Our Work
Our three core programmes work together to build the power of the animal freedom movement from the ground up - by growing local groups, developing grassroots leaders and catalysing strategic campaigns that can win real change.
Our Programmes
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This programme lays the groundwork for a thriving UK-wide movement by establishing and supporting local, community-led groups as centres of campaigning and mobilisation.
We work directly with local leaders to start or strengthen groups, equip them with campaign tools and mentorship, and connect them through shared infrastructure, digital platforms and coordinated moments of action.
These groups lead on winnable campaigns rooted in their context, while forming the backbone of a national network ready to act together at scale. -
At the heart of any lasting movement are leaders with clarity, confidence and connection.
This programme focuses on identifying and developing organisers who can sustain local groups, lead campaigns and build strategic capacity.
Through a mix of bootcamps, mentoring and a practical resource library, we’re building a distributed leadership model that enables growth without dependency - ensuring our movement is led by many, not a few. -
Campaigns are the vehicle through which we grow support, build pressure and deliver change.
This programme identifies and supports strategic campaigns that both win and build - connecting public concern with organised action.
We incubate “gateway” campaigns that bring in new people, support local-national coordination and develop adaptable toolkits to enable local uptake.
Our focus is on catalysing campaigns that are emotionally resonant, winnable and capable of shifting norms or policy.
Collectively, these three programmes are equipping the movement to:
Respond rapidly to trigger events - Moments like the killing of Cecil the Lion (2015), the police assault on Beau the Calf (2024), and Animal Rising’s 2024 RSPCA Investigation, sparked public outrage but lacked coordinated mobilisation. We’re building the infrastructure to turn these moments into movement momentum.
Seize political and cultural opportunities for progress - Wins like the UK's Animal Sentience Act (2022) matter, but without grassroots pressure, they stall. We’re developing the power to translate these kinds of openings into real protections for animals.
Generate the public pressure needed for systemic change - Just like the Hunting Act (2004) and the Live Exports ban (2024), transformational victories come from mass mobilisation. We’re laying the groundwork to win the next ones.
Pilot Initiatives
In 2024 we launched For Charlie, a movement-wide campaign demanding that the RSPCA disassociate from its Assured scheme, which has been widely criticised for concealing farmed animal cruelty.
Catalysed by Animal Rising’s 2024 investigation of 37 RSPCA Assured farms, which exposed systemic cruelty, the campaign gained momentum through an open letter signed by over 170 individuals and organisations, including veterinarians, former RSPCA board members, celebrities such as Joanna Lumley, Ricky Gervais and Bryan Adams, and over 60 pro-animal organisations. The letter urges the RSPCA to drop the Assured scheme and actively advocate for a plant-based future.
A short film by BAFTA-winning director Alex Lockwood accompanied the letter. The film highlights the story of Charlie the pig, rescued from an RSPCA Assured farm, alongside powerful testimony from former insiders.
The campaign’s major success was securing mass media coverage, leading to Sir Brian May’s resignation as an RSPCA Vice President, amplifying public scrutiny of welfare-washing in animal agriculture. By fostering movement-wide coordination and collaboration, For Charlie has strengthened the fight against industry deception, uniting activists and organisations in a strategic push for systemic change, developed movement capacity to seize opportunities, and laid the groundwork for future collaboration.
Learn more and take action: ForCharlie.love
We launched Dorset Animal Action in July 2024 as a pilot local group to revitalise grassroots organising in the UK animal freedom movement. By uniting fragmented activist groups and maximising local community recruitment, it offers a scalable model for community-led activism, laying the foundations for a mass national movement.
Since its launch, Dorset Animal Action has grown to 40+ active members and created a WhatsApp community of 170+ activists across 16 sub-groups. It has launched successful local campaigns, including a Bournemouth Oceanarium pressure campaign with regular protests, stunts, and a petition that reached 1,000 signatures in two weeks. The group has also become a key player in the MBR Suppliers campaign (see below). Dorset Animal Action has attracted significant media attention through street theatre, chalking, and direct action, including a front-page feature in the Bournemouth Echo.
By strengthening grassroots participation, increasing cross-movement collaboration, and expanding recruitment, the group has proven to be a replicable model for local activism. With support from Project Phoenix, similar groups are now emerging in Southampton, Nottingham, Brighton, the Isle of Wight, and Sheffield, demonstrating the power of decentralised organising in the fight for animal freedom. As the model grows, Dorset Animal Action remains a thriving and vibrant proving ground for trying and testing new and emergent approaches to community organising.
Learn more and take action: DorsetAnimalAction.org
We launched the MBR Suppliers campaign as a grassroots initiative to give emergent community-based organisers a national cause to rally behind.
The campaign capitalises on grassroots and public focus on MBR Acres, a dog breeding factory in Cambridgeshire, which supplies 2,000 dogs yearly to the British research industry (a 2025 petition by Camp Beagle received over 200,000 signatures in a week). With 36% of UK households living with a dog, this campaign offers a wide recruitment pool from the public, serving as a gateway into the wider animal freedom movement.
Structured without hierarchy or external funding but with clear and accessible information, ideas, and inspiration, the campaign offers abundant opportunities for autonomous organising, skill sharing, local wins, and, ultimately, a collective victory that would empower the grassroots. The regular, tangible victories of a campaign like this, owned by its participants, boost morale, recruitment, and retention for the whole grassroots space. In the first three months of the campaign, 20 companies joined the boycott of MBR Acres.
The full campaign strategy can be viewed here.
Learn more and take action: facebook.com/groups/mbrsuppliers
World Day for Animals in Laboratories (WDAIL) has occurred on the nearest Saturday to April 24th, every year since 1979.
Initially founded by the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), it has been organised by grassroots collectives in recent years. From a high of over 20,000 attendees in 1992, participation dropped to just 150 in 2024, reflecting the decrease in community organising.
Project Phoenix co-organised the 2025 event on April 26th. By weaving cohesive networks, we garnered support and promotion from the wider movement, including Animal Rising, We The Free, Animal Free Research, Unoffensive Animal, Camp Beagle, and Jane Goodall. Through this work, we were able to increase attendance to 800. A more than 500% increase in just one year.
The local groups, seeded by Project Phoenix, Dorset Animal Action, and Southampton Animal Action, organised coach transport, bringing 100 activists between them, two-thirds of the total attendee numbers from the previous year. We successfully demonstrated that mass mobilisation is possible and in progress.