Question: In the past 2-3 years, we have heard troubling news about how employees in the animal movement are treated. Are there any plans of creating a safe, global space for employees, where they could:
Safely complain about their situation.
Seek psychological and legal support.
Could safely share their stories.
Problem:
I have two examples in mind:
On 17th April 2020 Anima International shared a post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AnimaInter/photos/2521160348151381
where they explain their reasoning for firing their CEO: “However, no matter how much we value her merits, there are issues in regards to everyday behaviour towards employees that we as an organization cannot accept.”
Do we know what happened to the employees? Did they get support, help, where they apologized to, compensated?
In 2018/2019 ProVeg International was taken out of ACE standout charities list because of (among others) “concerns about their workplace culture”. What was mentioned is that ACE “received multiple testimonials from former employees with detailed reports of culture and HR problems”.
The question is—what kind of support have these employees received? Has the organization apologized to them, compensated them? There was maybe no public reaction from ProVeg, as far as I can recall.
Where ACE is mentioning “Much of ProVeg’s staff seems concerned about internal discrimination and the unequal treatment of employees, particularly along gender lines.” Source: https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-review/proveg/#comprehensive-review
These are only two examples. I have no knowledge if these kinds of problems are wide and common.
My question is: How can the global animal movement protect employees from this kind of hostile work conditions? How can we support them?
Thanks for drawing attention to this important issue Ula. I’m very sorry to read of the experiences you and others have shared, which I’ll address here and in separate replies to Daniela and Eze’s posts below.
I completely agree the animal movement needs to do better to ensure it’s a safe place for all its employees and volunteers. We’re supporting a number of groups and individuals working to create a more inclusive and supportive global movement. For instance, we’re major funders of Encompass, ACE, and Animal Advocacy Careers, as well as a number of regional efforts (like a new China EAA fellows program). And in response to complaints last year about the FAST listserv not being a safe place, we funded Amanda Cramer to work full-time on fixing it. But there’s a lot more work to do, and we’re always looking for new initiatives we could fund to help.
More broadly I think our movement needs to continue to professionalize its approach to management, HR, and employee development. I’ll address more specific issues around sexual harassment and mismanagement in my answers to Daniela and Eze below. But I’ll say for now that we’ve encouraged grantees to raise salaries and invest more in management training, and have provided funding to support both aims. And we’re very supportive of Neysa Colizzi’s work to improve leadership and governance at a number of our major grantees, for instance by coaching executive directors and assembling new independent boards.
On the specific examples you gave: we’re supportive of the action that Anima International took in the case you describe, and my understanding is that the employees affected are still with Anima and supportive of how the situation was resolved. (I don’t think I can say any more without violating their confidentiality.) I don’t know the answers on the ProVeg case — they’re not a grantee and we’re limited in our ability to inquire into issues at non-grantees.
Dear Lewis, thank you very much for your answer. If I may add one small thing: I think we should not only focus on diversity and sexual harassment, because mobbing can lead to PTSD, anxiety, depression, or struggling with self-worth. These can further affect people’s lives on many levels (from work to relationships). I think that unfortunately, we don’t put enough attention to the work environment and high rotations in the charities. There is room for improvement there for sure.
I dearly appreciate Open Phils attitude towards this though! You are giving a great example by treating employees seriously and investigating! Thank you!
Thanks Ula. Yes that’s an important point that these issues go beyond diversity and sexual harassment. I completely agree on the need to emphasize good management and treating employees well across the board—both because it’s the right way to treat everyone and because employees / talent are our movement’s most valuable resource and one we risk squandering.
Thanks for pointing this out, Ula. I’m aware that several activists in other organizations have also suffered similar situations, along with derogatory comments because of their origin and gender.
