tl;dr
Ever since One Step for Animals’ founding in 2014, donations have determined how many people see our message of actionable compassion. In the past two years, One Step has run a growing deficit; last year’s net loss was 34% of total income. Out of necessity, One Step has cut back on outreach. We believe in this work and hope to continue, but One Step exists to reduce suffering, not to raise money to continue existing.
Transparency and Background
This is to let you know what is going on at One Step for Animals, as well as what may happen in the future. We (Anne & Matt) always strive to be above-board and honest, whether the news is good or bad. You deserve the facts, not a story. (Only The Truth, with Jokes.)
One Step for Animals has always had a straightforward mission:
- Reduce as much severe suffering as possible.
- Learn from the past and promote a simple, realistic, and sustainable suffering-reduction message. (Let’s not repeat history).
- Avoid anything that could possibly lead to increased suffering.
Nothing about One Step is driven or determined by fundability. That won’t change.
An unexpected series of events led to growing deficits the last two years. (Uh-oh.) Below, we’ll lay out the current impacts and future implications of these losses.
(Foreshadowing: Not great.)
Finances, in brief
One Step’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
For FY2024 (ending on June 30, 2025), One Step ran a deficit of $2,943.
For FY2025, ending June 30, 2026, the numbers were:
- Total income: $142,182, including $12,837 in interest.
- Expenses: $190,895.
- Net loss: $48,713.
- (Yikes.)
One Step cashed out CDs to cover these expenses and has a few years of reserves left.
Straightforward consequences
One Step’s situation has always been mind-numbingly simple: More funding = more people see our “Please keep chickens off your plate” videos. Less funding = fewer people.
More donations do not go to higher salaries, to fundraising (lucky you!), or to building a bigger organization. One Step for Animals’ only goal is to reach more people with a message of actionable compassion.
Unsurprisingly, the ongoing losses put the future of this work in question.
To be clear: We believe in this work…
We would prefer to reach millions of people every day with a message of meaningful, impactful, and sustainable compassion. Someone should speak directly for all the chickens on factory farms. (Actually, many, many people should be #TeamChicken. We’ve been saying this for decades.)
We believe One Step’s overt advocacy for chickens is playing an important and underserved role in addressing a huge and horrific source of unnecessary and preventable brutality. (No joke here.)
But our actual dream is to not exist
If someone else could speak for chickens more efficiently, we would give all our remaining money to that organization. (Well, all of One Step’s money.) If One Step for Animals’ work was redundant – i.e., if a proportionate amount of attention and resources were focused on exposing and ending chickens’ severe suffering – we would be happy to close down. (We have many hikes to take and we’re not getting any younger!)
One Step for Animals does not matter. Anne & Matt don’t matter.
What matters is taking suffering seriously, so as to efficiently and effectively reduce severe suffering.
This is not hypothetical
Even before founding One Step for Animals, we turned down money that would not have effectively reduced severe suffering. (E.g, “Do China.” That’s not a joke – someone thought white midwesterners should “Do China.” On a budget of $10,000. Again, not a joke.)
One Step has been offered money to talk about fish. We said “No.” We’ve been offered money to run ads saying “vegan.” We said “No.” (Have you ever met us?)
We didn’t say “No” because we are allergic to money. (We’ve checked.)
We said “No” because there is no point in founding an organization dedicated to severe-suffering-reduction through a realistic, sustainable, history-informed single step … and then abandoning that message in exchange for money.
Immediate and medium-term consequences
As of this year, One Step is significantly reducing expenditures, including online outreach. This is not to keep existing for the sake of existing, but to extend our runway in the hopes that things turn around and we can return to previous levels of outreach (or beyond).
Our matching donor remains in place. (It isn’t Elon.) This donor only matches what other donors give. Last year, One Step only received a fraction of the offered matching grant.
As it stands now, it is quite possible that One Step will continue to run through our reserves and shut down in a few years. We recognize and accept that. It isn’t the worst thing that will happen. (Curse you, mortality!)
For much of One Step’s existence, one or both of us have had outside employment, allowing more of your support to reach more people. Because of a strange confluence of events, we are fortunate that we don’t have to play the fundraising (or the “your donation saves X animals”) game to personally pay for potatoes. (No one is more surprised than us. Srsly.) We know it is a luxury to be able to focus only on helping animals.
A personal, sarcasm-free aside
As much as we hate that this work is necessary, we are both honored to be a part of these efforts with you.
We are both exceedingly grateful to everyone who supports this work. You don’t donate to “feel good.” Or because our message validates your personal beliefs. Or because you’re told “We’re winning!” Or because a development team sends you personalized gifts and cards to your kids or cats.
You donate because you take suffering seriously and want to reduce serious suffering.
You are our people. 💕
Back to our regularly scheduled program
This is not a plea. (Really.) This is not, “Give now to save One Step!” (Really) This is not, “Can’t you spare even a dollar today to save chickens from torture?” (Ugh.)
Also, this is not to claim that One Step does the most important, impactful work in the world. (Don’t believe anyone who makes that claim – how could they know?)
This isn’t false modesty, and we aren’t fishing for compliments. (Unlike Matt’s neediness re: his latest book. Send nice thoughts to thirstyego@mattball.org)
We believe in One Step’s work and believe that it is very much worth doing. We believe that, for those who take all serious suffering seriously, One Step’s work is one of the best things you can do with a dollar, for three reasons:
- One Step’s efforts don’t inadvertently cause more animals to be factory farmed.
- The work scales to reach more people.
- There are unimaginably more people to reach with the message of actionable compassion.
The Bottom Line
Since we met at Students for Animal Rights in 1992, we’ve seen a lot. We’ve raised money for advocacy that does harm. We’ve been part of “Development” departments designed to “develop” donors. We’ve worked for organizations that raise money in order to raise more money in order to raise more money.
After decades and many millions of dollars (not to One Step), the uninspiring but honest bottom line is:
Factory farming continues to increase in intensity and scale.
Honesty isn’t sufficient, but it is necessary
Honestly, we would love to tell you (like all the fundraiser guides say), “We’re winning!”
Honestly, we would love to tell you, “Your donations are changing the world!”
But if we’ve learned just one thing since we started working together in 1992, it is:
We can’t change the world unless we’re honest about the world.
That’s why we’re sending this to you today. That’s reason enough for you to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. (And jokes; we don’t have to be miserable to change the world.)
We will continue to be honest with you and we will continue taking serious suffering seriously.
Your support deserves no less. Chickens deserve no less.
As always, thank you for your compassion.
(And sense of humor. But mostly your compassion.)
-Anne & Matt
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