Whatever issue you’re passionate about, you can be sure there’s an organization whose mission is to fix it. There are countless issues in the world that affect each and every one of us, with at least a dozen organizations working on addressing that issue. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, it’s good to have such breadth and diversity, so organizations can lend their specific expertise to fighting on the fronts they know the most about.

But it shouldn’t end there. If advocates stay holed up in silos, we miss out on the opportunities to build coalitions where our missions overlap. The data analysis that follows explores the potential for collaboration and coalition-building among organizations with a primary focus on animal protection, environmentalism, or humanitarian causes.

In the analysis, we explore a selection of approximately 20 to 25 groups from each movement, examining various attributes of each group: the types of campaigns they primarily focus on, which campaigns overlap with other primary focus areas, and how we can use these overlaps to build bridges and strengthen all of our movements — and potentially boost our collective impact.

Choosing Organizations To Analyze

We chose organizations to analyze based on a combination of prior knowledge and compilations of the best organizations to donate to by groups like Charity Navigator and Animal Charity Evaluators. We evaluated each organization until we reached a minimum total of 20 groups in each category who scored six or higher out of 10 total possible points based on our inclusion criteria (more below). As such, it’s crucial to note that the analysis below, and the generalizations made in relation to different movements, are based only on the organizations analyzed, and not the entire movements in question.

Humanitarian organizations were further narrowed down due to the sheer number of humanitarian causes. For this analysis, we only considered organizations that contribute to people’s health and safety in a broad sense (e.g., providing clean water or helping with natural disaster recovery). We did not consider organizations dedicated to a specific group of people. Therefore, while necessary and important, organizations that focus solely on LGBTQIA+ or immigrant rights, for example, were beyond the scope of this analysis.

Inclusion Criteria

To be considered, organizations were evaluated on multiple inclusion criteria:

• Organizations needed to have a mission statement that explicitly referenced advocacy in at least one of the following areas: animal protection, environmentalism, or humanitarian causes.
• They had to be a registered non-profit or non-governmental organization.
• They had to be currently active organizations with public reports available within the last three years.
• They had to have publicly available financial or annual reports and a budget of at least US$1,000,000.
• Impact was measured on the organization’s scope (local, national, or global) and whether the organizations extend their work beyond their primary focus (e.g., an animal protection organization with a campaign addressing environmental issues like climate change).

All criteria were scored on a binary scale (1 if the organization met the criteria and 0 if they did not) with the exception of the impact criteria. Organizations were given a score of 1 for local or regional impacts, 2 for national impacts, and 3 for global impacts. Organizations were given a score of 0 if they did not address any causes outside of their primary focus area, 1 if they implicitly addressed other causes (e.g., an environmental group that benefits biodiversity by campaigning for habitat protection), and 2 if they run campaigns that explicitly address cause areas outside of their primary focus. Thus, organizations could score a total of 10 possible points.

Although this analysis scores organizations based on the above inclusion criteria, this ranking should not be taken as a judgment of their quality or effectiveness. The inclusion criteria were chosen specifically for this project’s goals: to identify opportunities for collaboration and coalition-building, not to evaluate the merit of the organizations’ work. There are many organizations that weren’t included because they didn’t meet our specific criteria or because we didn’t investigate them at all. The incredible work being done by these groups is not diminished by their exclusion. This analysis only measures the opportunities that exist to build bridges and should not be used as an indicator of the quality of work non-profit organizations are doing.

Who We Included And Who We Didn’t

In terms of animal organizations, many who scored less than six points on our inclusion criteria were animal shelters and humane societies. That said, it’s worth noting that about half of the animal organizations that just passed the six-point threshold — scoring mostly sixes and sevens — were large regional shelters and humane societies due to their sheer size, budgets, and other factors (a great example of prior findings about how well-funded companion animal charities tend to be as compared to other animal causes). The main drivers of their low scores in this analysis were smaller budgets and more localized scopes of impacts. Though many of these organizations mentioned humanitarian work in their mission statements, most of them didn’t have any humanitarian-focused campaigns. The difference between their mission statements and actual operations could be interpreted in two ways: it could be a roadblock to potential coalition-building or an untapped opportunity.

