Why Animal Advocates Need a 501(c)(4): Allie Taylor of Voters for Animal Rights

In this episode, you’ll learn: 

• The legal and practical difference between a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4)
• How VFAR uses candidate endorsements to build relationships with elected officials
• The story behind New York City’s foie gras ban and the litigation keeping it from being enforced
• How a law banning the sale of guinea pigs in pet stores drove a 70% drop in shelter surrenders
• How VFAR holds elected officials accountable for the commitments they make on the campaign trail
• Why Allie thinks animal advocates spend too much time protesting and not enough time phone banking

Key Takeaway

If you want to change the law for animals, you need an organization that can endorse and oppose candidates, and that means a 501(c)(4)

Episode Highlights

Resources Mentioned:

Voters for Animal Rights

The Four C’s of Legislative Advocacy for Animals

Related Episodes:

 How to Start an Advocacy Group and Get Results: Lessons from Pennsylvania Voters for Animals

Transcript

Penny Ellison:

Welcome back to the Animal Advocate. If you’ve ever thought about starting an organization to help animals in your community, today’s guest has some blunt advice. Don’t. Or more precisely, don’t start the kind of organization you’re probably thinking about. Start the other kind, the kind that can change the law. That distinction is at the heart of why Allie Taylor and Voters for Animal Rights have racked up nearly a dozen legislative wins for animals in New York over the past 10 years, while other groups with much bigger budgets are still spinning their wheels.

 Welcome to the Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers with the information and inspiration you need to become effective advocates. I’m Penny Ellison. I’ve taught animal law at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. If you’ve ever thought, someone should do something about that, I’m here to guide you on your journey to being that someone. Now, on to today’s topic.

To understand what makes VFAR different from most animal protection organizations, you need to understand the difference between a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4). Now, those numbers are sections of the Internal Revenue Code, so that’s not too interesting. But they’re both nonprofits, but they operate under different rules. A 501(c )(3) is what most people picture when they hear nonprofit. That’s your local SPCA or Humane Society.

Most rescues are 501(c)(3)s. Donations to them are tax deductible, which is a big fundraising advantage. But there’s a tradeoff. 501(c)(3)s are sharply limited in how much lobbying they can do. And they’re flatly prohibited from endorsing candidates or working to elect or defeat anyone running for office. A 501(c )(4) operates under different rules. Donations are not tax deductible, which makes fundraising harder. But a 501 can push for legislation as its primary activity, and it can endorse candidates and hold elected officials accountable at the ballot box.

In my view, both kinds of organizations are needed in animal welfare. We certainly need the shelters and the educators and the direct service groups. But what some people miss sometimes is we also need organizations whose job and function is to change the law and to make politicians care about animal issues. Without 501(c)(4)s like VFAR, the political cost of voting against animals stays low. And that’s a problem. So let’s talk about VFAR. They’re an all volunteer 501(c)(4) grassroots organization focused on political advocacy for animals in New York City and New York State. And they’re coming up on their 10-year anniversary this fall.

Some of the wins that Allie has led or co led include banning wild animals in circuses, banning the sale and possession of foie gras in New York, they’ve defended that a few times in court and are still in court defending it. Creating the New York City Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare, the first municipal office of its kind in the country. Passing a law making it a crime to steal wild birds off New York City streets for out of state shooting contests. Protecting carriage horses from working in extreme heat and humidity. Passing a law prohibiting the sale of any animal from a residence in New York City. Prohibiting the sale of guinea pigs in pet stores, which has driven guinea pig surrenders to city shelters down 70%. And finally supporting state legislation that ended wildlife killing contests across New York. That kind of legislative record doesn’t happen by accident.

It happens because Allie is a tenacious leader who shows the courage and persistence these fights require over many years. Her previous carriage horse campaign ran for more than five years. The wild animal circus ban took a decade. This is patient, strategic, relationship driven work and Allie is exceptional at it. Before we go to the interview, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while and thinking about waging some of these battles in your own state or city, head over to animaladvocacyacademy.com/fourcs. You can download the four Cs of legislative advocacy for animals and that walks you through how to start and build a successful campaign. Now let’s meet Allie. Welcome, Allie, to the Animal Advocate.

