AGAINST RACISM

WE STAND AGAINST RACISM

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Farmed Animal Advocacy Community,

We, the undersigned members of Farmed Animal Funders (FAF), have the great privilege of advancing the fight against factory farming—and with that privilege comes great responsibility. In light of the recent groundswell of action across the country in response to the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and ongoing systemic injustice perpetrated against Black people, we acknowledge our responsibility to fight racism and work to dismantle white supremacy.

The wealth gap in the United States is heavily racialized. As a network of predominantly white funders, we acknowledge that we have had access to opportunities and capital that are often unfairly out of reach, particularly for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).

Farmed Animal Funders exists to fight factory farming. But since our founding, Farmed Animal Funders as an organization has never fully acknowledged that there’s a critical connection between the suffering of farmed animals and People of Color, who make up the majority of reducetarians, vegetarians, and vegans worldwide and yet remain largely invisible within our movement in the Global North. Our broken food system in the Global North is disproportionately built on the labor of Black and Brown people who raise, transport, kill, and process animals used for food—and whose communities are disproportionately burdened by the harmful health effects of living near factory farms.

We know it’s not enough to be non-racist; we, as funders in positions of power, need to be anti-racist.

We acknowledge that this statement of solidarity alone doesn’t release us from our responsibility to dismantle racism. We hope that this is a start, and we’re committed to doing the work to be a part of the solution. Farmed Animal Funders is a network of donors with diverse philanthropic priorities, so being a part of the solution might look different for each of us.

As a first step, we want to recognize that FAF’s current process for finding and sharing funding proposals inadvertently may filter out NGOs led by people of color. FAF staff are committed to publicizing our RFP process and encouraging proposals from charities led by BIPOC. Here are some nonprofits to support that fight the injustice of marginalized populations that are disproportionately affected by farming animals for food (alphabetized):

• AfroVegan Society

• Black Vegans Rock

• Encompass

• Food Empowerment Project

• Grow Where You Are

• La Raza for Liberation

• Sistah Vegan Project

We know there’s a long road ahead towards ending oppression of all kinds. Farmed Animal Funders commits to doing the hard work of introspection at the individual and community level, and invites other donors in the farmed animal advocacy space to join us.

In solidarity,

Anonymous
Anonymous
Chris Bryson, The Bryson Animal Aid Foundation
The Greenbaum Foundation
Lewis Bollard and Amanda Hungerford, Open Philanthropy Project
Mobius
Ryan Fletcher on behalf of Dr. Bronner’s
Simone Friedman
The Solberga Foundation
Stray Dog Institute