Hive’s Start Here Guide for 2024

Start here to learn how Hive can help you, and the impact we created together in 2024

Why we made this guide

In late 2024 and early 2025, we published in-depth content to show our work, share lessons learned, and distill useful resources for our community members. But we lacked a general overview of Hive’s work and impact in 2024. To fix this, we created this guide. It’s where you can quickly get a high-level overview of Hive, and then dive deeper based on your interests.

Let us know what you think, and thank you for reading!

This guide will cover:

Welcome to Hive! A quick overview of who we are
Hive’s story, values, strengths, and weaknesses
How Hive’s programs can help you
Who are Hive community members?
What Impact did Hive have in 2024?
What it takes to run Hive and plans for 2025

In-depth content published in late 2024 and early 2025

1 - Welcome to Hive! A quick overview of who we are

To help farmed animals effectively, we need each other

Let’s start with the problem: In a world where billions of animals suffer every day in factory farms–and where meat consumption is predicted to rise globally–each of our efforts to help really matter.

So, you’re trying your best to make an impact through your time, money, or both. But if you’re anything like us, you face barriers. Do any of these problems sound familiar?

Our movement is fragmented. We and our organizations too often work in “siloes.” Many of us struggle to find the best strategies, opportunities, and collaborators. Knowledge sharing and coordination would boost our efficiency and impact.

We can’t fully tap into our potential for impact. Many of us want to help or want to help more, but we lack the right tools. For each of us to reach our impact potential, we need resources, connections, and opportunities.

Many of us struggle to thrive long-term in the movement. Many of us face isolation, burnout, and unclear career paths. Many of us lack the support we need to maximize our impact. Without community and guidance, many of us disengage. Talent is lost, and progress is slowed.

We face bottlenecks in putting our talent and skills to use. Each of us has unique skills and passions, but many of us struggle to use these optimally. Organizations, in turn, struggle to recruit and retain the right talent.

More resources and talent aren’t enough for success

Our movement keenly needs more resources and people. But alone, these are not enough to effectively reduce farmed animal suffering and end factory farming. Each of us also needs support to overcome the unique barriers holding us back from impact. That’s where Hive comes in.

“For about a year, I searched but struggled to find other data science people in animal advocacy. On [Hive Slack], I’ve been able to connect meaningfully with a bunch of them!”
— Thomas (Richie) Manandhar-Richardson, Bryant Research

Our Mission and Vision

Hive’s mission is to connect farmed animal advocates to increase their impact. We have a bold vision: that everyone wanting to help farmed animals is part of the Hive community and is meaningfully connected to their next opportunity for impact.

What is Hive?

Hive is a global online community that empowers every farmed animal advocate to be in the right place at the right time for their next opportunity. We do this by cultivating a friendly, supportive, and impact-focused community of over 3,500 advocates in 100+ countries.

We are now one of the largest and most engaged communities for productive discussions and initiatives aimed at helping farmed animals. We have even been likened to an “all-year-round conference.” To create this feeling of an always-on, helpful, impactful community hub, we ran several programs in 2024 including: Hive Slack, Hive Highlights Newsletter, Hive Events, Hive Resources, Hive Connections, AI for Animals…and more!

Learn more about Our Programs

To run our programs, Hive relies on a small but mighty team and a network of expert volunteers, as well as advisors, board members, and expert operational and software engineering support.

Learn more about Our Team

Hive is able to help advocates overcome barriers thanks to community members who support our work financially. Some supporting members act as individual donors, while others serve as grantmakers in our movement. Every donation makes a difference in our ability to provide consistent, valuable support to advocates, to plan ahead, and to test bold new initiatives.

Learn more about Hive CoNectars

“I joined while I was job hunting, and it provided the exact sense of community and support that I needed: I learned about conferences, events, and met many people who I now talk with regularly.”
— Becca Rogers, New Roots Institute

2 - Hive’s story, values, strengths, and weaknesses

Our story

Hive was launched in 2023. Co-founders Sofia Balderson and Cameron King saw that the movement lacked a global online hub that could bring everyone into the same “room” to improve coordination and community. They couldn’t see a good reason for this lack, so they created the Hive Slack and Hive Highlights under our previous name, Impactful Animal Advocacy. Super-active community member Constance Li joined as co-founder shortly thereafter. Today, Hive is made possibly by a core team and a growing cohort of dedicated, passionate volunteers.

“[Hive] has been instrumental in connecting me to advocates from across the globe who likely wouldn’t have come across otherwise.”
— Hannah Tookey, Rethink Priorities

Our values

As an animal advocate, you know what it’s like to see heaps of problems that urgently need solutions. It can be both daunting and empowering to realize that you don’t need permission to take action. Today, we help advocates around the world take action on problems and gaps they see–just like the strategic experimentation that led to Hive itself.

