CAFT is the fur industry’s worst nightmare.
Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) is the most successful anti-fur campaigning group in the animal rights movement.
We are winning, plain and simple. We have stopped 19 companies from selling fur, affecting 100s of brands and businesses, and reshaping the luxury fashion industry’s acceptance of fur.
We have not lost a single campaign.
Before we start serving up our hot takes (which we know everyone loves, right?!) and talking strategy, let me introduce myself and CAFT: who we are, how our small group is equipping the grassroots movement to take down the fur industry, what you can expect from our Substack, and why you should care.
If you’re an activist or simply someone that wants to see the end of the cruel fur industry, then I hope you will stick around to follow our journey as we share insights into our winning strategy that has made billion-dollar companies capitulate to our demands.
WHO AM I?
My name is Suzie Stork, and I’m the Executive Director of the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT). Before I joined CAFT’s leadership team, I was an activist in a local group in NYC organizing protests, rallying volunteers, and running anti-fur campaigns — just like the many grassroots activists that we partner with today.
When I started getting involved in activism, I wanted to be sure that whatever free time and energy I was putting in was being used as effectively as possible and that it was actually moving the needle for animals. There are many different forms of activism, and I have tried more than a few. But pressure campaigning was the one that attracted me the most and made me feel like our movement was winning and creating tangible change for animals.
I had read about successful campaigns from the past, like the breeder shutdown campaigns from the UK, but I had yet to participate in something meaningful. Early on, I quickly realized that not all campaigns are alike. I bounced around participating in directionless campaigns or one-off actions that yielded no results, because the “ask” was too ambitious or the tactics didn’t match the pressure needed to win.
Then I found CAFT. It’s when I realized: it is easy to launch a campaign, but much harder to execute a successful one without a clear understanding of strategy and focus.
There’s something undeniably exciting about watching a large company or influential designer cave to activist pressure — not because a law forced them to, but because ordinary people, like myself and my friends, gave them no other choice. That’s what CAFT was doing — not only cutting into the demand for fur, but creating an international, organized movement of activists furiously committed to beating the fur trade.
Campaign after campaign, company after company, all caving to nothing more than grassroots power and a smart strategy that required laser-focusing on targets, choosing angles that created leverage, and refusing to back down.
That’s what drew me in. And it’s what’s kept me here.
Since joining CAFT, I have been part of 11 winning campaigns that have driven blow after blow to the cruel fur industry. And I’m proud to work alongside some of the best and most dedicated campaigners in the movement.
WHO IS CAFT?
CAFT exists to end the fur trade once and for all. Our theory of change has not wavered since day one. Since its inception in 2020, CAFT set out with a clear goal to end fur by dismantling the fur retail market one company at a time through pressure campaigning.
We are building upon generational knowledge of campaigning, learned from years of experience, and applying it to an industry whose collapse is within reach.
CAFT began as an idea from its founder, and current Campaigns Director, Tyler Lang. After being convicted as a domestic terrorist for liberating mink from a fur farm and shutting it down, he decided to channel his energy into a different form of activism, with less legal risk. Having participated in the SHAC campaign and witnessed firsthand how effective pressure campaigning could be, he took that knowledge — passed down from the campaigners he had worked alongside — and decided to apply it to not just one company, but to an entire industry. And it’s working.
He’ll share his experience and perspectives in a later post (coming next week!).
As of today, our leadership team consists of five of us who are all close friends that have campaigned together for years, and who have each sacrificed more than most people would have, because none of us have been willing to walk away from this project.
Since 2020, we have steam-rolled through targets with incredible momentum and secured fur-free policies from 19 companies, including some of the biggest names in fashion like Marc Jacobs, Max Mara, and Rick Owens. We did this with little to no funding. We’ve drained our savings, walked away from stable careers and salaries, slept in cars, faced arrests, become nomadic, and uprooted our lives to follow campaigns and see them through.
And we would not have gone through all of this if we didn’t fiercely believe in the work we are doing.
CAFT IS DECENTRALIZED
None of our victories would be possible without the grassroots network of activists who show up for these campaigns time and time again. CAFT is not just a team of five — it is every person who gives up their free time to fight for animals. The people who print the flyers, organize the protests, show up in the rain outside a CEO’s house with a sign, or jump on stage to shame an executive for supporting fur: they are CAFT.
CAFT campaigns are decentralized by design. Meaning, anyone, in any city, can pick up a sign and organize a protest without asking for our permission. These campaigns belong to everyone. We encourage local activists to take full ownership of their group’s role, which makes space for creative freedom and a diversity of tactics.
At the height of our campaigns, local groups are taking autonomous action up to 4–5 times a week — from the United States to Japan. We are everywhere. CAFT is a movement for anyone willing to fight the fur industry like we actually mean to win. If you regularly attend or organize these campaigns, you are part of CAFT.
CAFT’s first campaign involved three cities. In 2026, we are now partnering with local groups in 50 cities internationally that organize on-the-ground actions for the campaigns.
I firmly believe this generation of activists right now will be the ones to end the fur industry — as long as we stick together. Our campaigns are more than just exciting; they are empowering and provide a training ground for activists to learn how to campaign effectively. We share our strategy and our knowledge precisely for this reason. And we are building a pipeline of skilled campaigners who will be ready to take on the next industry that is vulnerable.
Together, we are not just creating the roadmap to beating fur, but building a blueprint for taking down an industry.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE
We hope to post once a month and we’ll be sharing campaign updates, action reports, and perspectives on the direction of the animal rights movement. We want to share what we’ve learned from our campaigns with the broader movement — not because we have all the answers, but because we’re all figuring this out together and learning as we go. The mistakes of the past are too costly to repeat, and the knowledge that’s been passed down to us was never meant to stop here. We want to keep passing it forward.
The animals deserve an informed, resilient movement. We hope this is one small contribution to that.
BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR AND HELP US END FUR
Taking down an entire industry takes courage, sacrifices, and support from the community. We believe it can be done. Fundraising is currently our biggest challenge. Because of the hard-hitting and unapologetic campaigns we run, we are limited in obtaining funding from traditional means (like foundations and grants).
Now, we are asking for support from the people who built this movement with us to defeat the fur industry. We are setting a goal of 200 new monthly donors to become financially independent and scale up our victories. If you are able, please consider donating to help us win.
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