Allie Taylor:

Thank you for having me.

Penny Ellison:

So I want to start out with, you know, the beginning of how you got started with VFAR and what your original goals were.

Allie Taylor:

Yeah, we filed the paperwork to start VFAR on Halloween in 2016. So we’re actually coming up on our 10 year anniversary. And I created the organization because I saw a need for a city and statewide organization that would cover a breadth of issues for animals in a political space. There’s many rescue organizations in New York City and in New York State. We have several national organizations that are headquartered here, but none that were 501C4s who could do this type of work. Prior to starting VFAR, I had worked on New York City’s campaign to ban horse carriages, and I saw the type of energy that voters had around that issue. And even though we weren’t successful with banning horse carriages, I wanted to harness that issue and use it for other animal issues at the city and state level. And so that was really the impetus for starting VFAR and what we found is that when we did transfer that voter energy around horse carriages to other issues, like banning the use of wild animals in circuses and foie gras, we were really successful.

Allie Taylor:

So my hope is that we can continue this and keep growing it, which largely depends on, like, who’s in the City Council or the legislature, you know, year to year. But I’m hoping we can keep winning some stuff at the local level that will hopefully inspire change at the state and federal level in other states.

Penny Ellison:

What things have you gotten passed at the city level that you’re most proud of so far?

Allie Taylor:

I’m most proud about our work leading the campaign to ban foie gras in New York City. That bill passed and was signed into law by Mayor de Blasio in 2019, and then it went into effect in 2022. Since then, we have been in court with the State of New York. Right before the bill went into effect, the foie gras farmers sued the City of New York, and then brazenly, the State of New York sued the City of New York to try and block the law from going into effect and being enforced. Governor Kathy Hochul, she ordered the New York State Department of Ag and Markets and the New York State Attorney General to bring that suit. And so since 2022, it has been back and forth in the courts. The latest on it is the New York State Appellate Division actually ruled in our favor and in favor of New York City, which is awesome because so many judges before them got it completely wrong. But this court unanimously found that New York State had no business trying to tell New York City what type of laws they can and can’t pass in this case.

Allie Taylor:

And unfortunately, then Governor Hochul has since appealed that decision. So we are back.

Penny Ellison:

Is that holding up effectiveness? So you could order foie gras in a New York restaurant now?

Allie Taylor:

You can still order foie gras in New York City right now. The city will not be enforcing the law until all of the legal challenges are completely exhausted.

Penny Ellison:

Have you made any progress on companion animals in the city?

Allie Taylor:

Yeah, at the state level, New York State has banned the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores. And that was a campaign that we did with the ASPCA and with Humane World for Animals. And then at the city level, we ran a campaign to prohibit the sale of guinea pigs in pet stores. During the pandemic, there were record numbers of guinea pigs being purchased at, like, Petco and Petsmart and then being abandoned in a City park, or surrendered  to city animal shelters and so our city animal shelter system, animal care center said, we need help. This is unsustainable. What can we do to stop this? And so we were able to get a law passed that said you cannot sell guinea pigs in pet stores. And it, so far, it’s been incredibly effective. Guinea pig surrenders are down 70% in our city animal shelters.

Allie Taylor:

So we know that this type of legislation works. We also passed a law at the end of 2024 that prohibits anyone from selling any type of animal from a residence. Meaning you can’t sell birds from your house. You can’t sell dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, mice, any type of animal.

Penny Ellison:

That’s great. That’s to hit it there. Instead of, you know, in Philadelphia, we worked on a moratorium on unlicensed dog breeding, but you’re kind of hitting everything by saying the sale can’t take place at a residence.