Hey Daniela, I’ve been an animal activist for 20 years now and I had seen so many people suffer mobbing or hostile work environment. People suffering severe burnout, mostly due to poor leadership. The sad thing is, they are too afraid to say anything because some of the leaders and organizations are big and well respected. I don’t really know how to help them, but I believe they don’t deserve the anxiety, self-doubt, low self-esteem, depression, and all the other repercussions. Just don’t really know what to do about it, but what worries me is that there is no follow-up. Like ACE is pointing out things and you can see no official response from the orgs. So is anything changing, or is it swept under the rug? What can we do?
Hi Ula! I agree with you. I myself stopped working directly as an animal advocate after being mobbed, harassed, and listening to regular discriminatory comments for being a woman, an immigrant, and because of my origin. I’ve seen so many activists going through the same.
In my case, the continued support of other advocates, especially of the Encompass community (www.encompassmovement.org), has been invaluable. I highly recommend it.
Second, I also believe that it’s time to stop normalizing activists’ mistreatment and discriminatory practices, especially in organizations where there is evidence that these issues are structural. In this regard, it’s very disappointing that organizations with ongoing and severe management and leadership problems continue to receive large grants or support from the EA community.
Third, I think organizations should develop active policies to prevent these situations from happening in the very first place. We should not have more advocates burning out or leaving the movement to take this issue seriously.
I’m glad that you’re also concerned about this problem, and I’d be happy to talk about this further with you :). I’m also open to discussing it with Lewis– if he considers it appropriate.
Thanks for sharing this Daniela. I’m very sorry to read of what you experienced. I completely agree we should stop normalizing activists’ mistreatment and discriminatory practices, and that organizations need to develop active policies to prevent these situations. (I’ll address your point about continued grants as part of my reply to Eze below.)
On the policy point, over the last three years we’ve strengthened our requirements for grantees around sexual harassment policies and procedures. We now require all of our farm animal welfare grantees to implement a list of best practices prepared by our law firm. Most recently, in response to specific concerns raised, we added two more requirements: (1) forbidding grantees from asking for NDAs in harassment cases, and (2) requiring grantees to commission outside investigations of all harassment cases involving leadership. We also provide special grants to cover grantees’ costs to develop stronger policies, implement them, and train staff to abide by them.
And yes, it’d be great to discuss this with you further — I’ve just emailed you to find a time.
I know testimonies of people in the animal rights movement who have suffered the same thing you are talking about here, this is worrying and obviously it is not an isolated case.
Can you describe the problems more specifically and consider the thoughts below?
I think abuse or exploiting someone’s gender, race, or outright sexual misconduct is an abomination.
But what about the perspective that “bad work environments” are a separate, distinct issue from this kind of abuse?
Work environments in any organization can become terrible and this comes from mismanagement or predatory management.
Unfortunately, these issues might be systemic at all nonprofit organizations because management ability and resources are low, and the “business model” is very performative and this can reduce intellectual honesty. Also a key resource is a stream of both passionate and pliable volunteers, who are both difficult to manage and less able to resist abuse.
If this perspective is correct, it could be difficult to solve because these are root causes. For example, even if you could richly fund and staff a few organizations with great difficulty, you cannot police all organizations that would pop up.
I think my thought in my comment is basic and I may lack knowledge of the specific events.
Since my comment yesterday at 10:14 AM PST, there have been changes to your top level comment.
For example, your question, asking about a safe, global space with three specific goals, did not exist, and you have added a caveat saying that you do not know if these issues are widespread or common.
Other comments have appeared, such as from Daniela Waldhorn, who has described appalling abuse and who has designated current management for illegal and discriminatory practices.
I think my comment was reasonable because it was hard to understand what if any changes could be effected in response to your comment, or frankly, what the underlying situation was/is.
Despite your caveat, based on the comments, this abuse seems appalling and widespread. This appears to be a public issue that affects everyone in this space.
I think, based on some of the things you said about a lack of discussion or engagement related to respected or powerful people, engaging with certain comments here might support the objectives that you may be aiming for.
Also, unfamiliarity with your or Daniela’s experiences does not mean personal unfamiliarity with similar experiences outside the space of animal welfare.
Question: In the past 2-3 years, we have heard troubling news about how employees in the animal movement are treated. Are there any plans of creating a safe, global space for employees, where they could:
Safely complain about their situation.
