How We Are Funded
Or why your donations matter, and why this year
We’re committed to providing all of our services for free, ensuring high-impact resources and connections for farmed animal advocates across the globe. But providing these services isn’t free for us. As outlined in our blog post on Funding Community Building in Farmed Animal Advocacy, substantial resources go into sustaining and growing Hive to deliver value and support where it’s needed most. Fundraising has been a particular challenge, as it often is for a young organization focused on meta-issues like community-building infrastructure. While we’ve been fortunate to receive support from a few generous foundations, we need a more diversified funding base, especially from individuals, to ensure long-term sustainability and resilience for Hive.
Our Current Funding Situation
In 2024, over 88% of our funding came from foundations, with a majority from larger grants by EA Funds, Open Philanthropy and the Navigation fund, as well as some smaller grants from Stray Dog Institute, Craigslist Charitable Fund, and Lush Charity Pot. An additional 10% was contributed by our board, leaving less than 2% from individual donors like you. This funding mix means that we’re currently heavily dependent on a few large funders, making us vulnerable to shifts in any one foundation's priorities or capacity (e.g. see this post from Wild Animal Initiative upon announcement that Open Philanthropy changed their funding strategy and this post about a more suitable funding model for EA organizations that relies on individual donations).
Current vs. Aspirational Funding Distribution
Looking ahead, we’ve secured a promising grant from The Navigation Fund for 2025 and have the commitment of our board to continue their support at current levels. While we’re working on additional grants and renewals, we’re setting an ambitious but achievable goal: to increase the share of our funding from individual donors to around 10% in 2025, with a long-term aim of reaching 25%.
To kickstart this effort, we’re asking for your support in our end-of-year campaign to raise $10,000 from individuals (to be matched by a generous anonymous donor! So if met, Hive will get $20,000). This contribution will enable us to make crucial steps toward a more sustainable funding mix and allow Hive to grow with the needs of our community in mind.
Why Individual Donations Matter, Especially Now
Ensuring that we can continue our work with Hive does not only depend on how much we raise but also from whom. The more diversified our funding, the less vulnerable we are to the loss of any one major donor, which strengthens our resilience and sustainability and helps us to continue our work closely aligned with our community members. Individual donations—even those of smaller amounts—play a particularly important role here. Every donation from individual community members helps make our funding more stable, balanced, and representative of our shared goals.
So, whether you’re able to contribute $10, $100, $1000 or more, your donation matters to Hive’s future and the future of farmed animal advocacy. Together, we can ensure Hive has the resources to keep providing essential support to advocates and create long-term change in farmed animal welfare.
What your donation can pay for
Based on our previous numbers and projections, your donation can help:
$50 can cover the Slack fees for 47 members for a month, helping us continue to provide our services for free.
$380 can fully fund a Hive Highlights newsletter edition, delivering impactful resources to thousands of advocates.
$ 1,000 can enable a committed advocate to find a volunteer role at an impactful organization, extending their contribution to animal advocacy.
We have also set up plans for our “dream budget” - i.e., the budget that we believe will be best to set up Hive for success to capitalize and build on the momentum we have seen this year. This budget would scale us to ~6 FTE and poses the upper limit of what we think we can grow into cost-effectively for 2025. We believe that funding beyond this level would likely be beneficial, but are simply not as confident in the specific programs we would develop and improve yet. Some key stretch goals we aim to achieve with our work on our dream budget:
110+ manually logged High Impact Outcomes
25 of which are job placements in roles
970+ weekly active users (on average throughout 2024)
7,000+ total claimed members on the Hive Slack
6,000+ subscribers for the Hive Highlights newsletter
Thank you for considering a donation to Hive. With your help, we can make 2025 our most impactful and resilient year yet.
Hive Community, Inc. currently has its 501(c)(3) application pending with the IRS. If approved, your donation will be tax-deductible in the US for this year. However, we cannot issue a tax-deductible receipt until we receive confirmation of our status. Once approved, we’ll follow up with a receipt confirming our tax status. For questions, please contact Sofia at sofia@joinhive.org.
If you prefer an immediate tax-deductible receipt, you can make a donation here through our fiscal sponsor, Humane America, a registered 501(c)(3) (we don’t pay any fees for their sponsorship). Please email sofia@joinhive.org if you'd like to donate via DAF, or if you’d like to donate a bigger amount and want to know more details about what your donation will fund.