Animal shelters and humane societies may feel pressured to mention humanitarian work in their mission statements because they’re acutely aware of how much less funding animal protection groups get compared to other organizations that focus on environmental or humanitarian causes. While there may be some truth to the realities and pressures of a difficult funding landscape, it seems much more likely that these organizations simply lack the resources to engage effectively outside of the work they’re already doing to give animals better lives. Ultimately, while their smaller scale mostly kept them out of this particular analysis, these organizations are still worth mentioning for their potential to be crucial nodes for local-level coalition-building, especially if supported by the larger organizations that scored higher on our criteria.

In contrast to the smaller organizations, the animal protection organizations that scored highly were characterized by their generally global scopes and larger budgets, mirroring the infrastructure of many environmental and humanitarian groups. These organizations focused on large-scale campaigns, often addressing international policy, corporate reform, and cross-border issues like the global wildlife trade or factory farming. These organizations were likely to see how animal protection issues can affect all of us and address environmental or humanitarian causes in addition to animal welfare, like factory farming’s impact on pollution and public health or working toward sustainable food systems to combat global hunger. However, these organizations’ budgets were generally smaller than the average environmental or humanitarian group. This resource gap, well known by many within the movement, highlights the need for coalition-building for animal protection organizations to be able to amplify their impact.

No environmental or humanitarian groups we evaluated scored fewer than six points. Two environmental organizations — the Sierra Club Foundation and The Conservation Fund — only scored seven points, the lowest of any of the examined environmental organizations, and barely met the inclusion threshold. Though they both have fairly large budgets and national scopes of work, their relatively lower scores were largely driven by a lack of overlap with cause areas outside of environmentalism. Both of these organizations focus on raising or investing money to protect lands and address the climate crisis.

Many of the environmental organizations we examined scored in the nine- to 10-point range. These organizations were characterized by their global operations, large budgets, and campaigns that addressed humanitarian issues like food security or animal protection issues like species conservation in addition to environmental causes. Many environmental organizations focused on large-scale systemic issues like climate change, habitat preservation, and international policy, which naturally lend themselves to cross-sector overlap. Even the Sierra Club Foundation and The Conservation Fund, though the lowest-scoring of the environmental groups, still had relatively large budgets and national scopes, demonstrating the significant infrastructure common in the environmental movement.

Humanitarian organizations showed more variation in the driving factors of their scores. Only three humanitarian organizations scored near the minimum possible points: Blood:Water scored the minimum of six points, and Water for South Sudan and Water Engineers for the Americas and Africa (WEFTA) each scored seven points. All three of these organizations focus on providing clean water in their respective regions. Blood:Water focuses exclusively on this mission, and so received zero points for the criteria of addressing other causes. It also had a relatively smaller budget with less than US$1,000,000. WEFTA didn’t provide publicly available financial information, and so also scored zero points for that criterion. Both Blood:Water and WEFTA operate beyond a local scale but not at a fully global scale, scoring two out of three possible points for their scopes of impact (Blood:Water operates in Africa, and WEFTA operates in both Africa and the Americas). WEFTA acknowledges the environmental benefit of clean water and sanitation, though it doesn’t have a specific environmental campaign. Water for South Sudan has a larger budget and also acknowledges the environmental impact of clean water, though its mission is more localized. While incredibly important, these organizations’ intensive focus on a largely singular issue results in a lower overall score for this analysis.

The highest-scoring humanitarian groups often operated globally and had enormous budgets, including some organizations in the multi-billions. Their abundant resources allowed these organizations to engage in complex projects. Their core work, including disaster response, public health, and poverty alleviation, often intersects with environmental causes (e.g., renewable energy benefits the environment and improves the lives of people living in an impoverished community), though their work is less likely to intersect with animal protection causes. The difference between the lowest- and highest-scoring humanitarian organizations highlights a strategic choice within the sector: to maintain a specialized, focused mission or to diversify into broader systemic issues. Both approaches are valid and necessary, though this analysis focuses more on the latter.

Overall, the top-ranking organizations’ scores suggest that they already possess the infrastructure, finances, and networks needed to coordinate cross-movement initiatives. Many of the organizations examined in this analysis work in areas with great potential for overlap — animals are healthiest when their habitats are being protected, humans and animals both benefit from having access to clean water, climate change and factory farming affect all of us — the list goes on. The question of coalition-building is less one of possibility and more one of willingness and strategy.

