Jo-Anne McArthur | NEAVS | Beth Lily Redwood | We Animals
It is not humans alone who value their life and liberty. Become a member of the National Animal Life and Liberty Association so that we can extend these invaluable rights to all sentient beings.
What is the National Animal Life and Liberty Association?
The National Animal Life and Liberty Association (NALLA) is a membership organization operating as a 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit. Our purpose is to secure local, state, and national protection for sentient animals’ life and liberty, and to concentrate the efforts of advocates for animal protection toward that end.
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In the pursuit of this purpose, we intend to engage in public education, research, community organizing, legislative advocacy, and the proposal, support, or opposition of ballot measures across the country. We approach this work with a commitment to nonviolence, motivated by the awareness that compassionate connection is the only means for achieving our vision.
Why a membership organization?
As shared on our page about prior campaigns, the National Animal Life and Liberty Association was founded by organizers who have been working on statewide ballot initiative campaigns since 2020. Each election cycle we created a new organization (called a petition committee) for each new ballot initiative, dissolving the one that came before it. This is simply part of the process. However, we believe that in addition to these committees, it would be helpful to have one continuous entity that stays present even as individual statewide campaigns come and go—an ocean that the individual waves collapse back into. We have also always held the conviction that, while Oregon would be the first state we worked on, we would need to expand into other states over time. A national membership organization is the kind of organization that can help support those aspirations.
We also live in a time of intense political feeling and yet thin political structure. Causes surge online, protests fill a street for an afternoon, and then often scatter. People care deeply, but belong to very little. What's missing is the organizational structure that turns care into lasting movement power: membership that persists from year to year, dues that fund our efforts, meetings where members actually decide collectively, and leaders who serve the people who elect them. This is particularly true within animal advocacy, where there are ample opportunities to donate to organizations or join in on action alerts, but far fewer opportunities to participate in the ways that membership allows for.
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That is what the suffrage movement built. In 1869, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was founded—later merging with its rival to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1890. Anyone could become a member by signing its constitution and paying one dollar a year. It organized state by state, gathered in annual conventions, and campaigned for decades. Most of the founders of the AWSA did not live to see the Nineteenth Amendment ratified in 1920. They built something that could outlast them.Â
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We have shaped the National Animal Life and Liberty Association on that model. Protection for animals' life and liberty will not arrive in a single moment. It will be won by an institution patient enough to keep going.
What does membership entail?
As a member of the National Animal Life and Liberty Association, you will have the right to elect and remove directors, run for a position as a director, vote on changes to the associations' structure, and vote on resolutions or questions submitted to members. You will also be able to participate in our annual convention and any special meetings of members, as well as sit in on meetings of the board of directors.Â
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In 1869, the American Woman Suffrage Association set its membership dues at one dollar a year—roughly $24 today—and we're carrying that tradition forward. Anyone who supports the purpose of our organization and has paid at least $24 a year, or $2 a month, can become a member. Members are always encouraged to give more to help create the conditions for our success.
"All the social change efforts boil down to three words: ask, ask, ask. To reach all of your objectives you have to ask, ask, ask. And if you don't want to be the only one doing all of the asking, you got to ask some people to help you do some asking."
~ Marshall Rosenberg