Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2025. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2026.
Our incredible volunteers are the heart of everything we do, and their dedication makes our mission possible. Your time and talents help us create meaningful change for animals and build a compassionate world. Whether your interests lie in outreach, event planning, advocacy, or behind-the-scenes support, we’re committed to finding the perfect place for you within our organization.
Last year, we changed our volunteer recruitment process, which resulted in higher retention and lower churn, ensuring greater continuity for the projects we work on. On the other hand, it also resulted in a smaller absolute number of current and prospective volunteers. It’s unclear at this time what the best balance is, but we will adjust as necessary.
This year, we have introduced our conscious eating coaching service to address an important issue in making lifestyle changes—dealing with food. Don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a session with us.
We notice changes this year where larger brands have finally stopped labelling products as “vegan” that were uncertified and likely not to be vegan certifiable, an option for the “plant-based” label.
As we discussed before in many articles, this is something we encourage. The problem now seems to have moved to people having unmet expectations of products labelled “plant-based”. You have contacted us this year complaining of these issues, and as we discussed in our article titled “Plant-based is Changing”, the solution is not for corporations to change: They are now doing the right thing by not labelling products vegan that are not vegan certifiable. The solution is for us to be aware that products labelled “plant-based” are very likely not vegan certifiable for various reasons.
We have been working on a climate change update on and off this year; if anything took the wayside this year, it was climate change. Various surveys show concern, like climate change ranked much lower than it did in previous years. Nevertheless, the planet is impervious to the change in popular opinion. It’s still unclear how to meaningfully get people to change, but now, if anything, is the time to double down.
When 2025 comes to an end in a few days, it will almost certainly be the first time we have breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius on a 3-year average, rendering the Paris climate agreement not worth much more than the paper it’s written on. We will be investigating whether a conference of citizens instead of politicians might be a good way to change the momentum.
It’s difficult at times to understand ourselves, let alone others. It can seem we are going backward, but if everyone took actions that were concordant with a lifestyle that keeps the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we would not have breached it recently. This means people are not taking such actions, and as Canadians and members of the G-20, we don’t have to look further than in the mirror to see the culprit.
The more we neglect to alter our ways of being on the planet, the more tremendous the changes will need to be. The food we eat will likely remain one of the easiest levers we have; not only does veganism help with the climate crisis, but it also improves health and saves countless animals from pain and suffering.
As a charitable organization, we depend on the generosity of others for our existence. If there are things that we are not doing but should be, consider joining us to make it happen.
We want to again thank all our donors and volunteers for their generous support, and we invite everyone who shares in the vision of veganism to join us. The exact details of our 2026 projects will be dependent on the interests of our volunteers and supporters. We look forward to working with all of you.
