ACE takes the promotion of safe, equitable, and respectful environments within the animal advocacy movement to be of utmost importance. We are proud to be a charity that has women in a majority of our leadership roles and that is actively working to improve internal diversity and inclusion—having embedded these topics into our internal and external strategies.

Last year, in an effort to understand the organizational culture of the charities we evaluate, we conducted confidential interviews with non-leadership staff at each charity. We hoped to give employees the opportunity to share their experiences and thoughts about their workplace environment under the protection of complete confidentiality.

We were also prepared for the possibility of uncovering some instances of sexual harassment, since, as the recent news cycle has made clear—and as many of us have always known—sexual harassment is a deeply pervasive problem in our culture. However, we were surprised and disheartened to learn about the extent of the sexual harassment problem within the movement, the many repeated allegations against the same individuals, and the apparent toleration of harassment at multiple organizations.

To that end, we wanted to clarify ACE’s role in uncovering and mending the issue of sexual harassment in the animal advocacy movement.  For instance, ACE can not indicate whether a particularly recommended charity tolerates harassment, but all charities we reviewed in 2017 were thoroughly evaluated on the basis of workplace culture. This means that, for all of the charities that we reviewed and then recommended in 2017, we found no evidence of cultural problems so severe as to threaten their ability to work effectively. This includes Animal Equality, The Good Food Institute, The Humane League, Compassion in World Farming USA, Faunalytics, L214, The Nonhuman Rights Project, and Open Cages.

Read the full article about sexual harassment in animal advocacy movement by  Roisin McAuley at Animal Charity Evaluators.