Allie Taylor:

Yeah. The challenge is that it doesn’t prohibit the breeding of it, but also the enforcement of this law. So, you know, if you go on Facebook, you’ll still see folks who are advertising puppies and kittens for sale out of their apartment. If you walk around anywhere in my neighborhood, you’ll see posters on telephone poles where people are advertising all kinds of designer dogs for sale. We still hear from people all the time that say, hey, there’s somebody selling cats or dogs in my building. And that’s one of our next big fights, is we really need the city to start enforcing it, because it’s incredibly frustrating when you work so hard to pass these laws, and then the city kind of throws their hands up and says, well, we don’t know how to enforce this. We’ll figure it out.

Penny Ellison:

Which brings us to your advocacy to get the mayor’s office to have either a department or, I guess now an Office of Animal Welfare. And you fought for that successfully that there is now an Office of Animal Welfare, which may be. Should be figuring out some of these enforcement issues, which are always sticky and take more money. So tell me about how you got enough attention to get that set up that their mayor has an Office of Animal Welfare.

Allie Taylor:

Yeah. So that came from the 2013 Campaign for New York City mayor, when we had pushed for there to be a creation of a Department of Animal Welfare. When Mayor de Blasio took office in 2014, he created the Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare and appointed somebody to that position. That was done without passing legislation. Towards the end of his term, the City Council passed legislation to actually codify that office into existence, which was smart, because anytime a New mayor comes in or out, if an office is not codified into law, they can just get rid of that office or not put any staffing in it. But we actually have a law in New York City that says there is the mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare and it must be staffed with at least one person in it. So we have that as like an insurance policy, meaning no matter who the mayor of New York City is, if they don’t care about animals, they still have to have that office exist. One of the first people that held the position did a sterilization program for deer in New York City that’s been incredibly effective, and can serve as a model for other cities across the country.

Allie Taylor:

It’s also been really helpful when we’re trying to get legislation across the finish line and bills are stuck. And to have somebody in that office who can help us move it forward is really helpful and let you know

Penny Ellison:

what’s going on behind the scenes, you know?

Allie Taylor:

Yeah, exactly. And it’s also helpful when there’s issues on the ground. Right. If there’s a cat stuck on a roof or there’s any type of other animal issues, having a squeaky wheel in that office you can try and move city agencies is really helpful.

Penny Ellison:

That would be amazing, I think, to have a central place to call that either they are the right person to call or they know who needs to take action on a particular thing. That’s great. Do you have other goals for 2026 legislatively?

Allie Taylor:

So our big goal legislatively in 2026 is to pass legislation that would prohibit the sale of birds in pet shops. We’ve already covered dogs, cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs. And so we tried to introduce legislation that would prohibit the sale of all animals in pet stores. And we had a very difficult time just getting that introduced. So we had to limit the scope to just birds. So that’s.

Penny Ellison:

They still be able to do fish, lizards, things like that?

Allie Taylor:

Yeah, yeah. And I think that was frustrating to some advocates. They were like, why can’t we just do all of them? And we’re like, we tried, and the bill, we couldn’t even get it introduced. We had a council member that said they wanted to do it. And then for a year, they just delayed and delayed and delayed. And once we said, okay, you know, real talk, if we scale back this bill to just birds, can you get this introduced? And then lo and behold, the bill gets introduced within two weeks.

Penny Ellison:

That’s really good advice. That is not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. If the birds can get your help Because I’ve seen some pictures recently of some pretty, you know, disgusting living conditions at places where they breed birds for, for pet stores. You wish you could help everybody, but you gotta help somebody if you can, right?

Allie Taylor:

The other city legislation that we’re working on is legislation that would require the city to have publicly funded free or low cost spay neuter clinics in every borough. I think we all know about the veterinary crisis and that it is so incredibly expensive to get an animal fixed. And we’re not blaming veterinarians, we’re, you know, we’re blaming private equity that’s buying them up and driving up all the prices. By the way, I used to work in private equity and I remember them having conversations where they would like brag about what a great investment it is and how it’s like such a booming business and it took every ounce of strength in me not to be like, do you guys know what you’re doing?

