Organizational Guides
Through our charity evaluations and grantmaking work, we have come to realize that a significant number of animal charities would benefit from a collection of best practices for various departments and situations. To help address this need, we have developed a collection of organizational guides.
The guides in this collection address areas where animal advocates regularly face challenges, such as hiring, operations, and workplace policies. We will add more organizational guides to this page as we complete them.
If you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see covered, please let us know.
Organizational Health Processes and Policies
Authors: Scarlet Spark, Animal Defense Partnership
The organizational health experts at Scarlet Spark, assisted by Animal Defense Partnership, have collated a directory of processes and policies to help organizations create a positive and effective workplace. This includes a checklist based on the organizational health assessment that Animal Charity Evaluators uses in its Charity Evaluations.
HR Survival Guide for Small Organizations
Authors: Darina Bockman, Lindsey Tauber, and Francesca Sadi
Small organizations face virtually the same challenges as large employers, yet they often lack staff members dedicated to HR matters or with the relevant expertise. In this document we’ve compiled best practices around all key areas of HR: hiring, compensating, and developing/managing staff—with extra attention to legal essentials. Our main inspiration was to help animal charities and vegan businesses; however, these lessons apply universally.
Essentials for Nonprofit Operations Management
Author: Gina Stuessy, Director of Operations, Animal Charity Evaluators
This guide is intended to give an overview of the operational responsibilities of nonprofit organizations. We hope it will be useful for staff at new organizations, staff who are new to their operations role, and those at existing organizations who want to ensure they are meeting legal compliance obligations or to read recommendations on best practices.
Respect in the Workplace Policy
Author: Animal Charity Evaluators
This is an internal policy document used at ACE that we developed to demonstrate our commitment to complying with all non-discrimination and anti-harassment laws in all of the countries in which we operate and to create an organizational culture in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect. We encourage other organizations to use this document as a framework for their own workplace policies.