Inclusion Score Findings

The organizations included in the analysis had an overall average inclusion score of 8.45. Animal protection organizations had an average score of 8.00, environmental groups had an average score of 9.15, and humanitarian organizations had an average score of 8.30. This indicates that the organizations we looked at were, for the most part, highly compliant with our inclusion criteria (as opposed to barely making the cut), with environmental organizations being especially likely to meet most or all of the criteria and animal protection organizations being the least likely to meet all of the criteria.

Animal protection organizations were the most likely to score the minimum of six points, with almost a quarter of the organizations we analyzed receiving the minimum score. All environmental groups scored seven or more points. Only one humanitarian organization received the minimum score. Environmental groups were the most likely to meet all of our inclusion criteria, with nearly half the organizations we looked at getting a perfect score. Just under a third of animal protection groups received 10 points. Humanitarian groups were the least likely to meet all the inclusion criteria, with only three organizations receiving a perfect score.

Where In The World Are Organizations Operating?

Overall, most organizations were global in scope, with just over half of the total organizations analyzed working internationally. In our analysis, 15 organizations had national scopes, and the remaining 14 organizations worked locally or regionally. Looking at only animal protection groups, a little under half of the organizations had global scopes, less than 10% had national scopes, and just over half served only their local communities. Interestingly, no environmental groups had local scopes. Just over half had national scopes, and just under half worked globally. Almost all (85%) humanitarian groups had global scopes, two organizations (10%) worked nationally, and just one organization (5%) had a local focus.

The distribution of organizational scopes reveals a significant difference in how the three kinds of movements operate. Environmental and humanitarian organizations are more likely than animal protection organizations to operate globally. Issues like climate change (generally environmental), resource scarcity (generally environmental or humanitarian), and global health (generally humanitarian) cross borders by their nature and require international cooperation to address effectively. The essence of these campaigns positions environmental and humanitarian organizations well to engage in broad coalition-building.

The animal protection movement, by contrast, is more likely to include organizations that concentrate their operations within their respective regions. These organizations include national or regional animal advocacy groups, as well as higher-budget humane societies and animal rescues that necessarily focus on the individual animals in their own communities. While shelters and humane societies may be excellent nodes for local, community-level partnerships, they likely lack the international network and infrastructure that is more common among environmental and humanitarian organizations, as well as the larger animal protection groups, which could make large-scale collaborations more difficult.

The larger animal protection organizations included in this analysis do operate internationally — focusing on international policy or cross-border issues, much like the environmental or humanitarian organizations do — but fewer animal protection organizations operate strictly nationally. This relative lack suggests that the movement’s power structure may be more decentralized. This gap, where advocates could be coordinating efforts focused on federal legislation, nationwide corporate policy, or consistent public education, hinders the movement’s ability to achieve uniform policy adoption or leverage political influence, which potentially leads to local groups duplicating efforts in their respective regions or relying on distant global organizations for large-scale change that may be disconnected from the needs of their local communities.

These differences point to two types of potential for coalition-building: global/macro-scale coalitions and local/micro-scale coalitions. Large-scale macro coalitions could be driven by environmental, humanitarian, or larger animal protection groups who have already concentrated their resources on an international scale. These coalitions could tackle issues like factory farming’s contribution to climate change or pollution’s effects on both global human health and the environment. Smaller-scale micro coalitions, meanwhile, could be driven by smaller animal protection groups who could partner with local humanitarian and environmental organizations like food banks or local parks initiatives to address community-specific needs. Large international animal protection organizations could also partner with local groups to drive political reform or education campaigns that directly impact their individual communities.

Money Talks: What Does It Say?

The average budget of all the organizations we analyzed was just under $300 million. Animal protection organizations had the lowest average budget at just under $50 million. Humanitarian organizations had the largest average budget by a large margin at almost $650 million. Environmental organizations had an average budget of a little over $250 million.

Humanitarian organizations also had the largest variance in their budgets. The smallest organization operated with a budget just under $1 million. The largest organization had a budget of a little over $3 billion. Animal rights organizations had the smallest budget variance. The smallest group had a budget of a little under $600,000, while the largest group had a budget of almost $500 million. The smallest environmental organization operated with about a $1.5 million budget, while the largest group operated with an almost $1 billion budget.

Animal protection organizations were most likely to operate with a budget between $10 million and $100 million. Environmental and humanitarian groups were both most likely to operate with a budget between $100 million and $1 billion.

