Scarlet Spark is using organizational psychology to build a stronger animal protection movement

By Alyssa Greene-Crow @ 2024-11-13T14:41 (+8)

Summary

• Scarlet Spark is a nonprofit that provides free leadership development and organizational support to animal protection organizations.
• Marginal funding will be directed to filling our 2025 funding gap
• Donate via the Scarlet Spark website here

Our Mission

We spark the power and endurance of the animal protection movement by transforming pro-animal organizations into high-impact, human-friendly workplaces for leaders, employees, and volunteers.

The Challenge

To build a world free from animal exploitation, we need skilled advocates and impactful organizations. But all too often, leaders burn out or work inefficiently because they lack the experience and resources to build strong organizations capable of achieving lasting, systemic change for animals.

The Solution

Scarlet Spark amplifies the impact of the entire pro-animal movement and makes funders’ donations go further by helping organizations:

• Refine & communicate their strategy
• Build & scale cultures of high engagement & high performance
• Eliminate time, resource, & energy inefficiencies

When we build high-impact organizations, we can attract more advocates to the movement, use our resources more effectively, and make meaningful change for animals.

Our Services

We combine individualized services for in-depth support with group services for broad reach across the entire movement. 

Our individualized services include: Organizational consulting, executive coaching, facilitated sessions, and leadership workshops on topics such as feedback and strategic thinking.

Our group services include: 

• Leadership office hours, where anyone in the movement can come share a challenge. Common questions include:
  • “How do I handle an employee performance issue?”
  • “How can I retain volunteers?”
  • “How do we do strategic planning?”
• Our workshop offerings include:
  • One-hour lecture-style workshops, averaging 90 subscribers and 45 live participants per session. Lectures cover leadership skills (such as coaching and feedback) and org design skills (such as performance assessment and hiring) are followed by a 30-minute practicum to address questions and individual challenges.
  • People Skills for Animal People (PSAP), an intensive hands-on workshop series in which EDs and founders in the movement learn from each other and practice skills live in one cohort that meets over the course of several weeks.
  • People Skills for Animal People: On Demand (PSAP: OD), a recorded version of our flagship workshop series that allows organizations to run trainings live at their own pace – pausing to discuss and practice key skills. The On Demand model ensures that access to our teaching isn’t limited by capacity or time zone. Currently, two recorded workshops are available on demand (Feedback Skills and Leadership Essentials), with the full series available in early 2025.
  • Show Me Your …, a clinic in which attendees get live feedback from Scarlet Spark and their peers on mission-critical documents and processes such as job postings and organizational goals.
• An extensive tool library of over 50 templates, articles, and video tutorials on topics such as strategic planning and board performance assessment.

Our Impact

Here is an overview of what Scarlet Spark has accomplished since it began serving the animal advocacy movement in 2022.

Individualized services

At a glance:

• Number of 1-1 clients served: 36
• Percentage of 1-1 clients who would recommend our services: 100%
• Percentage of 1-1 clients reporting positive change 6+ months after using our services: 100%

Our clients say:

• “I gained the confidence to implement major strategic changes for my organization that are delivering good impact and financial results. For example, this led us to get new funding (+$100k in 3 months) from new funders that I wouldn't have raised otherwise. The tools provided by Scarlet Spark allowed me to make other internal decisions that led to greater professional development and job satisfaction of my managees, as reported in our mid-year staff evaluations, more clear and efficient decision-making processes (for the people I manage and the people that I report to), and streamlined some basic but crucial processes." —Daniela Waldhorn, Head of Research, Rethink Priorities
   
• “When I began working with Scarlet Spark, I had a lot of ideas but no tools to organise them into a coherent actionable plan. Working with [them] immensely helped me structure and analyse these ideas to turn them into a powerful organisational focus document.” —Apoorva, Founder, Animal Law & Policy Network Research Foundation
   
• “Scarlet Spark offers personalized, actionable, research-backed solutions that have helped Animal Charity Evaluators create meaningful improvements to our culture, performance, and strategy. Every organization in the animal protection space should take advantage of the opportunity to learn from them.” —Charlie Messinger, Operations Director, Animal Charity Evaluators
   
• “Scarlet Spark helped us establish organizational values, which are core to everything we do. Strategic, programmatic, and interpersonal decisions often come back to our values, shaping our work in a positive and meaningful way.” –Brooke Haggerty, Faunalytics

Group Services

At a glance:

• Number of organizations served by group services (excluding 1-1 clients): 141
• Percentage of workshop attendees who would recommend our workshops to others: 96%
• Percentage of office hours attendees who would recommend this services to others: 100%
• Number of organizations who have downloaded our tools: 98

Opportunity for funding

Our services are free of charge to nonprofits because resource accessibility is key to strengthening the entire movement. Scarlet Spark relies on donor support to achieve its mission of igniting the full potential of animal advocacy.

Our 2025 budget breaks down as follows:

To date, we have raised $385,000 for 2025 – 91% of our operating budget! However, as a capacity-building organization in a niche movement, our funding opportunities are more limited than those of other nonprofits in the space. Donations would help us continue serving the movement, as well as expand our offerings to power even more organizations in the movement.

Money raised above our 2025 target will go towards hiring new consultants so that we can expand our reach. Our current demand for 1-on-1 support far exceeds our availability, and we are eager to help pro-animal nonprofits that are ready and willing to build stronger workplace systems and cultures.

We are incredibly grateful for the community’s support in helping us achieve our mission of igniting the power and endurance of the animal protection movement. Thank you so much!

- The Scarlet Spark team