of community member feedback and pain points, and Hive Resources are no exception. Hive Resources aim to help you learn about and navigate the broader farmed animal advocacy landscape. We want to save you time and effort, and expand the opportunities and tools you’re aware of and taking advantage of.
Hive Resources include:
How our community uses Hive Resources
To overcome overwhelm by having high-quality resources at your fingertips.
To build skills, awareness, and knowledge on topics that can help you do your best work.
To build collective knowledge and decrease siloed projects.
To learn about time-sensitive opportunities, like conferences or grants.
What goes into Hive Resources
Keeping Hive Resources up to date–thanks to team and volunteer efforts!
Periodically building new resources based on feedback and movement needs.
Soliciting feedback and impact stories to understand how Hive Resources help.
Coordinating expert contributions to key resources–such as the Fundraising for Animal Advocacy Resource.
Soliciting and acting on feedback.
Building awareness of Hive Resources.
Investigating the impact of Hive Resources and determining priorities.
Exploring co-hosting resources with relevant organizations (e.g., co-hosting the Research and Data resource with Faunalytics, or Conference Database with Connect For Animals).
One thing we learned about Hive Resources in 2024:
Based on our 2024 community survey, we’re broadly unsure whether we should prioritize the Hive Resources program–some resources seem to regularly bring about benefits for members, and we tentatively plan to revamp and promote the top few we hear are useful.
Learn more: Hive Resources
Hive Connections
What is Hive Connections?
We co-create impact with our community members by identifying promising connections and making warm introductions. By helping the right people meet at the right time in their advocacy journeys, we help new and better projects start, save advocates’ time and effort, and help new talent connect with opportunities and start doing more good for farmed animals.
How our community members use Hive Connections
To build momentum after sharing what opportunities they’re looking for–by sharing them in Hive Slack, or with our team at a conference or event or in passing.
To build connections with each other.
To learn from each others’ knowledge and experience.
To learn about resources, projects, and opportunities they wouldn’t have found otherwise (or potentially would have found, but later).
Hive Connections is not limited to the work our team does! It’s part of the Hive community ethos to raise each other up and support each other, and we are continually amazed at how Hive community members meet and connect each other with opportunities.
What goes into Hive Connections?
Thoughtful, ongoing, intentional effort and collaboration amongst our team.
We are only as strong as our own knowledge and relationships in the movement–we’re able to strategically connect people at the right time in the right way because of social capital, high context, and knowledge of what particular gaps individual advocates are looking to fill.
Careful MEL (monitoring, evaluation, and learning) to scrutinize the role Hive played in a particular win for an advocate–we want to understand how we can be most useful.
One thing we learned about Hive Connections in 2024:
Tracking and following up on these connections involves a significant amount of manual work. Over the year, we've aimed to adopt an 80/20 strategy by focusing our efforts on logging and following up with individuals and organizations we believe have benefited the most counterfactually or are likely to have a substantial impact.
AI for Animals
What is AI for Animals?
AI for Animals (AIA) is building a multidisciplinary global community around how AI can positively impact all animals. AIA started as a Slack channel within Hive and grew thanks to the dedicated efforts of dozens of community members, spearheaded by Hive co-founder Constance Li. In 2024, AIA was community building through monthly calls, an annual conference, and a popular newsletter. This program is the product of the strategic do-ocracy and dedication of Hive community members that we aim to support.
If you imagine Hive as an all-year-round (virtual) conference, the “room” holding AI for Animals was bursting at the seams. It was time for a change. Hive initiated a leadership transition that enabled Constance to focus full-time on AI for Animals and grow it into a separate project and organization. As such, when we communicate about Hive’s programs and impact in 2024, we share AI for Animals separately, although it grew out of Hive.
We encourage you to get involved with AI for Animals and are cheering on Constance and the team from the sidelines. Constance remains a valuable board member and continues to be a super active community member who thrives on connecting advocates to increase their impact.
Learn more about AI for Animals
Concluding Thoughts
As we continue to evolve and adapt our programs to better serve our community, we invite you to engage with Hive in ways that resonate most with your advocacy journey. Whether you're joining a Slack conversation, attending an event, or exploring resources, each interaction helps us build a stronger, more interconnected movement for farmed animals. Your feedback is invaluable as we strive to create a supportive and dynamic space for advocates worldwide. Thank you for being part of our community. We look forward to achieving more impact for farmed animals together this year.