Seek psychological and legal support.
Could safely share their stories.
Problem: I have two examples in mind:
On 17th April 2020 Anima International shared a post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AnimaInter/photos/2521160348151381 where they explain their reasoning for firing their CEO: “However, no matter how much we value her merits, there are issues in regards to everyday behaviour towards employees that we as an organization cannot accept.” Do we know what happened to the employees? Did they get support, help, where they apologized to, compensated?
In 2018/2019 ProVeg International was taken out of ACE standout charities list because of (among others) “concerns about their workplace culture”. What was mentioned is that ACE “received multiple testimonials from former employees with detailed reports of culture and HR problems”. The question is—what kind of support have these employees received? Has the organization apologized to them, compensated them? There was maybe no public reaction from ProVeg, as far as I can recall. Where ACE is mentioning “Much of ProVeg’s staff seems concerned about internal discrimination and the unequal treatment of employees, particularly along gender lines.” Source: https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-review/proveg/#comprehensive-review
These are only two examples. I have no knowledge if these kinds of problems are wide and common. My question is: How can the global animal movement protect employees from this kind of hostile work conditions? How can we support them?
Thanks for drawing attention to this important issue Ula. I’m very sorry to read of the experiences you and others have shared, which I’ll address here and in separate replies to Daniela and Eze’s posts below.
I completely agree the animal movement needs to do better to ensure it’s a safe place for all its employees and volunteers. We’re supporting a number of groups and individuals working to create a more inclusive and supportive global movement. For instance, we’re major funders of Encompass, ACE, and Animal Advocacy Careers, as well as a number of regional efforts (like a new China EAA fellows program). And in response to complaints last year about the FAST listserv not being a safe place, we funded Amanda Cramer to work full-time on fixing it. But there’s a lot more work to do, and we’re always looking for new initiatives we could fund to help.
More broadly I think our movement needs to continue to professionalize its approach to management, HR, and employee development. I’ll address more specific issues around sexual harassment and mismanagement in my answers to Daniela and Eze below. But I’ll say for now that we’ve encouraged grantees to raise salaries and invest more in management training, and have provided funding to support both aims. And we’re very supportive of Neysa Colizzi’s work to improve leadership and governance at a number of our major grantees, for instance by coaching executive directors and assembling new independent boards.
On the specific examples you gave: we’re supportive of the action that Anima International took in the case you describe, and my understanding is that the employees affected are still with Anima and supportive of how the situation was resolved. (I don’t think I can say any more without violating their confidentiality.) I don’t know the answers on the ProVeg case — they’re not a grantee and we’re limited in our ability to inquire into issues at non-grantees.
Dear Lewis, thank you very much for your answer. If I may add one small thing: I think we should not only focus on diversity and sexual harassment, because mobbing can lead to PTSD, anxiety, depression, or struggling with self-worth. These can further affect people’s lives on many levels (from work to relationships). I think that unfortunately, we don’t put enough attention to the work environment and high rotations in the charities. There is room for improvement there for sure. I dearly appreciate Open Phils attitude towards this though! You are giving a great example by treating employees seriously and investigating! Thank you!
Thanks Ula. Yes that’s an important point that these issues go beyond diversity and sexual harassment. I completely agree on the need to emphasize good management and treating employees well across the board—both because it’s the right way to treat everyone and because employees / talent are our movement’s most valuable resource and one we risk squandering.
Thanks for pointing this out, Ula. I’m aware that several activists in other organizations have also suffered similar situations, along with derogatory comments because of their origin and gender.
Hey Daniela, I’ve been an animal activist for 20 years now and I had seen so many people suffer mobbing or hostile work environment. People suffering severe burnout, mostly due to poor leadership. The sad thing is, they are too afraid to say anything because some of the leaders and organizations are big and well respected. I don’t really know how to help them, but I believe they don’t deserve the anxiety, self-doubt, low self-esteem, depression, and all the other repercussions. Just don’t really know what to do about it, but what worries me is that there is no follow-up. Like ACE is pointing out things and you can see no official response from the orgs. So is anything changing, or is it swept under the rug? What can we do?