Penny Ellison:

Like, yeah, that’s kind of a, kind of a diversion. But, but you’re absolutely right is that, you know, part of the veterinary shortage has to do with most of the local vets being bought up by the large practices that only care about profitability. So, you know, not only is it not available to the public, they’re also not really helping out rescues the way individual vets used to be able to do.

Allie Taylor:

Yeah, so that’s a big, that’s a top priority for this year. And we’re modeling that after legislation that’s now law in New York that says you have to have a full service animal shelter in every borough. So by the end of this year, there will be a full service animal shelter in every borough once the Bronx shelter opens up, which should be sometime this fall.

Penny Ellison:

So you’re also going to have a free spay neuter clinic in. That’s what you’re fighting for, a free spay neuter clinic in each borough of the city.

Allie Taylor:

Free or low cost. I mean, what we have found is that free would be great, but people aren’t expecting free when it comes to veterinary care. They just want it to be affordable. Right. Instead of it costing 1000 dollars to get your cat fixed, they say, okay, I can chip in and do 200. That’s totally fair. You know, same thing with vaccines and other type of wellness prevention services. People aren’t asking for free, but they can’t afford to be dropping $2,000 every time they walk into a vet’s office.

Penny Ellison:

Right.

Allie Taylor:

So part of, you know, the big reason that we’re pushing spay neuter funding on the legislative side is that we have seen that unless you really force the city’s hand to do this, they won’t do it. The only reason that we are going to be having full service animal shelters in every borough is because for decades, you know, before me, advocates fought for a law that required the city to do so. And we’re seeing this happening right now in our push for spay neuter funding in that every year, you know, we go to the city and we say, hey, we need this funded. And they, they don’t do it. Right. Last year was the first year that they funded spay neuter at all, and it was a half a million dollars which funds 3500 spay.

Penny Ellison:

Very much a drop in the bucket for a city like New York.

Allie Taylor:

We need 200,000 spay neuters funded per year according to the ASPCA’s data. So this year we’re going back and we’re asking for 1.5 million, which will fund around 10,000 spay neuters, still nowhere near the 200,000 that we need. So at this pace, you know, I’m going to be 100 by the time they actually provide what the need is. And so that’s why passing laws that mandate that the city actually fund these type of services is imperative to getting it done.

Penny Ellison:

So obviously you’re talking to people in city council that have all kinds of causes, talking to them that want money and education and police and libraries and everything. And you’re fighting against things that a lot of people think are higher priorities. And one of your missions, I think, is to hold legislators accountable, meaning like make their position on animal issues visible and tell them that people are watching them. So tell me, tell me how you’ve accomplished that accountability that has gotten more people on your side.

Allie Taylor:

We do that by structuring our organization as a 501(c)(4), meaning we are a nonprofit, but we’re a political nonprofit in that we can evaluate and endorse candidates for office and we can also oppose them when they’re running for office as well. We reach out to candidates for every election season, whether that’s for city council, mayor or the state legislature. We send them questionnaires, we do interviews with them, and we look at their voting records. And then we as a team make a decision on whether or not to support a candidate or oppose a candidate in a race. Once they take office, that’s when the challenge begins to try and get to hold them to the commitments that they make. And to be honest, like, I don’t really have a perfect formula for that yet, because it’s hard. You can’t go back to their offices, walk in and say, okay, you said you’d do this. Now you have to do it.

Allie Taylor:

Right. But you need to be creative and figure out ways to, like, remind them of what their commitments are.

Penny Ellison:

And I really had legislators promise things to me that I thought, we got him. He’s on our side. And then they’re just telling that to the next person that walks in, too.

Allie Taylor:

Exactly. I. I think it’s inevitable that with every election, there’s going to be attrition on what your candidates actually come through in supporting or not, as in, you

Penny Ellison:

still have horse and carriage. Right.

