Voiceless supports impactful initiatives in line with our vision to create a just, equitable world where animals can flourish. Billions of animals worldwide experience lives of abject suffering and deprivation in the animal-industrial complex, condoned by law, policy, and social institutions. 

As a leader with twenty years of experience in the field of animal protection, Voiceless draws on best-practice models, philosophies and processes to deliver an annual Grants Program which focuses exclusively on the root causes of animal exploitation and works to shift the anti-animal values, beliefs and assumptions that shape our political, social, legal and economic systems. 

Rather than working under existing attitudes, we support transformative, disruptive stances, visionary projects, partners and ideas, that will challenge the status-quo, ensure animals have fair and effective legal rights and realise our vision for a just and equitable where animals can flourish. 

We invest in people and projects to foster pro-animal values and create lasting systemic change by disrupting the status quo and reforming our social, political, legal and institutional systems.

Our website is also a rich library of animal law and animal protection education resources used by high school students, university students, educators, lawyers, and advocates. The Voiceless Animal Cruelty Index (VACI) is an important tool for animal advocates and scholars.  

Voiceless is an Australian-based charitable organisation, however the Voiceless Grants Program (VGP) has expanded its support for people and organisations internationally or wherever they may be located. Voiceless also works together with other advocates in the EU to campaign against the cruel commercial kangaroo industry and end the import of kangaroo products. 

Ondine Sherman, Voiceless Co-Founder and Managing Director 

Together with my father, Brian Sherman AM, I founded Voiceless in 2004. We both shared a love of animals and passion to protect them from legalized and institutionalised suffering. 

Since I was a child, I have always been an animal advocate and knew I would do whatever I could to create change.  Over the last 18 years it’s been an honour to pour my heart into the cause I feel so strongly about – building a fair and just world for animals. I am motivated each day by the desire to make a difference for the billions of animals who we deprive of all freedoms, who we fail to hear, and consider as property, with no inherent value beyond their use to us. I hope that Voiceless will continue to make a difference and that, in my lifetime, I will witness real and meaningful change.

Kate Grigg, Voiceless Co-ordinator

I joined the Voiceless team in early 2022 in the newly created Co-ordinator position. I manage the Voiceless Grants Program, online library of law and education resources, as well as communications with Voiceless supporters, partners, and networks.

I have had a lifelong affinity and kinship with animals and feel a sense of place since arriving into the Voiceless team, after 15 years of senior-level marketing and communications experience where my values were not aligned with my career. I am passionate about educating children about the equality of all living things and live by this principle in my home life by caring for my two young children, my elderly dogs and rescue hens, and creatively cooking to inspire my husband to go vegan. Working at Voiceless allows me to use my skills for purpose, advocate for the voiceless and to demonstrate to the next generation how important it is to work for a more just and equitable world for all animal kind.

Voiceless joined Eurogroup for Animals in 2019 to support coalition and network efforts for greater animal protection and advocacy. We were motivated to build a peer network of like-minded organisations, where information and knowledge is shared, and as a result, increased capacity within the movement is built. 

Voiceless's key focus in the EU, is ending the import of kangaroo products. The commercial kangaroo industry is the largest land-based slaughter of wildlife on Earth, and numerous cruelty issues are inherent in the industry. These include killing joeys (baby kangaroos in their mother’s pouches) as ‘by-products’ and the survival of the young-at-foot (young, still dependent, kangaroos), who are often left to die after slowly suffering. Non-fatal body shots are also a major concern.

Read more on kangaroo welfare.

As well as establishing our leading Voiceless Grants Program (VGP), supporting impactful, inspiring and innovative initiatives, we have grown our education reach through our Animal Protection Education (APE) resources, increased our animal law resources and contributed to vital collation work to better protect animals. All our activities are in line with our vision to create a just and equitable world where animals can flourish.

APPLY FOR A VOICELESS GRANT

If you are a changemaker dedicated to the protection of animals, you may be eligible to apply for a Voiceless Grant from 1st February 2023. Fill in an expression of interest via our website and if the project is of interest to Voiceless, we will be in touch to arrange a meeting. Please ensure that you have read and meet our VGP eligibility and selection criteria before completing your expression of interest.

MAKE A DONATION

You can also support Voiceless with a donation and help us strategically fund and support some of the most innovative and impactful projects within the animal protection movement.

There is nothing so powerful in the world as an idea whose time has come, and animal protection is just such an idea"

- The Honorable Michael Kirby AC CMG (Australia’s longest serving judge)