How to Build Winning Animal Rights Campaigns: Grassroots Strategy with Penny Tehilah & Suzie Stork

Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan sit down with Penimah (Penny) Tehilah, Executive Director of the Animal Activism Collective (AAC), and Suzie Stork, Executive Director of the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT), for a deep dive into the strategy, structure, and surprising effectiveness of grassroots animal rights campaigning — and why winnable, targeted pressure campaigns are one of the most powerful tools activists have right now.

• The power of winnable campaigns: AAC and CAFT explain why focusing on achievable, specific asks — like fur-free policies — can be so effective, and how this approach has led to wins with over 18 major companies, New York Fashion Week, the Emmy Awards, and more.
• Corporate pressure campaign tactics: Learn how decentralized grassroots networks use protests, disruptions, secondary campaigns, and digital actions to make it “not worth it” for companies to ignore animals — including a 9-month campaign against Condé Nast that spanned 20 cities.
• Welfare vs. abolition — a practical framework: Penny shares her compelling “two cages” analogy for why she believes that welfare campaigns and single-issue campaigns are a strategic bridge toward animal liberation, not a compromise of it.
• How to get involved no matter your comfort level: From holding a sign to doing research, police liaison training, or chalking the sidewalk, guests break down the many entry points into grassroots activism and how AAC’s mentorship and pressure campaign programs help new activists build skills fast.

• Current campaigns and how to take action:CAFT is actively campaigning against Milan Fashion Week sponsors and Etsy’s real fur listings — two high-impact, winnable targets — and needs activists in the U.S., Europe, and Canada. Visit abolishfur.org and animalactivismcollective.com to get involved.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Penimah (Penny) Tehilah is the Executive Director of the Animal Activism Collective (AAC), an animal rights organization she co-founded in 2020 focused on grassroots mobilization and activist training. Since getting involved in animal rights in 2018, she has helped bring hundreds of new activists into the movement through AAC’s mentorship program, supported the launch of dozens of local grassroots groups across the U.S., and contributed to major wins including over 100 restaurants adopting foie gras-free policies and numerous luxury fashion brands going fur-free.

Suzie Stork is the Executive Director of the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT), one of the most successful anti-fur organizations in the world, with a decentralized grassroots network spanning more than 50 cities internationally. Under her leadership, CAFT has secured landmark fur-free victories with Vogue, New York Fashion Week, and dozens of luxury brands — while building a scalable organizing model aimed at ending the fur industry entirely and serving as a blueprint for dismantling future industries that exploit animals.

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