Recommendations for the farmed animal protection community
In our final post before we disband, the Encompass board is offering our parting suggestions for the farmed animal protection movement. This list is by no means exhaustive or written with a prescriptive order.
The Encompass website will stay up through May 2024, so please feel free to refer back here for any resources, including our Voices of the Movement research report and recommendations, Antiracism in Animal Advocacy book, resource page for white folks, blog, and more.
To Black, Indigenous, and animal advocates of the global majority (BIPGM)
Join the Caucus at APEX Advocacy so we can collectively advocate for one another and hold space for our community and needs, and learn from each other's expertise
Learn more about, and support, other BIPGM-led animal advocacy organizations like the ones we’ve granted to and so many more
To (predominately white-run-and led) Animal Advocacy Organizations
Develop shared racial equity literacy and vocabulary within your organization
Here is a starting point
Explicitly name racial equity a strategic imperative of your organization in your own voice and with your leadership team, including your board
Identify an equity consulting partner and get a quote, include this in your proposals to funders
Consultants we like include (but are not limited to):
Fundraise for this work and keep it in your budget indefinitely
Besides money, allocate time and bandwidth among staff long-term
Hire a racial equity specialist or similar role for your staff
Read our research report and make public commitments about how you will address these issues
Integrate Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) throughout your organization at every level and in every department
Provide regular opportunities for staff to discuss and engage with JEDI concepts
Start a intra- and inter-organizational working group to share your resources and support each other in building equity and changing white supremacist systems
Investigate how the issue of liberation and well-being of under-resourced communities intersects with the liberation and welfare of non-human animals
Collaborate with, support, and promote the work of, BIPGM within and outside of your organizations
Invite BIPGM in your organization to join the Global Majority Caucus at APEX Advocacy and consider this a part of their regular responsibilities and a something to do in their own time
Collect, disaggregate, and report data
What data do you collect?
Tie racial diversity, equity, and inclusion to organization metrics/performance
Make all organization SMART goals, SMARTIE (“i” “e” = inclusion and equity)
Create equity-minded job descriptions and workplace policies. For example:
List salary ranges and benefits on all job descriptions
Explore the 4-day workweek and sabbatical policies
Ensure your discrimination policies go beyond the standard Equal Employment Opportunity verbiage
Consider Animal Charity Evaluators' analysis and recommendations on diversity in the animal advocacy movement
Publicly report on your goals, progress, and shortcomings annually each year to hold yourselves accountable and to provide transferable lessons for your peer organizations
To White Advocates
Encourage your organizations to take the aforementioned steps and discuss them with your peers
Review the materials on our resource page
Create white accountability spaces and show up consistently to them — find co-conspirators to work with you in anti-racism work in your community
Name racism and anti-racism when you see it, and use your relational power
To Funders
All of the above recommendations for organizations and white advocates apply
E.g., integrate equitable funding practices in your own strategic plans and priorities
Think long-term. This fight is a long one and to build sustainable organizations, to build a movement that protects as many animals as possible, to build a world that is hospitable to all, and to tear down the structures that profit from speciesism — that requires us to connect causes and to reach everyone, including people outside our bubble
Follow, fund, and promote the work of the organizations we granted and other BIPGM-led animal advocacy organizations
Learn from BIPGM-led organizations about their theory of change and why their work is effective
Support organizations with funding specifically for JEDI work
Describe the importance of racial equity in your funding guidelines
Provide multi-year general operating grants for the copious reasons listed in the aforementioned link
Reduce the amount of direct reporting required of your grantees
Simplify your funding processes and grant applications, especially for organizations with limited resources and understand how your grant application may be perpetuating inequity, for example:
Allow groups to repurpose materials as opposed to requiring rigid formatting requirements
Eliminate character/word requirements on grant applications
Use the Equitable Grantmaking Continuum tool to make your grant making more equitable
Here’s the full-version and the one-page version
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