Animal protection organizations were the most likely to address humanitarian or environmental issues when they operated with a budget between $10 million and $100 million. Environmental and humanitarian organizations were both most likely to address other cause areas when they had a budget between $100 million and $1 billion.

Mid-sized organizations seem to have both the budget as well as the flexibility to expand beyond their primary focus. Very large organizations, such as those with more than $1 billion, seem to become highly specialized and siloed in their particular mission.

The average budget for humanitarian organizations is more than double the average budget of environmental organizations and over 13 times more than the budget for animal protection organizations. This disparity could be a consequence of the kin selection theory of biological altruism, where organisms are most likely to help their closest relatives over others. Humans are no exception to this theory and are more likely to want to help their own species than other animals. For example, few people are willing to pay to improve farmed animal welfare, and of those who are willing to pay, they’re generally not willing to pay much (although a small minority is willing to pay very large amounts).

This doesn’t have to be a roadblock to bridge-building, though. In fact, it could be an asset. With the large average budget of humanitarian organizations, they could be well suited to anchor movements in coalitions — especially in areas with natural overlap, like disaster relief efforts that include rescuing and reuniting companion animals or infrastructure projects like water sanitation — which benefit everyone.

Conversely, animal protection organizations have a much smaller average budget and narrower range. The smaller budgets highlight the resource shortage that many organizations in the animal protection movement face. The relative lack of resources restricts the ability of these groups to drive large-scale coalitions but makes coalition-building all the more important. By partnering with larger organizations in the environmental or humanitarian spheres, animal protection groups can expand their impact; environmental or humanitarian groups can benefit from the deep expertise and community presence of local animal welfare organizations and by attracting more donors from the animal protection base to become even more effective in their missions. Pooling resources could have a synergistic effect.

Finding Common Ground

Many organizations seem to have an instinct to address causes outside of their primary mission focus, even if they don’t have the resources to operate specific campaigns. Environmental organizations were the most likely to address other causes, with 90% of organizations having an overlapping campaign. Notably, environmental groups were the only one of the three organization types whose efforts to address other missions were all supported by an explicit campaign rather than an implied impact of their primary mission. Almost two thirds of animal protection organizations had an implicit focus addressing environmental rights or humanitarian needs, but only just over a third of them had actual campaigns doing so. Half of the humanitarian groups we analyzed had an implicit tie to environmental or animal protection, but only 15% had an actual campaign addressing an animal or environmental protection focus.

Interestingly, humanitarian organizations, when they had campaigns outside of their focus, only addressed environmental issues and never animal welfare topics. Environmental groups overlapped with animal protection groups about 60% of the time and with humanitarian groups about 45% of the time. Animal protection groups overlapped with humanitarian causes 95% of the time and with environmental causes half of the time.*

*Percentages add up to more than 100% because groups could overlap with one or both of the other focus areas.

Overall, organizations were most likely to overlap with humanitarian causes — a little over half of the organizations had this characteristic. Environmental causes were the next most common overlap with just over 40%. Animal protection was the least common overlap, with a little under 25% of non-animal organizations addressing animals in their work.

Building Bridges

In summary, we see a pattern that humanitarian organizations have larger budgets, are the least likely to address issues separate from their humanitarian focus, and are the most likely area for animal protection or environmental organizations to overlap. It’s possible that environmental and especially animal protection organizations feel pressure to prove to potential donors that their cause area helps people, too.

Animal protection organizations, in particular, seem to lean on people’s preference to help themselves. The number that mentioned an environmental or humanitarian cause in their mission statement without an explicit campaign to address it was nearly double the number that did have an explicit campaign addressing a cause other than animal protection. Given animal organizations’ overall lower budgets, they may feel obligated to show how humans benefit from animal advocacy in order to secure funding. Of course, many animal advocates know that humans do genuinely benefit from animal welfare, whether through the human-animal bond or the positive effects that nature (including wildlife) has on human psychology.

Every one of these groups, whether focused on animal welfare, the environment, or humanitarian causes, ultimately has the same goal — to improve lives. Many of the issues addressed by the organizations in this analysis show that the movements don’t need to be siloed: they already address causes that impact animal welfare, the environment, and humans. Climate change is a threat to all of us, habitat conservation helps the environment and the animals who live there, factory farming impacts everyone’s health, protecting biodiversity improves environments, trail and green space maintenance is good for the environment and improves people’s mental health, clean water is necessary for human and animal health and benefits the environment, food system sustainability impacts everyone, the human-animal bond is good for people and animals, reducing pollution improves everyone’s health, and eliminating animal testing is good for the animals while also leading to better outcomes for humans.