Inspiring ourselves and our community members to take thoughtful action is a core value of Hive–we call it “strategic do-ocracy.” Here are our 5 values:

Strategic do-ocracy
Intentional engagement
Collaboration
Transparency
Impact Driven

Our strengths and weaknesses

We believe that every person who wants to help farmed animals has unique perspectives and valuable skills that can help farmed animals. Likewise, we each have strengths and weaknesses.

Hive’s strengths include trusted relationships across the movement, a uniquely diverse and global community (that’s you!), a knack for seeing and supporting each advocate’s potential, and a team that has lived experience with the struggles that our members face.

We also have weaknesses! Here are a few: gaps in our leadership experience, challenges around funding sustainability, and ensuring we preserve Hive’s community culture as we grow.

Learn more about Hive’s story and values

3 - How Hive’s programs can help you

As your goals evolve, we hope you will experiment with different ways of engaging with Hive’s programs. Below we share a brief introduction to each program and how to learn more.

Hive Slack

Hive Slack is a friendly and supportive online global community where you’re one message away from 3,500 farmed animal advocates who truly want to help each other have an impact.

Take action: Join Hive Slack!

“My organisation, Animal Law & Policy Network found amazing collaborators through Hive.”
— Apoorva

Hive Highlights

The Hive Highlights newsletter gives you a quick and comprehensive overview of the global farmed animal advocacy movement, sent twice a month to over 3,000 advocates globally.

Take action: Subscribe to Hive Highlights

It’s like all getting to watch the same channel at the same time! Wonderful for shared resources, news, insights, research, and a feeling of community.
—Tania Luna, Scarlet Spark

Hive Events

Hive regularly hosts live independent events, as well as co-hosted events that amplify the great work that organizations in our movement are doing, commonly highlighting neglected issues, novel approaches to advocacy or pulling movement professionals together and facilitating collaborative learning.

Take action: Subscribe to Hive Events

“The [Hive] resources save time, boost productivity, and create connection–worldwide.”
—Julia Reinelt, AVA International

Hive Resources

Our Hive Resources started as wikis, or a collaboratively managed collection of helpful articles, tools, and resources. They have since developed into a central database of information that is both evergreen and updated frequently.

Learn more about Hive Resources

Hive Connections

What is Hive Connections?

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.

Take action: Join Hive Slack!

“As a new consultant, the exposure I was able to gain from the Hive community was tremendous and swift. Within a few days of my services being posted in the Hive Slack and newsletter, I was able to secure a new client. It was such an easy win-win made possible by Hive.”
—Amruza Birdie, Reveal 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 quickly thanks to the dedicated efforts of dozens of community members, spearheaded by Hive co-founder Constance Li.

If you imagine Hive as an all-year-round conference, AI for Animals outgrew the (virtual) room containing it. 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. This means that 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

4 - Who are Hive community members?

So far in this guide, you’ve heard from Richie, Becca, Hannah, Apoorva, Tania, Julia, and Amruza—just a few of the dedicated advocates we’re lucky to have in the Hive community.

Hive is a global community of over 3,500 farmed animal advocates across 100+ countries. Our community includes everyone from brand-new advocates to seasoned leaders in our movement with decades of experience. Many of our members are actively involved in animal advocacy as well as the effective altruism community.

We’re proud to include members from all over the world, and are taking action to become a truly global community that supports more members across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe–where advocates can face particularly acute barriers.

Learn more about Hive’s community in 2024 Community Survey Results

“[The Hive Slack] is a must-join platform if you want to connect with and stay informed about the animal advocacy community and individuals involved in initiatives around the world.”
—Nayan Agarwal, Animal Advocacy Careers

5 - What impact did Hive have in 2024?

How Hive measures impact

As community builders, we believe it is challenging but nonetheless crucial to estimate our impact rigorously. Our team invests a lot of effort into our monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) for each program, and is always trying to learn and improve how we understand what we do, where to improve, and what is working well. Here are three sources we scrutinize to estimate impact:

Program metrics
High Impact Outcomes (HIOs)
Indicators of more “subtle” impact
Stories and testimonials

Hive’s impact in 2024

The following exclude AI for Animals.

1: Program metrics

We use metrics from Hive’s programs as guideposts to see if we are on the right track towards High Impact Outcomes. Here are some key program metrics from 2024:

Hive Slack:

Grew from 1,631 to 3,312 total members.
Grew from 421 to 701 weekly active users.
Community members exchanged over 100,000 messages
We grew from 3 to 11 “highly engaged channels” (defined as more than 100 members viewed in the last 30 days), aligned with our strategic priorities.
We facilitated 313 serendipitous 1-1s happened through our matching system.

Hive Highlights

We grew from 1,261 to 3,160 subscribers, maintaining a 50% open rate and 10% click rate.

