Article: Reimagining Giving for Animal Protection - a Trust-Based approach

Why trust, not algorithms, will shape the future of animal advocacy

Ondine Sherman   |  December 2025

The end of the year is approaching, and big-hearted citizens are looking for ways to make our world a little kinder. Animal protection is one such social justice movement in urgent need of funding and new philanthropic approaches. The amount of philanthropic giving that goes to address the systemic exploitation and suffering of 80 billion farmed animals, killed each year in our global food system, is estimated at a minuscule $200–220 million USD year.  

Ending animal violence and exploitation, and building ethical, sustainable food systems, is a complex, dynamic, and entangled process. It requires a systemic reimagining of thousands of years of traditional Western philosophy, as well as our anti-animal cultural, economic, and political institutions, values, and behaviours. Change at this scale relies on the initiative, grit, creativity, and moral imagination of real individuals. Advocates who often dedicate their entire lives to this marginalised, thankless cause. Who believe it their calling. Will stop at nothing.

After twenty years in the animal protection movement, I know many people just like this. And they are worth our investment. And I believe that trust-based philanthropy is how we will get money flowing to them appropriately.

Read Ondine's article on trust-based philanthropy at https://www.proximate.press/latest-stories/reimagining-giving-for-animal-protection---a-trust-based-approach