Organizations recognize these causes as key areas to address to improve our world. Of the 65 organizations we analyzed, 48 of them worked on one or more of these issues.

Although many of these causes affect animals, people, and the environment, some organizations are more likely to address certain causes than others. Factory farming is a leading cause of environmental harm, costs taxpayers millions of dollars annually, and significantly increases pollution that harms human health, yet only animal protection organizations in this analysis addressed factory farming. Similarly, environmental groups are the only ones of the organizations we looked at that addressed pollution, even though pollution causes substantial harm to both human and animal health. Many humanitarian groups worked on the issue of clean water, yet none of these organizations addressed pollution or other environmental issues that can affect water quality.

The above chart shows how many organizations, despite having different overarching focus areas, methods, and individual goals, ultimately have the same desire of making things better. Improving the world, whether through more robust animal rights, protecting the environment we all share, or safety and equity for all people everywhere, makes things better for all of us. Working together just gives us that much more ability to achieve the improvements we collectively want.

Takeaways

Many of us feel like we’re running as fast as we can just to stay in the same place for the missions we’re already working on, so it’s difficult to imagine taking a step back or adding even more to our already overfull plates. Though it can be hard to slow down enough to look beyond the incredibly important work each individual organization is doing, taking that step back to allow a breath for coalition-building could mean a collective impact that shifts the focus from survival to making a real dent in the astronomic issues that we all face together, regardless of our chosen cause. Taking one step back could be the key to many great strides forward.

Of course, the idea of working together for greater effect isn’t exactly a hot take. So with so many organizations seeming to agree that their cause areas transcend the boundaries of a single mission, what’s preventing these much-needed coalitions from being built? Internal factors like mission creep, donor restrictions, or the fear of diluting a specific focus, especially for organizations with small or highly specialized budgets, may play a role. There could also be unfortunate strategic blocks: environmental and humanitarian groups may not discuss animal issues like factory farming for fear of alienating their donors that statistically are highly likely to consume animal products; meanwhile, animal groups may pay lip service to broader social and environmental justice issues, but not actually do anything meaningful related to those issues — whether due to funding or other factors.

Another answer may lie not in the groups in this analysis, but rather those whose missions are purely profit, like Big Ag or Big Oil. These industry giants understand that there’s power in numbers and will do whatever it takes to keep their own power from being threatened. For example, public understanding of animal agriculture’s effects on global climate change is at an all-time low, in part due to the money Big Ag pours into politics and marketing to keep people thinking they need to eat animal products. They protect their own bottom line at the expense of the environment we all live in. These profit-driven industries use their massive budgets and political power to keep mission-driven groups isolated from each other so they can’t use their collective power to threaten Big Ag’s or Big Oil’s profit margins.

Though many of the organizations in this analysis are effective in their own way toward their individual missions, the siloed approach isn’t doing us any favors. While we absolutely need specialized groups to tackle niche problems, we also need to recognize the areas where we can work together and pool our collective resources. Animal protection organizations generally don’t have the money to lobby politicians to shut down factory farms. But humanitarian organizations do, and factory farming poses serious risks to human health, not just the animals the system exploits. Eliminating or reducing factory farms wouldn’t be just a small victory to make animal people happy — it would be a huge public health win.

The fact that almost 75% of the organizations in this analysis tackled issues that affect two or more of the primary focus areas shows that for the most part we’re in agreement about what needs to be done. The question now is how. An environmental group trying to reduce pollution for the sake of the environment itself isn’t in conflict with an animal protection organization protecting biodiversity or a humanitarian organization making sure clean water is available; each organization can be an asset to the other, if only we take advantage of the opportunity. By intentionally pooling the financial power of humanitarian groups, the global reach of environmental groups, and the community-level expertise of animal protection groups, we can move from merely addressing symptoms to fundamentally transforming the systems that perpetuate suffering across all three spheres.

We have the materials to build the bridges that lead to a better world for all of us. It’s time to start constructing those bridges to create a collective impact that is greater than the sum of its parts.