PEPR’s Impact in 2025: Strengthening Organizations, Growing the Movement, Accelerating Impact for Animals
- Jay Barrett
- 20 minutes ago
- 6 min read
The movement can - and must - do more for animals
PEPR is a Public Benefit Corporation committed to strengthening the global farmed animal and vegan movement by increasing organizational effectiveness, leadership capacity, financial governance, and operational resilience.
In 2025, PEPR advanced this public benefit by delivering advisory support, supporting leadership sustainability, fostering community, and embedding fractional operational teams within organizations - contributing to increased effectiveness across advocacy organizations worldwide.
"PEPR’s partnership has directly enabled us to focus our energy on mission-driven work, accelerating our impact far beyond what we could have achieved alone"
As the farmed animal and vegan movement grows in ambition and urgency, one thing is increasingly clear: our collective impact depends on a healthy ecosystem and on the strength of the organizations driving change for animals.
2025 marked PEPR’s first full year of operations. This post serves as our public annual impact reflection - sharing what we delivered, what we learned, and why organizational effectiveness remains one of the most powerful, yet underinvested, levers for change for animals.
Our Why: Building Capacity for Greater Impact
We believe the movement can achieve far more for animals. But that future depends on strong, well-supported organizations with the internal capacity to sustain momentum, navigate complexity, and act decisively when opportunities arise.
That belief is why PEPR exists.
We invest in organizational effectiveness - building capacity and developing capabilities - so advocacy organizations can grow sustainably and deliver durable impact across the farmed animal and vegan movement.
When Organizations Thrive, the Movement Grows
Transformative change in our food systems requires more than passion and strategy. It requires resilient organizations within a wider ecosystem - with the systems, structures, cultures, and leadership support needed to sustain impact over time.
When organizations lack strong internal foundations, they often struggle to:
Respond quickly to change
Manage growth without burnout
Build and support global teams responsibly
Translate strategy into consistent execution
The result is not a lack of commitment. Instead, resources and opportunities are underutilized, and impact potential is left on the table.
That’s where PEPR comes in.
We strengthen mission-driven organizations through strategy, people & culture, finance, and operations - partnering closely with leaders to unlock their full impact potential. We do this because organizations can - and must - do more to meet the urgency of this moment for animals.
Our model gives advocacy organizations access to a highly experienced, context-aware, movement-aligned enablement team - unlocking potential that would otherwise remain constrained by limited capacity, systems, or support.
Our Role in the Movement
While PEPR officially launched in mid-2024, our work to strengthen the movement began long before - shaped directly by what organizations told us they needed.
When we published our first impact reflection six months into PEPR’s journey, we shared that we were learning in real time what it truly meant to build capacity with the movement, not just for it. One year later, that lesson has only deepened.
Organizations did not come to PEPR seeking neat or transactional solutions. They came at moments of inflection, including:
Preparing to launch
Navigating rapid growth
Scaling or evolving their organizational model
Managing global teams
Experiencing leadership strain
Realizing their systems no longer matched their ambition
Our role is to meet organizations exactly at those moments - including challenges they had not yet anticipated - and help them move forward with clarity, confidence, and care.
Our work is often described as “operations” or “behind the scenes.” In reality, we are in the trenches alongside leaders and teams, helping them navigate complexity so they can remain focused on outcomes and impact for animals.
How PEPR Supports the Movement
Embedded Fractional Teams
We strengthen organizational foundations by embedding experienced fractional teams within organizations - building systems, structures, and operational backbones that allow missions to function, scale, and endure. Leaders partner with us to run and evolve core operations with confidence.
Programs That Deploy Expertise Where It’s Needed
We support leaders and teams through moments of growth and change via advisory engagements, short-term projects, and the Animal Advocacy Ops Collective. This work spans strategy, leadership, organizational effectiveness, and operational resilience.
Across all of our work, we deliver support that is bespoke, right-sized, relational, and movement-responsive - addressing shared challenges while positioning organizations for future growth and impact.
We work with organizations through our program and through direct service engagements.
What We Focused on 2025
Across all our work, one commitment guided us: meet organizations where they are and walk with them through change.
In practice, this meant:
Supporting founders and leaders before burnout took hold
Surfacing risks and opportunities organizations had not yet named
Translating complexity into decisions leaders could act on
Building infrastructure designed for future growth, not just current needs
Project-managing the launch of multiple high-impact initiatives
Often, the most consequential challenges were uncovered not in initial requests, but through trust, proximity, and sustained partnership.
We also maintained a strong presence across key moments in the movement calendar, ensuring continued connection and learning across the ecosystem.
The People Behind PEPR
In 2025, we scaled our team intentionally - expanding expertise across Strategy, People & Culture, Finance & Operations, and Global Hiring.
Deep operational and leadership experience from within and beyond the movement
Lived understanding of nonprofit growth, global teams, and constrained funding environments
A shared commitment to relational, high-trust partnership
This global reach, experience and awareness, allows us to support organizations across regions, time zones, and complexity - without losing sight of mission.
Our Programs: What We Delivered in 2025
With the support of our partners, PEPR worked alongside organizations across the movement to support launches, growth, and long-term sustainability.
In 2025, we supported 44 organizations, and more than 50 organizations since launch, through work spanning leadership, people & culture, global hiring, finance, operational excellence, organizational design, new organization launches, and change management.
"PEPR provides long-term support and creates a safe space to explore urgent matters that come up — which may be hard to anticipate"
What Changed Because of PEPR
Organizations shared that our partnership resulted in:
Clearer long-term strategy and priorities
Stronger leadership confidence and decision-making
Faster, higher-quality execution
Reduced burnout and increased capacity
More resilient people, financial, and operational systems
Without PEPR, organizations reported that progress would have been delayed, burnout would have increased, and key opportunities would have been missed.
"Thank you so much for all the support you're giving to the movement, it's been a game-changer for professionalizing our organization!"
What We're Learning
As we reflect on 2025, several insights stand out:
Capacity building remains underfunded relative to its impact potential
Organizations often lack safe spaces to share their deepest challenges
Relational, context-aware, high-trust support delivers stronger outcomes than transactional models
Readiness for change varies - and deeper engagement often unlocks greater impact
These lessons continue to shape how we grow PEPR and how we advocate for stronger organizational investment across the movement.
Looking Ahead
Demand for PEPR’s work continues to grow. Organizations need support to launch, grow, sustain, and thrive — and to navigate challenges they may not be able to share elsewhere.
With continued partnership, our focus is to:
Reach organizations earlier
Go deeper at moments of inflection
Expand shared infrastructure that strengthens the movement
With sustained support for PEPR’s programs, our team can continue strengthening organizations - and the ecosystem as a whole - so far more can be achieved for animals.
A Word of Thanks
Through our journey, we’ve been guided, partnered, supported, challenged, and inspired by so many in the movement.
To those who offered feedback, shared wisdom, extended encouragement, invited us in, showed us resilience, and believed in what we’re building: thank you. Your generosity has shaped PEPR, and your trust fuels our commitment to this work. We wouldn’t be here without you.
We look forward to continuing this work together - for the animals, for the movement, and for a more just and sustainable future.
We’re proud of what we’ve built - and even more excited for what’s ahead. Thank you for being part of our journey.
With kindness,
Jay Barrett
Chief Executive Officer
PEPR