Mercy For Animals Accepting People’s Fund Grant Applications for 2023

Program aims to achieve racial equity in the movement to create a just and sustainable food system

LOS ANGELES (May 10, 2023) — As part of Mercy For Animals’ work to end industrial animal agriculture, build people power, and honor its commitment to racial equity, the organization is excited to announce that The People’s Fund is accepting applications for this year’s round of grant funding starting today, May 10. 

Launched in October 2020, The People’s Fund continues to break ground:
— Addresses racial inequity in funding for advocates and organizations in the food system reform movement. 
— Regrants funds to grassroots activists and groups, including over $700,000 in the past three years. 
— Selects grantees whose efforts include raising public awareness of the harms of industrial animal agriculture, pursuing policy change to mitigate these harms, and increasing accessibility of plant-based foods.

“Black, Indigenous, Latine, and other racially marginalized people in the United States have long mobilized to combat environmental racism and food apartheid linked to industrial animal agriculture,” says Erin Kwiatkowski, The People’s Fund grant manager. “We know that we will not succeed in constructing a just and sustainable food system if these food-justice activists are not fully resourced. Mercy For Animals is honored to have supported the incredible work of the 23 leaders and organizations awarded People’s Fund grants since 2020, and we look forward to extending our reach even further with this year’s grants.” 

Doreen Haywood of Black Women Farmers of LA, who has received People’s Fund grants every year since the program’s inception, said, “The grant from The People’s Fund from Mercy For Animals will be used to help Black Women Farmers of LA secure our growing space for the next year, build a greenhouse as a first step to starting a Black-owned nursery in South LA, purchase essential tools, and expand our doorstep produce-delivery service to vulnerable populations.” 

In 2022, The People’s Fund distributed $290,000 in unrestricted grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 among 13 grantees. Toward its goal of transforming philanthropy by redistributing wealth and addressing power inequity in the food system reform movement, this year’s program uses a participatory grantmaking model to shift decision-making to the communities the program aims to benefit, trusting them to make funding recommendations that are most strategic and effective for their communities. 

Notes to Editors

Applications are open through June 1. For more information or to schedule an interview with Erin Kwiatkowski, contact Robin Goist at [email protected].  

Mercy For Animals is a leading international nonprofit working to end industrial animal agriculture by constructing a just and sustainable food system. Active in Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, and the United States, the organization has conducted more than 100 investigations of factory farms and slaughterhouses, influenced more than 500 corporate policies, and helped pass historic legislation to ban cages for farmed animals. Join us at MercyForAnimals.org.