The White Coat Waste Project Inc.

To educate and inform the public about the suffering of animals in publically-funded laboratories and experimentation facilities as well as wasteful government spending on animal experiments. (See Schedule O)

WCW believes taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay $20+ billion for painful, unnecessary, and wastefu

Goal One: WCW unites the political left and right with a unifying message (fiscal responsibility + animal protection), cuts government waste, and saves lives. When the money stops, the killing stops.

Goal Two: We use a 3-step, campaign-style approach to find (investigations), expose (media, advertising), and defund (lobbying, grassroots) wasteful government spending on animal tests (i.e., “F.E.D.”)  

Goal Three: 10% of all lab animals are abused in-house by federal agencies such as the FDA, VA, and NIH. We run high-impact campaigns to end wasteful spending, set precedents, and retire survivors at these labs.

WCW routinely sends our staff to training conferences to develop professional skills and stay on top of industry trends and best practices. Recent examples include The American Association of Political Consultants and Public Affairs Professionals, the Bridge Conference, the National Animal Rights Conference, the national Engaging Networks conference, the Lewis & Clark Center for Animal Law Studies Animal Law Program, and many more. WCW also sends individual staffers to participate in outside classes and specialized webinars (e.g., social media, online ads, fundraising training, and research and investigations training) to acquire and develop leadership skills. We also prioritize in-house mentorship of our junior staffers and make time to discuss books and other materials that were helpful for the career development of senior staff.

WCW successfully adapted to the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and other external challenges. We recruited and integrated five new staffers in short order and across different departments, time zones, and remote work locations. WCW's leadership prioritized a new onboarding program to facilitate this growth. We established a comprehensive “WCW boot camp” – several weeks of deep-dive presentations from senior leaders to give a crash course in all things WCW, share institutional knowledge, stories, and hold group Q and A discussions. Attendance was mandatory for both new hires and all veteran staffers. We invested a lot of time creating new training content to show how everyone’s work is integrated. Sessions included the “100K-foot,” big picture perspective (i.e., WCW’s theory of change, mission, vision, etc.), the “10K-foot” perspective (i.e., mission-critical programs and campaigns), and the “ten-foot,” day-to-day perspective (i.e., overview of operations, development, and back-office administration that makes the entire organization run smoothly). Furthermore, we set up a new, informal “buddy system.” WCW’s Board was well-aware of the challenges facing other remote-office nonprofits during the pandemic: loneliness, morale issues, and other concerns. Leadership was determined to prevent this from happening at WCW. We researched best practices and started this program to pair up each new hire with a veteran from a different department. We prepared welcome kits, set ongoing buddy check-in calls, and held social activities such as virtual “happy hours,” secret Santa gift exchanges, and holiday parties. Finally, WCW adapted well because of our diversified revenue program. WCW’s average gift was approximately $30, with nearly 80% of income-driven by grassroots donors (e.g., email and direct mail). WCW long-prioritized a sustainable and scalable revenue model to ensure our life-saving work continues in any economic environment. WCW did not take a PPP bailout.