Celebrating 40 Years!

February of 2021 brings with it the 40th anniversary of Gentle World’s incorporation as an educational organization. As we reflect on this milestone, we invite our readers to celebrate with us as we look to the future with a brand new vision for GentleWorld.org.

Yes, it’s true… February 12th is Gentle World’s 40th anniversary, and a very kind and generous sponsor has gifted us with a matching funds pledge of up to $10,000, meaning your contribution will be doubled!

We are both honored and humbled to share the news of this matching challenge, which is intended to support our goal of greatly expanding our education as we look to the years ahead.

While last year marked the 50-year “veganniversary” of our founders (who became vegan in 1970) February of 2021 brings with it the 40th anniversary of Gentle World’s incorporation as an educational organization just over a decade later, in 1981.

(Also in February of 1981, in a curious coincidence, Gentle World’s Outreach Director Angel Flinn came into the world, just four days after Gentle World was born! We will be celebrating our 40th birthdays within days of one another, and she shares some thoughts on Medium about her own turning decade.)

As we reflect on this monumental milestone, we invite our readers to celebrate with us as we look to the future with a brand new vision for GentleWorld.org.

Gentle World’s unique approach has inspired countless individuals to embrace the vegan way of life, and even go on to become educators and influencers themselves.

In the weeks ahead, our website is to be relaunched with funds from a 2020 grant intended to help nonprofits bolster their online presence in response to the blows dealt to in-person programs by COVID.

This is tremendous for an organization with an all-volunteer staff and a nominal budget. The grant will not only cover a site rebuild that is long overdue, but will also provide for the creation of a handful of digital products to get the site on track to becoming a much-needed fundraiser in support of Gentle World’s overall outreach program.

Since this website was born, it has augmented the other aspects of our educational program by providing a global audience with (conservatively) over 40,000 hours (!) of education, offering information and inspiration on topics ranging from growing and preparing wholesome food, to being a more responsible consumer, to finding that place inside oneself where our veganism becomes absolute.

Thanks to our remarkable contributors, certain pages of this site have been at the top of Google search results more than once, including Alisa Rutherford-Fortunati’s beginner’s guide to growing kale. Alisa’s 2013 piece about the birds of the down industry has been shared on Facebook almost 5000 times.

10 Things Everyone Should Know About Free-Range Turkeys still brings our site to the top of Google results every Thanksgiving, when searches for “free range turkey” are at their peak.

In addition to her own powerful insights, Butterflies Katz has contributed dozens of articles through her two essay contests that created the books I’m a Vegan and Why I Will Always Be Vegan. Her co-written article entitled A Call to Feminists has been shared on Facebook over 2700 times.

With the launch of our new site, and with the assistance of this matching funds pledge, we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities to expand our reach as we look out over this new decade.

We are already deep into strategic planning around how to maximize the impact of the funds we’re able to raise, and with your help, we hope to open our online portal to more vegan-curious individuals than ever before, and to meet their need for information with content that is not only educational, but also inspiring and empowering.

As always, we wish to express our most sincere appreciation for all our readers and supporters, and all who have helped, through contributions and fellowship, to bring Gentle World to where we are in 2021.

40 years ago, our founding members couldn’t have imagined how much change they would see, and yet here we are today, with the world still so much in need of the vegan message of social responsibility and nonviolence.

We are thrilled to be celebrating not only 40 years of providing vegan education, but also 40,000 hours of online education generated by the valuable resources contained within the pages of our website.

On this day, as we reflect on the past 40 years, we will be raising a glass to the next 40, and to the next 40,000, 80,000, and 120,000 hours of online education…

We hope you’ll join us!

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WE’VE BEEN PIONEERS OF THE VEGAN MOVEMENT FOR OVER 40 YEARS,
INSPIRING CHANGE THROUGH EDUCATION, ADVOCACY, AND INNOVATION.

© Gentle World 2025. Gentle World is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) educational organization, helping to build a more peaceful society by educating the public about the reasons for being vegan, the benefits of vegan living, and how to go about making the transition. EIN: 59-1999433