Hi! I’m James Özden. I currently work as a philanthropic grantmaker (at Mobius), trying to improve our food system such that it causes less harm to animals and the planet. I’m interested in many things: understanding successful social movements, mitigating climate change, reducing the suffering of animals, and generally making the world a better place.
Before my current grantmaking role, I founded Social Change Lab, an organisation conducting and disseminating social movement research to help tackle the world’s most pressing problems. Before that, I was focused on building grassroots animal and climate movements at Animal Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion. I’ve been involved in a range of things: Campaigning, research, communications and fundraising.
You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter/X or reach me via email.
Some other things about me:
- In November 2022, I pledged to give at least 10% of my income to effective charities for the rest of my life (via Giving What We Can). Since then, I’ve upped the pledge such that I’m now giving around 16.5% of my pre-tax income to effective charities. You can read more about why I did this in this blog post.
- I host a podcast, How I Learned To Love Shrimp, that interviews inspiring activists, campaigners, entrepreneurs and more on effective ways to help animals and build the animal advocacy movement.
I write a newsletter about the things I am most interested in, often focusing on social movements, doing good effectively, factory farming or the climate movement. Subscribe below.