A career as an animal rights coordinator could be a great fit for you if you have a passion for animal rights, excellent organizational abilities, and you’re skilled at leading and motivating others.
This work offers the chance to work in an office but get out of it frequently, a varied work schedule, the ability to make a difference for animals, and even offers plenty of room for career advancement.
So, if you'd like to know more about the ins and outs of this field then read on; we’ll fill you in on what you would be doing for a living, how much you could earn, and what you’ll need to break into this profession!
Formal Education You Might Need
Most employers will either want you to have relevant education, work experience, volunteer experience, or some combination thereof, in order to be considered for an animal rights coordinator job with them.
Having said that, there is no one set path for becoming an animal rights coordinator; they come from all different kinds of educational backgrounds. The following academic fields however, are especially helpful for developing skills and competencies relevant to what you’ll be doing:
• Communications and Public Relations
• Human Resources
• Business Administration
• Marketing
• Management
• Social Work
• Event Planning
• Education
• Public & Non-Profit Administration
What is an Animal Rights Coordinator?
The title “Animal Rights Coordinator” is a blanket term used to describe someone who works in an operations capacity with an animal rights group. This blanket term covers various operational areas, such as
• Event planning
• Fundraising
• Volunteer coordination
• Marketing and communications
• Transportation, travel and logistics
In larger organizations, animal rights coordinators may specialize in one of these areas, and act as the organization’s “go to” person for that area. Alternatively, they may work in a general capacity, and perform some functions within all of these areas. Working in a general capacity is more common in smaller animal rights organizations.
Relevant Experience You Might Need
As mentioned above, many employers will require you to have relevant education, work or volunteer experience, or some combination thereof. Relevant experience describes paid or volunteer work that you’ve done which is similar in some way to what you’ll be doing as an animal rights coordinator. This could include:
• Working in fundraising
• Working as an event planner/coordinator
• Working as a supervisor or manager
• Working in other non-profit organizations, in any capacity
• Working in community outreach or education
• Working in public relations
• Many other types of roles
Success Tip: In general, the more directly relevant your previous experience is to the specific job you’re applying for, the better. If you don't have this experience, working in an internship or volunteering are two excellent ways to get it!
General Job Description
As an animal rights coordinator, you would be responsible for organizing staff and other resources in order to promote an animal rights organization's mandate. You would be responsible for both daily operations and continued growth of the program under your supervision.
Typical Job Duties
As an animal rights coordinator, your job duties could vary quite a bit from job to job. Regardless, you could expect to perform a general set of duties similar to those listed below:
• Recruit, hire and train volunteers
• Delegate duties to volunteers and other staff
• Explore new promotional opportunities
• Represent organization at public events
• Prepare reports, presentations and other materials
• Distribute animal rights literature and leaflets to the public during events
• Plan and execute various initiatives, such as marketing and fundraising campaigns and events
• Forge partnerships with traditional and non-traditional animal welfare partners such as churches, community groups, businesses, and others
Skills Needed to Be Successful
You need a certain set of skills to be an effective animal rights coordinator, regardless of the specific duties you will be performing. These skills include:
• Training, coaching, team building and leadership skills
• Proficiency with relevant software, such as Microsoft Excel
• Planning and administrative skills
• Conflict resolution skills
• Knowledge of various fundraising techniques
• Awareness of various marketing techniques, including social media marketing
• Awareness of various volunteer and staff recruiting techniques
• Knowledge of animal welfare issues
• You can forge effective working relationships with a wide variety of people
Are You a Good Fit?
In order to survive the ups and downs of working as an animal rights coordinator, you need to have certain personal traits and characteristics, as well as professional interests, including:
• You are enthusiastic and have a team oriented attitude
• You are willing to properly represent the mission, goals, policies, and core values of your organization
• You have a flexible schedule, as evening and weekend hours will likely be required
• You have a passion for animals and animal welfare
• You have the ability to cope with the uncertainties of funding
• You have the ability to make rational decisions and be professional in emotional situations and environment
Who Employs Animal Rights Coordinators?
Paid and volunteer opportunities for animal rights coordinators exist with local, regional and national non-profit and charitable organizations that have animal welfare as their mandate, or one of their mandates. This can include:
• Animal rescue and re-housing groups
• Lobby groups and advocacy agencies
• Community education organizations
These organizations range in size from quite small (simply a handful of volunteers), to very large (some non-profit organizations employ hundreds of people, or more). Competition for these jobs is strong, especially with well-known organizations.
Organizations that are very small typically may not have the funding to support full-time, paid jobs. Instead, these organizations may have part-time or volunteer opportunities for animal rights coordinators.
Average Salary Level
Assuming you are working in a paid and not volunteer position, the salary level you could earn as an animal rights coordinator can vary quite a bit, typically depending on the following factors:
• Your professional qualifications (education, experience, etc.)
• The size and budget of the organization that employs you
• The region in which you work
• The scope of your job duties
Unfortunately there is no salary information available from reliable sources available for this specific occupation. We can however, get an idea of what you could earn as an animal rights coordinator by looking at the salary levels of workers in closely related fields, as per below:
Animal Rights Coordinator Salary - United States: According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary level of Americans working in the Fundraisers occupational group is $52,430 per year.
Career Advancement Opportunities in This Field
Displaying competence and a good work ethic can afford you plenty of career advancement options, including:
• Moving from a volunteer to a paid position (if applicable)
• Taking on projects of greater responsibility
• Moving into the role of team lead, supervisor or manager
• Becoming a board member or director
• Moving into specialized areas, such as event planning, grant writing, fundraising, human resources, public relations, or others
Job Postings - Current Opportunities
Our job board below has "animal rights coordinator" postings in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Work Environment
Working Hours: In a full-time, paid position, you’d likely work around 35 to 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday. Your job may also involve working early mornings, evenings and/or weekends if you have to attend meetings or events, or you need to work on time-sensitive projects.
Work Setting: Your work would most likely be based out of an office, but would likely involve quite a bit of travel (local or otherwise) to attend events or meet with stakeholders, such as other community groups, like-minded organizations, volunteers, colleagues and supporters. When attending events, your work may involve being exposed to all different kinds of weather conditions.
Similar Careers in Our Database
Listed below are occupations in our database that have similar responsibilities, and/or require similar skills, or be in the same sector of industry, as Animal Rights Coordinator:
• Community Outreach Coordinator
References
Please consult the following resources to learn more about what animal rights coordinators do for a living, and how you can become one:
Occupations in Alberta: “Manager of Volunteer Resources.” (March 16, 2016). ALIS website - Alberta Learning Information Service. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
Occupational Outlook Handbook - Business and Financial: “Fundraisers.” (September 4, 2019). United States Bureau of Labor Statistics website. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
Explore Careers: “Supervisor.” (n.d.). National Careers Service website. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
Animal Welfare & Activism: “Interview with Lindsay Wolf of Mercy for Animals.” (September 17, 2017). Get it Vegan website. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
Scholarships for Becoming an Animal Rights Coordinator
The “Relevant Fields of Study” section below shows fields of study relevant to a career as an animal rights coordinator. You can search for scholarships matched to those fields of study on our All Scholarships by Major page.
Success Tip: Be sure to apply for any scholarships that you even barely qualify for, as there are millions of dollars of scholarships that go unused every year due to a lack of applicants!
Relevant Fields of Study
Studying one of the college/university majors listed below can be helpful (or are necessary) for this line of work. Click on the links to find out what else you can do with these majors!