Hi Ula! I agree with you. I myself stopped working directly as an animal advocate after being mobbed, harassed, and listening to regular discriminatory comments for being a woman, an immigrant, and because of my origin. I’ve seen so many activists going through the same.
In my case, the continued support of other advocates, especially of the Encompass community (www.encompassmovement.org), has been invaluable. I highly recommend it.
Second, I also believe that it’s time to stop normalizing activists’ mistreatment and discriminatory practices, especially in organizations where there is evidence that these issues are structural. In this regard, it’s very disappointing that organizations with ongoing and severe management and leadership problems continue to receive large grants or support from the EA community.
Third, I think organizations should develop active policies to prevent these situations from happening in the very first place. We should not have more advocates burning out or leaving the movement to take this issue seriously.
I’m glad that you’re also concerned about this problem, and I’d be happy to talk about this further with you :). I’m also open to discussing it with Lewis– if he considers it appropriate.
Thanks for sharing this Daniela. I’m very sorry to read of what you experienced. I completely agree we should stop normalizing activists’ mistreatment and discriminatory practices, and that organizations need to develop active policies to prevent these situations. (I’ll address your point about continued grants as part of my reply to Eze below.)
On the policy point, over the last three years we’ve strengthened our requirements for grantees around sexual harassment policies and procedures. We now require all of our farm animal welfare grantees to implement a list of best practices prepared by our law firm. Most recently, in response to specific concerns raised, we added two more requirements: (1) forbidding grantees from asking for NDAs in harassment cases, and (2) requiring grantees to commission outside investigations of all harassment cases involving leadership. We also provide special grants to cover grantees’ costs to develop stronger policies, implement them, and train staff to abide by them.
And yes, it’d be great to discuss this with you further — I’ve just emailed you to find a time.
I know testimonies of people in the animal rights movement who have suffered the same thing you are talking about here, this is worrying and obviously it is not an isolated case.
In my experience this problem is unfortunately wide and common in so many organizations :(
Hi Ula,
Can you describe the problems more specifically and consider the thoughts below?
I think abuse or exploiting someone’s gender, race, or outright sexual misconduct is an abomination.
But what about the perspective that “bad work environments” are a separate, distinct issue from this kind of abuse?
Work environments in any organization can become terrible and this comes from mismanagement or predatory management.
Unfortunately, these issues might be systemic at all nonprofit organizations because management ability and resources are low, and the “business model” is very performative and this can reduce intellectual honesty. Also a key resource is a stream of both passionate and pliable volunteers, who are both difficult to manage and less able to resist abuse.
If this perspective is correct, it could be difficult to solve because these are root causes. For example, even if you could richly fund and staff a few organizations with great difficulty, you cannot police all organizations that would pop up.
I think my thought in my comment is basic and I may lack knowledge of the specific events.
What do you think about what I said?
Hey Charles, I don’t think this is a good place to turn this into a larger discussion. Unless the AMA author would like this to be the case.
Since my comment yesterday at 10:14 AM PST, there have been changes to your top level comment.
For example, your question, asking about a safe, global space with three specific goals, did not exist, and you have added a caveat saying that you do not know if these issues are widespread or common.
Other comments have appeared, such as from Daniela Waldhorn, who has described appalling abuse and who has designated current management for illegal and discriminatory practices.
I think my comment was reasonable because it was hard to understand what if any changes could be effected in response to your comment, or frankly, what the underlying situation was/is.
Despite your caveat, based on the comments, this abuse seems appalling and widespread. This appears to be a public issue that affects everyone in this space.
I think, based on some of the things you said about a lack of discussion or engagement related to respected or powerful people, engaging with certain comments here might support the objectives that you may be aiming for.
Also, unfamiliarity with your or Daniela’s experiences does not mean personal unfamiliarity with similar experiences outside the space of animal welfare.