Five Year Strategy – 2027-2031 – Animal Interfaith Alliance

Faiths Working Together for Animals

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About the Animal Interfaith Alliance

Founded in 2014, the Animal Interfaith Alliance (AIA) is a unique alliance of faith based, animal advocacy organisations which represent all the major faiths. It speaks out on the moral treatment of animals by drawing on the combined wisdom of all faiths and world views, and it promotes social harmony by bringing the faith groups together on an issue they all share a concern for. AIA’s activities include animal advocacy and education.

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Our Vision and Mission

Our Vision is a peaceful world where people of all faiths and none work together to treat animals with respect and compassion.

Our Mission is to create a united voice for animals from all of the major faiths and world views to bring about a world where animals are treated with respect and compassion.

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Our Beliefs

– We believe in ahimsa – a plant-based, non-violent lifestyle which does not harm others;

– Animals are sentient beings who have the right to live freely and not to be made to suffer by humans;

– Animals exist for their own sakes and not for ours;

– Animals are emotional beings who can love us and provide companionship, and can be members of our family and community;

– We are part of an interconnected web which includes the Earth and all its inhabitants, both plant and animals. By abusing part of that web, we damage the rest of it, including the environment and ourselves.

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Our Values

Our values are intended to convey the highest moral standards in the way animals are treated, promoting a vegan diet, which also embraces the issues of environmental protection, healthy lifestyles and ending world hunger. We will not compromise on these standards to placate any group. For example, AIA will not promote higher welfare meat or engage in any debate on ritual slaughter, as all slaughter is immoral. We accept that a terminally suffering animal may have to be put to sleep, on compassionate grounds, to relieve untreatable suffering.

We also seek to promote diversity amongst our membership, board and patrons and we continuously seek to refresh these in order to improve our diversity. We aim to achieve diversity of faith, gender and race.

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Our Objectives

We aim to change people’s behaviour towards animals to encourage them to treat animals with compassion and respect. 6.6 billion people (86% of the world population) belong to one of the major faiths¹, so reaching people through the teachings of their faith should have a major impact on their attitudes and behaviour and can lead to global transformation. Therefore, we have aimed to:

– provide a stronger voice for animals through the interfaith group than can be provided by many separate voices from individual faiths;

– create a co-ordinated approach across the faiths to educate people on the humane treatment of animals;

– be a strong and co-ordinated campaigning organisation;

– provide a forum to learn from and share the wisdoms of other cultures and traditions;

– disseminate that wisdom through our regular Animal Spirit newsletter, and our website and social media;

– inspire others through interfaith conferences and services and with our annual Interfaith Celebration for Animals;

– promote a plant-based, non-violent diet, which also embraces the issues of environmental protection, healthy lifestyles, ending world hunger and ending animal exploitation, recognising the interconnectedness of all these issues.

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Our Governance Structure

The Animal Interfaith Alliance was set up as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, company number 8958588, on 25 March 2014. It’s membership is made up of diverse faith-based animal advocacy organisations.

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AIA Members

AIA’s current member and affiliate organisations can be viewed here.

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Our Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths: A strong and diverse membership of respected faith-based, animal advocacy organisations. A strong and diverse list of patrons.

Weaknesses: Limited financial resources. We have too few volunteers and this will be the biggest constraint in achieving our targets. It is vital, therefore, that we stick to our strategic goals and do not get distracted by other issues, that other organisations would be very keen to engage us on.

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The World We Live In Now

We currently face the following threats and opportunities:

A world where billions of animals suffer every year in factory farms, laboratories and many other forms of human-created abuse;

Multiple wars – Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, Sudan and others;

Governments have shifted their focus away from animal welfare due to new global threats;

A global climate crisis;

Global pandemics, currently Ebola and bird flu, but with the constant risk of new pandemics;

A loss of human rights and civil rights and respect for international law in some countries;

A politically unstable and less compassionate world.

How We Want the World to Be

We want a plant-based, non-violent world where all humans and non-humans live together in harmony. We want a social climate conducive to compassion.

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How We Aim to Get There

We have identified eight key priorities which we will target by:

Education and advocacy through our teaching materials, the website, the Animal Spirit newsletter and social media;
Letter writing campaigns;
Working in collaboration with other organisations and key individuals in the animal advocacy, climate advocacy and interfaith world;
Lobbying and meeting with key individuals in our target audiences;
Putting animals into politics;
To recruit more groups and people (particularly young people).

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