A toxic cult - Anonymous employee Avaaz Foundation Employee Review

Strong team culture vibe interesting

some campaigns can be rushed

The people you work alongside at Avaaz are genuinely some of the most talented, passionate, and creative individuals you'll find in the advocacy and campaigning space. The collective intelligence and commitment in the room is remarkable. You will learn a great deal. You'll be pushed creatively, exposed to global issues at a serious level, and surrounded by people who genuinely care about impact. If there is one thing Avaaz gives you, it's resilience: you develop it out of necessity, and the colleagues who go through it with you become a real source of strength. The mission, at its core, is still worth believing in.

The organisational culture is deeply dysfunctional, and the gap between Avaaz's public values and its internal reality is wide. Leadership is dominated by men who concentrate informal decision-making power amongst themselves, and this filters down into everyday dynamics in ways that are hard to ignore. Women's voices, regardless of seniority, are routinely talked over or dismissed on calls; ideas that come from female staff are frequently credited to male counterparts, and the leadership circle remains stubbornly male-minded despite the organisation's progressive external positioning. Senior leadership operates with a strong sense of exceptionalism - the unspoken belief that the importance of the mission excuses how people are treated internally. There is a well-established hierarchy of "judgement" that discourages dissent and creates a culture of fear around speaking up. Strategic direction shifts chaotically, priorities change without explanation, and accountability for poor behaviour amongst senior staff is virtually nonexistent. Multiple people have raised concerns over the last few years with little to no consequence for those involved. For women and people from underrepresented groups, this environment is particularly taxing. The cognitive dissonance of fighting for equity in the world whilst experiencing the opposite inside the organisation is exhausting and, over time, genuinely demoralising.