Profiling an Non Government Organization (NGO) - Essay Example

of NGO: People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Contact details of the NGO: Ingrid E. Newkirk, President People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501, Front Street, Norfolk, VA – 23510, USA Tel. +1 757-622-PETA (7382) Fax. +1 757-622-0457 Email: info@peta-online.org Website: www.peta.org When was the NGO established: PETA was founded in USA in the year 1980, by Ingrid E. Newkirk. Locations: PETA is the largest organization in the world fighting for animal rights. It has affiliates in France, Netherlands, India, United Kingdom, Germany and over 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Organisational Structure : Organisational Nature: Non Governmental Organisation Jurisdiction: International Affiliation: Non-profit tax-exempt organization registered in USA under 501 C (3) The governing board of PETA consists of 3 persons. The board meets four times a year. There are ten directors who are directly under the Executive Director. The executive Director reports to the governing board. Board of Directors (PETA, 2011 b) Ingrid Newkirk, Director, Secretary Michael Rodman, Chairperson, Treasurer Jeanne Roush, Director Budget: (PETA, 2011 a) 2010 Total Revenues : $35,851,917 2010 Total Expenditure: $36,381,820 Funding: Out of the total revenue of 2010, 90% came through direct contributions. PETE does not depend on government funding. Mission: PETA operates under the belief that ‘it is the right of all beings—human and nonhuman alike—to be free from harm’. In doing so it proposes, “animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment”. The organisation aims at the welfare of animals. It intervenes in areas where animals suffer. The mission of PETA is to focus on four key issues where animals suffer the most, including laboratories, clothing trade entertainment industry, factory farms and domesticating environments. Several issues like cruel killing of birds and pests are dealt by the organization (PETA, 2011). Activities & Projects: The strategies that the organization follows to achieve its goal of welfare of animals are research, campaigns, policy interventions, rescue operations, public awareness, investigations etc. PETA has a full fledged research wing which takes up studies on issues pertaining to the welfare of animals. The findings of these researches later come up with official ‘uncompromised stands’ of the organization. The organization has put fort its own stand in issues like Electric-Shock Training for Dogs, Declawing Cats, Caged, Birds Life-Taking Charities, Catch-and-Release Fishing, Predator-Reintroduction Programs, Euthanasia, Feral Cats, No-Kill Shelters, Outdoor Cats , Pit Bull Breeding Bans, Crating Dogs, Chaining Dogs, Pets, Zoos, Responsible Breeders ,Why Animal Rights? And Tactics (PETA, 2011 b). The reference to the stands of the organization as uncompromising has attracted many debates and these issues turned into controversies. The organization conducts cruelty investigations on several issues reported. This strategy gives the organization an authoritative nature in the area of animal welfare. Cruelty investigations later lead to legal interventions. This would add to the authoritative nature of the organization in animal welfare. PETA ensures that animals which suffer cruelty at varied levels are rescued to safety. The organization has rescued hundreds of animals in various rescue operations. Animals which meet with accidents are also rescued by the organization. Policy intervention and legislation is a very important strategy that the organization follows to achieve its overall vision. PETA lobbies with government and non government agencies at varied levels to ensure the welfare of animals. This results in formation of legislations favorable to the cause of animals. The organization identifies the loopholes in the rules and regulations existing in different nations with reference to animal welfare and works together with various agencies to rectify it. The organization could successfully intervene in formulating ample number of legislations and policies in different nations catering to the welfare of animals. PETA leads a number of campaigns to highlight issues pertaining to animals. These issues to attain public attention, it is required to have various events. Special events at varied levels are conducted by the organization both as a part of campaign and also as a part of public education. One strategy that is followed to have increased public attention is to involve celebrities in these events. PETA has successfully managed to ensure the involvement of globally relevant celebrities in various events and campigns which has led to global attention. It must also be noted that some of these involvements resulted in controversies. The strategy of the organization is however to use these controversies positively towards the cause. PETA have has a number of celebrities as ambassadors for various campaigns. Public education programs are conducted regularly as a strategy to make the public aware of various issues in animal welfare. Mode of Action PETA has established extensive network of people who are aligned towards the cause. This extensive network reports cases of animal abuse to the organization through reliable sources. The mode of this operation starts from people who are disturbed to see cases of continuous suffering of animals. Out of these information cases those appear to be genuine are taken for investigation. These investigations are basically undercover operations either directly or through reliable sources. Photographs and footages of cruelties against animals are collected secretly. Expert opinions on these footages are collected from veterinarians, animal specialists and legal practitioners. People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, then take it forward through legal channels. Concerned government agencies that are in charge of regulating the welfare of animals are contacted and litigations are filed. Some of these organisations carry out their own investigations before filing a case. However, at times, lack of proper regulatory mechanisms and lacunas in the rules would limit the scope of the litigation. In such cases, PETA takes the case forward through public support. They use wide coverage through media to reach out to people and generate public sentiments. They use media networks like national and local, national and international newspapers, visual media and social networks to publicize issues. A distinguishable feature of the media campaigns that PETS undertakes is that they will include gory pictures and footages of animal sufferings. The organisation also has its own regular publications which are used in tghese campaigns. They include PPETA News (weekly), PETA Action Alerts, PETA TV (weekly) PETA Living (monthly), PETA Catalogue , PETA Factsheets and Shopping Guide for Caring Consumers. Along with each campaign material the organisation includes a detailed guideline for action for the target audience to take the issue forward. Demonstrations including masses of