Funding Inequities in Animal Rights: A Barrier to Justice
Giving Tuesday 2024
While victories for nonhuman animals often make headlines, funding inequities continue to hinder progress in the animal rights movement, ensuring it remains a space of privilege rather than one of justice.
This inequity isn’t new. It’s rooted in a systemic racism that shapes much of modern philanthropy, embedded in a longstanding funding regime that has prioritized white-led organizations while denying BIPOC-led groups access to the resources necessary for meaningful impact. A report from Animal Charity Evaluators highlights the scarcity of BIPOC voices in animal advocacy, exacerbating these longstanding disparities.
By underfunding BIPOC organizations, the animal rights movement limits its potential and alienates those whose voices are essential for building an intersectional fight for liberation. Confronting these realities isn’t optional; it’s critical. The fight for animal liberation cannot exist in isolation—it must be tied to racial, social, and economic justice. Yet, the leaders championing this vision are repeatedly pushed to the margins of the movement.
Unequal Resources, Unequal Outcomes
A 2020 Bridgespan and Echoing Green report showed that BIPOC-led nonprofits receive, on average, 24% smaller grants than white-led groups. Additionally, these organizations are more likely to get restricted funding, limiting their ability to address community-specific needs.
This challenge is amplified in the animal rights sector. Most funding flows to white-led organizations and single-issue campaigns, leaving intersectional groups—those tackling systemic racism alongside animal liberation—with minimal support. Grassroots organizations are left to compete for a fraction of resources, preventing them from scaling programs, retaining staff, or engaging communities effectively, and leaders face burnout while trying to secure basic funding. These barriers don’t just slow progress—they ensure it remains out of reach.
The Cost of Inequity
Philanthropy often reinforces the very systems it claims to dismantle, perpetuating inequitable hierarchies that undermine progress. The underfunding of BIPOC-led organizations doesn’t just harm underrepresented communities; it weakens the entire animal rights movement by reinforcing a white-centric framework that alienates diverse voices and fails to resonate with our diverse communities or connect with the majority of the world. The lack of multi-year, unrestricted funding traps BIPOC-led organizations in cycles of financial uncertainty, hindering long-term planning and systemic change; critical opportunities for systemic transformation are lost. Racial inequities and animal exploitation are deeply intertwined, and treating them as separate issues only deepens the problem. To address these connections, the funding structure must be overhauled to ensure resources are equitably distributed and BIPOC voices have a meaningful role in shaping strategies and solutions that drive sustainable progress.
Building a Future Rooted in Justice
Mainstream animal rights organizations often claim to advocate for the voiceless. Yet nonhumans are not voiceless—they are silenced and dismissed by systems designed to exploit them, much like systemic inequities marginalize BIPOC leaders and groups within the movement. This financial inequity directly contradicts a movement rooted in justice, stripping it of both momentum and integrity. A truly liberated future demands investment in the voices long ignored.
The path to liberation begins here.
Donate to APEX Advocacy
By donating to APEX, your generous support will ensure that long-standing inequities in animal advocacy are challenged so BIPOC feel empowered to take up the cause of animal liberation. A world where both animals and humans live free from harm and exploitation is possible, but it requires a new, inclusive approach which APEX is dedicated to making a reality throughout social justice spaces.
Every gift you make ensures that we are able to bring the message of liberation for all to more BIPOC activists.
This Giving Tuesday, Stray Dog Institute has generously agreed to match the first $5,000 raised in December, which means you can double your impact for animals and their advocates. Please give today!
