The Vegan Society has announced that it will make up to 16 roles redundant after it admitted that its previous growth targets were “too ambitious”, while former staff have accused the charity of being “profit-driven”.
Robb Masters, the Vegan’s Society’s former chair, announced the job cuts on Twitter, which the charity later confirmed.
The Vegan Society said that it made the “difficult” decision to make redundancies as it has “not seen the level of increased income that had been anticipated when planning a programme of new hires to help meet those income targets”.
Masters, who quit the Vegan Society’s board last year amid allegations around racism and bullying behaviours, accused the charity of putting “income over profits” and “mismanagement”.
He tweeted: “The leadership of the Vegan Society has wrecked a once well-regarded charity, while making the vegan movement more hostile to members of marginalised groups – all for a self-interested, profit-driven, anti-woke agenda that has backfired so badly. They must all be removed.”
Meanwhile, a former employee described the charity as “a pretty horrible place to work”.
Vegan Society: Income did not increase as expected
The Vegan Society currently employs 80 people. Its accounts show that it had an income of just under £4m against expenditure of £4.2m as of 31 December 2021, meaning that it recorded a deficit of £204,561.
It said its income had increased this year but not to the level it anticipated when setting growth targets.
The charity said it took the decision to make staff redundant after taking other measures to “cut overhead costs, to remain on a strong financial footing in the long term”.
Steve Hamon, chief executive officer of the Vegan Society, said: “The decision to restructure our teams and commence a consultation process with our colleagues has been taken with great sadness.
“We know this impacts real people and their families and we implemented a number of measures to reduce operating costs before reaching this point. We’ll be following a respectful, structured process and we’ll be holding meaningful consultations with our colleagues, which will guide the outcome. All members of staff will be kept properly informed throughout.”
He continued: “To achieve our aims of supporting the growth of veganism and advancing the rights of animals, we must expand and move veganism into the mainstream. As an organisation that has traditionally always exceeded its growth targets, we set ourselves targets that proved to be too ambitious in these uncertain financial times. We’re sorry that has led to an impact on our colleagues and, as a leadership team, we’re accountable for that and will ensure we achieve a better balance in future.”
Bullying allegations
Last year, Masters and four members of the board quit amid allegations around racism and bullying behaviours at the charity.
At the time, Eshe Kiama Zuri, the former vice chair, described a “hostile” environment and racist language. The charity then acknowledged that it needed to “evolve into an even more diverse and inclusive organisation”.
The Charity Commission also engaged with the Vegan Society in relation to governance concerns and issued advice and guidance for the trustees to act on.
Speaking to Civil Society News, Masters said that he has not seen any positive changes since the advice was issued.
He said: “My impressions have been the opposite. What I’ve seen is the charity doubling down in those areas [oppression, nepotism and corruption], thinking ‘that was just a little slap on the wrist so we can carry on’. I believe the Charity Commission needed to take much stronger action and as a result I’ve asked the Commission to review the decision.”
Masters argued that the charity has prioritised short-term profit over ethics. “Everything was in a pursuit of making money. They forgot or ignored the fact that the Vegan Society is a charity rather than a business and ethics were abandoned in that process.”
‘Awful atmosphere’
Meanwhile, a former member of staff, who left the charity last year but remains in contact with current employees, said that the trustees set “ridiculous” targets for this year and that the budget has been missed by an “absolute mile”.
They also accused the Vegan Society of having a culture of bullying from the top during their time at the charity and described an “awful atmosphere”.
“It’s a very constant thing. There are a lot of very passive aggressive emails and situations where people are given tasks with no support and then criticised when they don’t pull that off,” they said, reflecting on their time there.
They agreed with Masters that the charity seemed to be “profit-driven”, saying that there was “no accountability for people who are high up in staff”.
The former employee said it was a "pretty horrible place to work" and described a lack of structure, where people could “behave as they want” without being called out.
“The sort of pressure that people are under and the lack of support they get is awful. There’s an obsession with bringing in money which has caused a lot of problems. I don’t think there’s much focus on the charity side of things at all anymore, like the actual support and veganism,” they said.
“The focus for a long time has just been making as much money out of trademark as possible, which is fine if it works but then when you get to the point where you’re laying off 16 staff something has gone wrong.”
A spokesperson for The Vegan Society said: “The vast majority of our staff are proud of the work we deliver, as a team, to support veganism and advance the rights of animals.
“They recognise that income is fundamental to the continued functioning of any charity and that it enables us to deliver on our objectives and progress the vegan movement across wider society.
“Ensuring our staff feel supported and fostering a respectful culture is important and all staff are made aware of the extensive opportunities in place to raise concerns should they wish to do so.”
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