Leafleting for Animals – Help Spread the Word!

Leafleting is an easy, effective way to reach a wide, diverse audience and raise awareness about animal welfare issues. Often people are unaware about the cruel and inhumane conditions that animals experience on factory farms, fur farms, in laboratories testing chemicals, cosmetics, household products and medical drugs, and in captivity being used for entertainment. Through leafleting you can bring attention to these issues and help people take action by not supporting inhumane products, entertainment, food or an inhumane economy.

Leafleting can be done anywhere, anytime—alone, in groups or with friends—in key strategic locations with lots of foot traffic. Some of the best locations are in busy shopping centers, transit bus terminals and stations, in front of subway stations, financial centers, crowded downtown streets, college campuses, high school parking lots, at concerts and events, or in front of big box stores.

You can get involved with leafleting by joining a nonprofit’s organized outreach campaign or you can leaflet independently by ordering your own materials and distributing them with friends. Many animal welfare nonprofits promote leafleting campaigns all over the U.S. You can easily join them by contacting the organization online and signing up. These organizations have active leafleting outreach efforts: Vegan Outreach, FARM-USA, Mercy for Animals and The Humane League. Vegan Outreach’s “Adopt A College” website is a valuable source of information if you’re particularly interested in leafleting colleges, which can reach many people in a short period of time. See Vegan Outreach’s “Tips” page that provides some good advice on how to be more effective with leafleting. Vegan Outreach also offers the brochure, “Compassionate Choices,” along with many other brochures that are available to distribute by individuals or small groups.

You can sign up independently or join the coordinated outreach efforts of Farm Animal Rights Movement’s (FARM) Compassionate Activist Network (CAN). And Mercy For Animals offers links for ordering booklets on their Action Center page that also provides tips on how to be a more effective animal advocate. You can order Mercy For Animals’ 8-page booklet called “Fresh” about the cruelty of factory farms with tips for people on how to transition to a plant-based diet. MFA also offers their brochure entitled, “Vegetarian Eating: Healthy, Humane, and Sustainable,” that you can order online and distribute.

Leafleting can be fun, especially if you do it with friends. For best results, you want to dress like the audience you’re leafleting to. Be approachable, friendly but assertive. And remember to always be courteous and smile! Since you want to disseminate as many brochures as possible, you can simply say to each person, “here’s some information about helping animals.” Keep it brief, short and straight-forward, and let the brochure or literature do the talking for you after they walk away. Some people may say no or not be interested, that’s fine. Keep going! Don’t give up. Remember, you’re doing it for the animals!

The goal is to hand out as many as you have time for, and get people thinking about the issues of animal cruelty and how they can help.

More About Ordering Animal Welfare Brochures

• Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) – Offers captive animals, farm animals, animal testing and the law, and the Animal Bill of Rights – all here.

• Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) – Offers a Whales & Dolphins in Captivity Brochure.

• Compassion Over Killing (COK) – Offers a free 24-page Vegetarian Starter Guide about choosing a vegan plant-based diet over an animal-based diet. And a Compassion Action Pack kit with Veg Starter Guides, Easy Vegan Recipe booklets, Eating Sustainably brochures, TryVeg stickers, restaurant cards and magnets.

• Factory Farming Awareness Coalition (FFAC) – See in person outreach at events.

• Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) – Offers Fur-Free Campaign literature.

• International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) – Offers many different resources.

• People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) – Offers a wide variety of brochures and literature covering many animal cruelty and protection issues. All can be ordered by visiting PETA’s Literature.

Make Your Own Animal Advocacy Flyers & Brochures

• Making Waves for Animals / Flyers For Animal Rights – This business makes beautiful, bold, professional and informative flyers to advocate for animals at Flyer Outreach. Help support animal advocacy organizations through Flyer Outreach’s effort, where purchasing a variety of animal rights flyers allows these organizations (and artists) to receive up to 75% of the proceeds from each order. Visit the website for more details.

Read more about effective leafleting from Compassion For Animals.

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of PhotoPin at Photopin.com.