people are regularly conducted issue wise. Education talks are also regularly conducted. Controversies as a strategy People for Ethical Treatment of Animals have been using civil disobedience and controversies as a strategy to attain public attention and attract government interventions. For Instance, the campaigns of PETA included nudity. The organisation tries to catch the headline of the newspapers by coming up with constructively creative campaigns. The ‘naked campaign included campaigners marching naked behind a poster stating that ‘We would go naked than wear fur’. PETA relies on free advertisement by newspapers to extend its campaigns to its people. However, they find it difficult to convince newspapers to publish their material owing to commercial and political interest. Thus the organisation believes that these kinds of controversies easily catch media attention. The naked campaign which began few years ago saw participation from celebrities like Pamela Anderson, Christy Turlington, Todd Oldham Marcus Schenkenberg and Kim Basinger (PETA, 2011 b). The presence of celebrities in these sort of campaigns will increase its scope in attracting people towards the movement and getting more media and public attention. The website of PETE quotes that the campaign was treated as a civil disobedience only after celebrities started to participate in the campaigns. This proves that these campaigns were successful in terms of influencing people towards the cause for which the campaign was held. However, the ethical side of this campaign methodology is debatable. PETA has followed the same strategy in a number of their campaigns. Creating controversy could be generalized as a common strategy in the campaigns of PETA. Leaving aside the ethical side of the campaign, it has been observed to be largely successful. The movement got lot of media attention and the campaign was covered by almost all leading newspapers across the world. Interestingly, the media, both visual and print, took up the anti fur movement as the campaign became successful. The organization compares the intention of the campaign to “Lady Godiva’ who in the history went out to the streets to convince his husband to reduce tax. Thus quoting the honorable motives of the campaign, the unethical side of it is being justified. The aggressive approach on Vegetarianism also has attracted controversy. Ingrid E. Newkirk, Co Director of PETA has opined about being non-vegetarian "I would think it’s primitive, barbaric, arrogant, and unnecessary” (City paper, 47). The fundraising policies of PETA also have invited controversies. The organisation uses footages from their campaign materials to raise their funds. The copies of the videotape titled Unnecessary Fuss described as "rare and stunning footage, filmed by researchers themselves" which gives "a unique and in-depth view of how experimenters abused baboons are being sold by PETA for their fund raising (PETA, 3) Achievements The investigation and further campaign on a testing laboratory in Philadelphia forced the Benetton, the cosmetic company to ban animal testing. This success later led way to other companies like Estée Lauder, Avon and Revlon to ban animal testing. Though after continued resistance, L’Oréal also decided to stop laboratory testing on animals. The success of the campaign is confirmed as it later led to more than 550 companies stopping to use animals in their laboratories to test their products. The continuous lobbying followed by legal interventions have forced shut down of research projects of more than millions of dollars (Brensnik, 1990) General motors’ used to do accident tests on pigs and ferments. Due to continued effort by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, this could be brought to a halt. They could also force the government to constitute policies and legislations to ban the use of primates in laboratory testing. Primates were largely used in Head Injury Lab at University of Pennsylvania for testing. PETA came up with campaign materials recorded from the laboratory leading to a general ban on the use of primates. PETA was successful in initiating the first farm factory raid in US. Series of videotapes and photographs on sufferings of ducks in a farm in New York were brought out by the organisation which later led to the police raid and resultantly many of their clients stopped consuming ducks. A large campaign on the exhaust stacks of oil refineries affecting and trapping birds was successfully taken up by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. This later led to oil giants like Mobil, Texaco, Pennzoil, Shell and many others covering up their exhaust stacks. “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign was a large success in terms of educating people on abolishing fur. Many supermodels became part of this campaign which attracted a lot of media attention. The campaign against Indian leather is also a major achievement of the organization. The campaign was intended to improve the transportation and slaughter techniques being implemented by Indian leather industry. The initial focus of the campaign was to provoke people in the US not to use leather products from India. However, later the focus was changed to targeting the tourism sector in the area where these products came from. Tourists from US were advised not to visit these areas. Going Vegan Campaign promotes vegetarianism as a strategy to stop cruelty against animals. This has already emerged a global movement. The organization could come up with literature and campaign material to criticize and check the use of animals in circuses and other entertainment industries. They used undercover video shots to bring to light cruelties on animals done by these industries. This campaign also covered bull fights. A very interesting public education propaganda that People for Ethical Treatment of Animals could introduce was the awareness campaigns on pet animals. The concept of keeping and importing exotic pets were seriously criticised by the organisation and the concept of companionship and humility to pet animals were asserted in this campaign. The trade of leather and fur has always been a concern to PETA and many campaigns were initiated for the cause of banning this trade. Phillip Morris and the tobacco industry’s laboratory experiments on animals are being fought against. Challenges Funding is the largest challenge that the organisation face. It is entirely dependent on contributions so as to fund its campaigns and operations. The sustained availability of contributions is a major challenge for PETA. The screening of sources also becomes difficult for the organisation. References PETA (2011 a) Financial Reports, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals Retieved on 27 November, 2011 from PETA (2011 b) About PETA, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals Retieved on 27 November, 2011 from http://www.peta.org/about/default.aspx City Paper Interview, p. 47. PETA (c) PETA Catalog, no date, Washington, D. C., p. 26. Bresnick P H Behind the laboratory door, The Progressive, March 1990, p. 20. Read More