Allie Taylor:

Exactly.

Penny Ellison:

I believe there were mayor candidates that won that said that they were going to ban that.

Allie Taylor:

There were. But horse carriages are a whole other topic in that it’s not even a mayoral issue. It’s the city council that has to ban them, and the city council has failed to do so repeatedly for decades. But, you know, where we can hold them accountable is when they run for reelection. Right. And they come knocking on their door. Right. So they, you do your questionnaire, they do your interview, they get your endorsement, and then they get into office and they ignore you.

Allie Taylor:

And we’re like, okay, great. Glad we wasted our time here. And then the next election comes around, and they come knocking on your door, and that’s the time when you can really use your muscle to say, like, hey, you know, we came out for you and you didn’t come out for us. What’s going on here? And those are some uncomfortable conversations, but it’s what you got to do.

Penny Ellison:

So I was going to close with, you know, what advice would you give me if I’m sitting in another city and thinking about trying to do what you’ve done? I guess one thought I had that you can fill in whatever you want is that you mentioned you’re a 501(c)(4), and there aren’t a lot of those that are in the animal space. And maybe that’s part of the advice or what would you tell people about getting started on making these kind of policy changes?

Allie Taylor:

Yeah. Whenever someone asks about starting their own organization, I say, do not start another 501(c)(3). There are plenty of those. You need to start a 501(c )(4). The reason being is it gives you the muscle in that you can endorse or oppose candidates. And through that process of endorsing or opposing candidates, it’s a really good opportunity to get to know them and their staff and develop most of those relationships. Most of the folks in the City Council and the state legislature that I work with are folks that I met through campaigning for them or for their colleagues. If more animal advocates put less time into protesting in front of a building and more time doing the hard work of phone banking and canvassing for candidates and getting facetime with candidates who are running for office, I think we could get a lot more done.

Allie Taylor:

That’s not to say that protesting isn’t important. It is. But you need to use your time wisely by being in the space where decision makers are, and that is where elected officials are when they’re running for offices. On the campaign trail. I think another piece of advice I would have is by creating a 501(c )(4), you have more leeway to lobby. C3s are very limited in the amount of time and money that they can spend on lobbying. With a 501(c)(4), you can spend a lot more of your time in funding on direct lobbying of your elected officials. With a 501(c )(3), you can’t spend as much of your resources on that.

Penny Ellison:

I think that’s great advice. I mean, that’s why I started mine as a 501(c)(4), because I tried to figure out how to get impact and that’s the way to do it. Well, thank you so much for all you’ve done for New York Allie and for educating everybody on what you do, and I wish you the best of luck in the future.

Allie Taylor:

Thanks Penny.

Penny Ellison:

I hope you got some practical tips and feel as inspired as I do to go out and start making things happen. Big thanks to Allie for joining me and for the work she and VFAR are doing in New York. If you want to follow VFAR or support what they’re doing, you can find them at vfar.org and listen to what Allie said toward the end of our conversation because I think it’s the single most useful piece of advice in this episode. And there were a lot if you’re going to start an animal advocacy organization in your community, think about starting a 501(c )(4). I did. Animal Advocacy Academy operates under a C4 called the Animal Advocacy Center. That does the lobbying. The political muscle is where change happens.

That’s it for today. The Animal Advocate is brought to you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. If today’s episode got you thinking about what you can do to change things for animals, I want to make sure you know about the four Cs of legislative advocacy for animals. It’s a free audio series I put together that gives you a real framework for making legislation happen. You can find it at animaladvocacyacademy.com/fourcs. and you can find all our episodes and show notes at animal advocacyacademy.com. Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode, and if you know another animal advocate who should be listening, send this one their way. Questions on today’s topic or anything else, just email us at podcast@animaladvocacyacademy.com we’ll write back, or we’ll feature your question in a future episode.

Remember, compassion is great, but compassionate action is infinitely better. Until next week, Live with Compassion.