Is The Good Food Institute a Toxic Work Environment?

That may seem like a harsh question to ask, but we now have publicly available reasons to believe so. Launched in 2016, the Good Food Institute has grown quickly to over 100 staff across six nations. The non-profit organization has positioned itself as a leading voice for all things “alternative protein”.

Last month, Animal Charity Evaluators, an organization that annually ranks non-profits and serves as a both a resource and a funnel for funders in the animal welfare arena, dropped GFI from its recommended list of charities. This came as somewhat of a surprise given GFI’s ranking as a “top charity” for five years running, even in their first year of operations, before they had any measurable track record.

Most important is the reasoning ACE gave for their decision:

“During our evaluation of GFI this year, we received several reports from current and former staff that alleged both retaliation and fear of retaliation by GFI’s top leadership for voicing disagreements at the organization. We found the reports to be reliable and substantial enough in their severity to not continue recommending GFI in 2021. As the reports were shared with us in confidence, and we prioritize protecting the identity of any current or former staff members who reach out to us, we cannot disclose any more specific information about this case to GFI.”

Wow. Retaliation and fear of retaliation. Those are very serious allegations. In certain situations, workplace retaliation can even be illegal. It’s certainly a very troubling sign of toxic leadership. (GFI’s response.)

While ACE may not have been willing or able to name names of staff, one former staffer is coming forward.

Yesterday, Brittany Chambers, who worked at GFI for over 5 years, posted a heartbreaking account of how she was cruelly “laid off” from her fundraising position two weeks ago. She loved her job. Here are a few excerpts that I found especially moving and profound:

“Work doesn’t love you back.

Work just wants your labor. Your compliance. Your devotion. Your time — even prioritized above your own well-being; even above your children.

We’ve got to reevaluate. We need to stop. Full-stop.

We’ve got to stop idolizing missions, visions, and narcissistic leaders. Hero culture is lurking around every corner. It already polluted the air above Silicon Valley decades ago, and in our increasingly remote environment, it’s everywhere — hiding behind every shiny tagline and redesigned logo.

Where did we go wrong? Where did we get led so astray that most of us live our entire lives subconsciously in fear of not being employable? From what age on are we structuring our lives just simply to be employed? To be wanted — coveted even — by corporate execs or nonprofit figureheads.

Are we so wrought in a culture of transactional relations that we have forgotten our shared humanity? Has the employee-employer power dynamic become so reminiscent of serfdom that we’ve completely forgotten our empathy? Our humility? Our ability to see the person in a tiny zoom square as a person and not a payroll line item?”

Her entire post is worth reading, it is incredibly heartfelt and powerful. What she describes is a pattern of abuse that is sadly common throughout the animal welfare arena, so I want to pull out a few themes:

1) Being punished for asking for more money. She was told:

“Frankly, we aren’t interested in working with people who value making a certain amount of money. That’s not what we’re about here. We’re looking for belief in our mission, primarily.”

That is complete BS. Organizations need to pay people what they are worth. This movement needs to stop the martyrdom. It does not serve either the humans or the animals.

2) Women punished for taking time off to have a baby. When Brittany needed more time off, she was threatened. It’s one thing to not have paid maternity leave (that is a societal problem that still needs to be addressed) but women should be given whatever time they need, even if unpaid, without fear of retaliation.

3) Expectations of extreme overwork. Brittany describes a familiar existence:

“I logged 50, 60, 70-hour weeks. I answered emails in the dark at the crack of dawn. I took phone calls from donors in the minutes leading up to midnight on New Year’s Eve. I missed birthdays and family dinners for urgent deadlines. I dumped every ounce of my energy into our shared, lofty mission of “making the world a kinder, better place”.”

Humans are not machines. No one can function this way for long periods of time. It’s not sustainable and the “mission” should never be an excuse to run people down.

4) Being strung along and keep hoping for that promotion, raise, etc. Brittany describes having her hopes dashed time and time again:

“Wedded to the carrot dangled continuously in front of my face and entrenched in the belief that I was walking a noble, necessary path, I just kept going.”

This is a deliberate strategy to keep workers working hard. It’s not only toxic, it’s cruel, mental health abuse.

5) Treating people as disposable tools. In the end, none of Brittany’s hard work mattered. She was tossed aside. What she cared about, her contributions, even her questions at the end, did not matter at all.

Sadly, I am certain there are many others with stories just like hers or even worse. It’s time to break the conspiracy of silence in this movement about how toxic workplaces are doing grave amounts of harm. Most of the staff at places like GFI are young, with a strong passion to make the world a better place. To have their hopes and dreams dashed is a form of abuse that should not be tolerated.

Back in 2018, the Me Too movement brought down men like Wayne Pacelle and Paul Shapiro (both of the Humane Society of the United States) over accusations of sexual harassment. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The much larger problem is one of power, control, and extremely damaging workplaces.

It was incredibly brave of Brittany to come forward. As she noted, most are afraid to do so, for fear of retaliation. Indeed, many women have been locked out of the movement or saw their fundraising stunted since the 2018 revelations. But those fears can no longer serve as an excuse. What are we protecting exactly? Our own careers are not worth “saving” in an environment where people are treated like trash.

The other excuse we often hear is that the animals will suffer if we air our dirty laundry. Quite the opposite is true. The cause that we are trying to protect is not served by silence. When you read Brittany’s story, does it sound like she was able to do her best work under those conditions? No one could. The urgency of overwork is a lie we tell ourselves. And now she’s out of a job. Her many years of experience and relationship building, all for the animals, now in the dustbin. How is she helping animals now?

I hope many more former employees and even current employees of GFI and any other toxic workplace come forward. We need to tell these stories. Otherwise, the destruction will continue, and nothing will change.

Added Feb 3: Here is another story from August 2021 that tells a similar tale of heartless dismissal, from Matt Ball, who worked at GFI for nearly four years and was let go after suffering grave physical injuries.