Hive Events

Ran 40 events, achieving overall satisfaction score of 4.68/5,
Positive Community Survey feedback, especially on high-value webinars and networking sessions

Hive Resources

~7,500 page views
Based on Community Survey Results, 57% of members benefit or would benefit from Hive Resources

Hive Connections

We facilitated 100+ strategic connections between advocates, leveraging the network we’ve built through Hive.

Helping animals through effective giving

7 people took action through Hive’s partnership with Giving What We Can to sign the 10% Pledge!

2: High Impact Outcomes (HIOs):

The most concrete and tangible type of impact we are aiming for are captured by High Impact Outcomes, which are real wins for advocates like finding a new opportunity, co-founder, or funding. For each potential HIO, we track and investigate what role Hive may have had. In 2024 we are confident we played a key role in the following HIOs for our community members:

New Jobs (Permanent Roles): 13
New Jobs (Freelance or Short-term): 13
Volunteer Opportunities: 42
New Project or Initiative: 11
Funding Received: 10

There are many instances of HIOs that we only discovered by a community member reaching out to tell us – we are deeply grateful for these reports. If you’ve had a win that you think Hive played a role in, please let us know!

3: Indicators of more “subtle” impact

We hope to cultivate a community where members not only have discrete outcomes like finding opportunities, but also experience feeling more connected and motivated. Here are related results from our 2024 Community Survey:

92% feel a stronger connection to the movement.
84% get what they hope to receive from the Slack space.
78% are more motivated to contribute to advocacy efforts.
78% are more likely to stay involved long-term.
68% feel they can create a larger positive impact.
65% better understand the animal advocacy movement’s strategies and challenges.
43% indicated that they save meaningful time (a potential area for improvement).

4: Case studies and testimonials

We find that member stories help us understand the holistic view of how Hive is helping our community members. Here’s just one example:

“Hive has become a powerful resource in my weekly work. I rely on it to stay informed about the latest research, articles, and upcoming events. I select relevant news and events to share with the Challenge 22 volunteers, and every month I summarize useful resources for our Challenge 22 Community Project Managers. I'm a huge fan of Hive and always recommend it to other vegan activists. It's a fantastic platform for networking, finding community, seeking help, staying up-to-date, and sharing knowledge. I believe our movement needs a space like Hive and I am grateful for the value it provides.”
—Laura Radoi, Operations Manager Challenge 22 at Animals Now

Read more on Hive’s Testimonial Wall and consider sharing your own story!

6 - What it takes to run Hive and plans for 2025

Our theory of change is rooted in the idea that uniting and empowering advocates can unlock value in the movement. We are strong on our own, but we can be stronger together.

General areas where we spend our time

Hive needs people power to provide 24/7/365 support to thousands of advocates globally in a way that is effective and strategic. It takes time and effort to

Run our programs.
Build our relationships and community to ensure we have the context and connections to make Hive a valuable resource.
Build awareness of Hive so the right people join, at the right time.
Measure our programs’ impact and implement improvements.
Share what we’ve learned with our community.
Support our team to help them do their best work.

Learn more in How Hive’s Programs Can Help You

High-level overview of Hive’s 2024 costs

In 2024 we achieved what you’ve browsed in this Start Here Guide for $240,000 USD. Our largest cost was 3.5 FTE paid team members. We also invested in Slack Pro and other digital tech that enables our programs to run effectively. We also invested in attending key conferences where we could connect and support new and existing community members.

It’s worth noting that in 2024, Hive received substantial volunteer support that we’re especially grateful for. We had one team member who worked on the project full-time pro-bono, and dozens of volunteers playing important roles in ensuring Hive Slack is a high-quality, supportive, impactful space. We are also deeply grateful to our volunteer advisors and board of directors.

Join us in helping Hive gain momentum

We are deeply grateful to everyone who has made Hive into what it is today. Through your support, we have been able to establish a strong team, evidence-based programs, and a strategy for growth. We are now seeking support to close our 2026 budget gap of $180,000 USD. This support would enable us to do more of what we know is working, while also rigorously testing bold experiments to determine how Hive can best support advocates in underserved regions, who can face especially acute barriers to impact.

Learn more in How We Are Funded

Supporting you in 2025 and beyond

We are focusing our efforts in 2025 based on our impact measurements and feedback from our community. We’re continuing to focus on Hive Slack this year, based on our impact estimates, theory of change, and community feedback. We see Hive’s additional programs as complementary efforts that elevate Hive Slack’s quality and usefulness. We'll streamline channels, enrich discussions, and foster collaborations on key movement topics.

To nurture a truly global community we have just launched our Global Ambassador program! Our two new ambassadors are already working closely with advocates in underserved regions–starting with Asia and Latin America–providing support that complements existing community-building efforts.

Join us in making 2025 a year where more of us can overcome barriers and get connected, to do more together for farmed animals globally.