How we are working on diversity, equity and inclusion

But the truth is, as an organisation, we are far from being as diverse, equitable, and inclusive as we would like - and need - to be. For example, The Humane League UK’s staff currently lacks diversity - our staff members are predominantly white and non-disabled.

To live up to our core value of being inclusive, we have work to do.

Over the last few years, we’ve been on a journey. We’ve asked ourselves some hard questions. Challenged our unconscious biases. We’ve developed concrete actions to help us do better at upholding our values and building a more inclusive organisation, and therefore contributing to a more inclusive movement.

We’ve also recognised that we need to be more transparent with our supporters about what we’re doing. And that’s why today I’m sharing the ways in which we’re working actively on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within The Humane League UK.

What is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)?

Diversity: understanding that each individual is unique, and recognising our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.

Equity: understanding that not everyone is afforded the same privileges and opportunities throughout life - often due to their race, socio-economic status, or disability - so measures need to be tailored to each individual in order to be truly fair.

Inclusion: welcoming, respecting and empowering all people - appreciating the value that every individual brings to our organisation and our movement.

Why is DEI so important?

You may be wondering why, as an organisation dedicated to animals, we're putting such a strong emphasis on DEI. Here's just a few reasons why.

For the animals

Everything we do, every decision we make, is for animals. We strive to be more effective because it's the best way to help the most animals. It’s this reasoning that leads us to focus on DEI, as well as it simply being the right thing to do.

An inclusive movement is one that people want to align with. Equity helps us be a place where talented and diverse activists aspire to work, and by attracting and retaining the best staff we can be more impactful for animals. A diverse movement is a stronger, more creative, and more innovative one. And we need it. We’re up against big challenges.

For the people

At the core of DEI lies compassion and an authentic respect for others. These values are also at the core of The Humane League UK. This holds for employees, volunteers, supporters, suppliers, partners, and stakeholders, irrespective of background, characteristics or attributes.

We believe every living creature deserves compassion. It is centred on the inherent worthiness of all people and animals, rather than how we differ. Investing in and being committed to DEI is the right thing to do from many perspectives, including the strong alignment with human rights, animal rights, and social justice.

For legal adherence

In the UK, aspects of DEI are enshrined in law. In our work for farmed animals, we recognise the important role legislation plays in redefining norms for animal welfare. The law plays an equally important role in eradicating injustice for fellow human beings.

Great Britain’s Equality Act 2010, Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1988 and other relevant legislation, codes of practice and guidance are important reference points and steer our approach.

Whilst we recognise and respect the laws, we may also recognise gaps. We will do what we can to take action that addresses these.

How inclusion helps our mission

Seeing our mission to end the abuse of animals raised for food as existing on its own doesn’t recognise the intersectionality between animal, environmental, and social movements. These movements, and the people working within them, overlap. There are aligned values, connected compassion for other beings, and shared goals. By respecting and understanding this, our support can be bigger and our work can be stronger.

Everyone is different and everyone has a unique perspective on the world. Shutting out these perspectives simply means missing opportunities to learn and come up with creative ways to progress our work.

How The Humane League UK is taking action

1. Team development We’ve prioritised learning and growth by running monthly DEI sessions for the whole team.

Each staff member reads a selection of articles or resources about topics such as race, ableism, ageism, and sexism, which we then discuss as a group with some prompts. These are mandatory for those who are not personally affected by the issue at hand.

We’ve also developed more guidance to help our staff members understand what respect in the workplace looks like, and how we can call each other in when we miss the mark.

This is not only to develop awareness, but encourage a speak-out culture where every individual can feel comfortable in challenging something they feel is wrong. Only in this culture can we continue to grow.

We’ve also undertaken formal external training on fairness, respect, equity, diversity, inclusion and engagement, to underpin the discussions and learning we’ve undertaken internally.

2. Outside audit In 2022, The Humane League UK partnered with DEI consultancy Diverse Matters. They ran a comprehensive audit of our activities, as well as speaking to staff members.

By being able to offer an outside view of our organisation and our activities, it became clearer what we were doing well and where we could improve. Their resulting report has been a source of guidance in understanding where we are on our DEI journey, and enabled us to move forward.

3. A brand new strategy Following our partnership with Diverse Matters, we used the recommendations and learnings to create our DEI Strategy. This strategy will ensure we continue to prioritise DEI and continually improve. You can read more about this here.

4. Making our communications more inclusive Our communications strategy will reflect our DEI values by seeking to include a wide variety of people and voices, using inclusive language, improving the accessibility of digital content, and ensuring our visuals authentically represent our diverse community.

As part of this, we joined Charities Against Hate, a group of organisations aimed at preventing hate speech within our online communities.

5. Empowering everybody to be an activist for animals We embed DEI across all of our campaigning strategies and tactics, as well as within our volunteer networks and strategic partnerships. One of the ways we will do this is to review each campaign through an inclusivity lens to ensure we are not marginalising anyone with our language or actions.

We’ve also been working on the way we organise our in-person events to ensure they are accessible for all. In addition, we are committed to providing safer spaces in our community - for in person and online events.

6. Leadership We’ve been working hard to develop leaders in our organisation. We nurture accountability and investment in DEI throughout the organisation through policies, guides, and training.

These include topics like inclusive hiring, unconscious bias, and supporting reasonable adjustments.

7. Fair pay In order to provide fair, competitive pay, our salaries have been benchmarked against similar roles in larger animal protection charities since 2018. We support the #ShowTheSalary campaign, which asks charities to list salaries with every job posting as a means to stop perpetuating pay gaps.

We also don’t allow pay negotiations for salaries, as research has shown that men are more likely to negotiate for a higher salary, exacerbating the gender pay gap.

8. Accountability In order to keep ourselves accountable, we now review progress made on DEI initiatives every quarter. We will report in our annual review on a yearly basis our progress and continuing work.

Our teams have annual DEI goals that ensure individuals across the organisation are prioritising this work and collaborating on plans throughout the year. Through weaving DEI into our very goals, we can ensure that it's a constant focus.

9. Transforming our hiring practices We’ve worked hard to transform the way we recruit, including the places we’re advertising our roles. You can find out more about this here.

However, we recognise that the recruitment barriers can only be truly overcome when our organisation is more inclusive internally.

We continue to evaluate and analyse the biases prevalent in the animal welfare space, the barriers stopping individuals from applying to charity jobs, and how our culture as an organisation may have shaped a ‘bubble’ in which a lack of diversity became the norm.

Going forward

We know the journey isn’t over. This is just the beginning. To ensure we build an inclusive, strong organisation and movement, we know this will require ongoing effort and continuous learning.

When we work together to create a kinder, fairer world - for not only animals but humans too - we can achieve amazing things. Thank you for being part of this journey with us.

We want to hear from you, and welcome your thoughts, ideas and questions - please email us.