Socially Distant Activism
Introduction
How To Be A Vegan Activist During A World Crisis, Making An Impact From A Physical Distance While these suggestions are great for veganism, you can also use them for other topics too.
Mail-Based Activism
British activists started mailing Walker's crisp packets back to the company in protest about all the waste that couldn't be composted or recycled. As a result the company has conceded to create drop off points throughout the country for people to return the packets through.
One major down-side to this method (aside from emissions spent sending things through the mail) is that the sorting machines are not designed for crisp/chip packets, so the Royal Mail asked that people stop sending bare packets, instead slip them into a paper envelope to avoid damaging their machines.
Online Activism
Safety First!
This is easier than ever, but it's important to protect your identity and personal details from people, companies, or even governments who might not approve of activism. Make sure to use an account name that doesn't share elements with other account you own, don't talk about where you live unless you are trying to gather/work with a local group (you might make an exception with Facebook for example), make sure to use a VPN set to a different location from were you live, and use a secure browser like Brave. It is also a good idea to delete your history and clear unnecessary cookies periodically.
Using a password manager like Bitwarden can help reduce the hassle of remembering your account, but also giving your the option to use more secure and varied passwords on each of your accounts without worrying about remembering many passwords. You just have to remember your pass phrase which can literally be a phrase, like a favorite quote or motto, something funny, or whatever you like.
When uploading photos, make sure to delete your meta-data. Your phone might give you the option to delete your GPS info, but phones, digital cameras, and other technologies often have a "fingerprint" including the model number of your device and maybe even the owner's name. To avoid giving these details to potentially hostile strangers, you can upload the photo to your computer and run the files (one at a time or by drag and dropping large batches) through ExifCleaner.
When you are done with the cleaning, the program shows a list of your files with a number for how much metadata was on the file, and how much there is after the cleaning, which should be 0. You can also double check by right clicking the file to bring up a box, and then left clicking "Properties". In the box that pops up, many (but not all) of the specs listed under different tabs should simply be empty after the cleaning process.
Grants
International
Animal Charity Evaluators "ACE Movement Grants (formerly “Effective Animal Advocacy Fund”) is for anyone who is interested in making the animal advocacy movement more effective."
The Pollination Project (TPP) "is a vegan foundation that offers seed funding to grassroots activists working to build a kinder, more compassionate world for human & non-human animals.
TPP focuses on early stage ideas and funds individuals directly. Over the years, they’ve seen the power of bottom-up, community-led grassroots activism. Through “pollination philanthropy”– a democratic model of peer-to-peer decision-making — TPP works with a global network of grantees, community partners, and volunteer advisors to identify extraordinary project leaders who, due to the grassroots nature of their work, are often not in a position to receive funding from other foundations or institutions.
They make micro grants 365 days a year to grassroots global change agents and have a growing global community of 4,500 grassroots leaders in 150 countries. They support vegan outreach projects around the world, and have a special program for farmed animal activists in Brazil, India and Mexico. Their goal is to offer not just seed funding, but capacity-building support and connectivity with other activists working in the same geographic or issue area."VegFund "offers grants to help you do just that! VegFund accepts applications for funding outreach in three areas: Community Events, Special Projects, and Online Campaigns."
Maps
International
Butterfly Conservation: Wild Spaces: Put Your Wild Space on the Map "Our interactive map shows the number and types of Wild Space near you. When you sign up in the UK, your Wild Space will also appear on the map so you can show everyone that you're taking action and encourage others to get involved too."
More People Care About Climate Change than You Think "The majority of people in every country support action on climate, but the public consistently underestimates this share."
Europe
UK
Butterfly Conservation: Wild Spaces: Put Your Wild Space on the Map "Our interactive map shows the number and types of Wild Space near you. When you sign up in the UK, your Wild Space will also appear on the map so you can show everyone that you're taking action and encourage others to get involved too."