An overview of the organisation’s current program portfolio, prepared as background for the 2026 Annual Strategy Meeting. Compiled September 2026.
Every program serves one of the three strategic aims adopted by the board. Vision: inspired by humanist values, we are optimistic for a world where humanists are no longer at risk for their beliefs or identity and everyone can have a dignified and fulfilling life. Mission: we build, support and represent the global humanist movement and work to champion human rights and secularism.
Click any program in the chart to jump to its description.
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Humanists CHAMPIONING HUMAN RIGHTS AND SECULARISM |
AIM 1 · SUSTAINABLE HUMANIST ORGANISATIONS
EXIST EVERYWHERE, NETWORKED TOGETHER
Growth & Development ProgramYoung Humanists InternationalLatin American Development PlanGeneral AssemblyWorld Humanist Congresses & regional eventsCongress scholarships (travel grants)Member training & grant workshopsEuropean Humanist Services NetworkMembership application process
AIM 2 · INFLUENTIAL HUMAN RIGHTS PRIORITIES
AT INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Freedom of Thought ReportUN Human Rights Council advocacyUN New York, UNESCO & OSCECouncil of Europe & EU lobbyingEuropean Policy Forum & Article 17Legal interventions (amicus briefs)Humanists at Risk caseworkOpposition monitoring & coalitionsEnd Blasphemy Laws campaign (dormant)
AIM 3 · REPUTATION, RESOURCES & EFFECTIVENESS
TO ACHIEVE OUR OBJECTIVES
Fundraising & donor stewardshipCommunications & FoT podcastFinance & operationsExternally-funded programsGovernance & the boardRisk, policies & compliance
How to read this page. Each program entry sets out what the work is and why we do it, how it runs, where it came from, what it has produced, and what is under discussion. Figures are taken from annual reports, management reports, program review documents and the organisation’s own website. Where a program is new or under development, the entry says so.
Advocacy delivers strategic aim 2: human rights priorities based on humanist values are influential at international institutions. Humanists International is the only global voice speaking specifically for humanists and the non-religious in the international system. It has held special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2000 and has been in official partnership with UNESCO since 1958; it holds consultative status in Geneva, Vienna and New York, general consultative status at UNICEF, participatory status at the Council of Europe, observer status at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and is a recognised Article 17 dialogue partner of the European Union. The team is small: a Senior Advocacy Officer, a European Advocacy and Research Officer based in Brussels, and an Advocacy and Research Officer based in London, supported by the Chief Executive and casework colleagues. The General Assembly sets policy through resolutions and declarations, held in a searchable policies library of more than 200 positions dating back to 1952; the board turns policy into an advocacy strategy and annual priorities; staff act within that frame.
Because humanism is a life stance, Humanists International and its members hold views on almost every human rights question. That breadth is a strength of the movement, but it cannot be an advocacy plan for a team of three. The advocacy strategy is the framework that decides where the team concentrates, at which institutions, and how members are brought into the work.
How we got here. Until 2017 advocacy was carried largely by volunteer delegations; from 2017 to 2018 it became a professional, staff-led function. A 2021 review asked whether the organisation was spreading itself too thin and focused the work on the United Nations. The European Policy Forum, established in 2022, brought organised European engagement back. In November 2025 the board added three new strands to the work plan: legal interventions (amicus briefs), engagement with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the UN Faith for Rights framework, each re-trialled with positive results. A discussion paper in July 2026, “Toward a Global Advocacy Strategy 2026 to 2030”, was developed into a board strategy paper for the October 2026 Annual Strategy Meeting.
Results. In 2024 Humanists International helped secure the withdrawal of a second iteration of Human Rights Council resolution 53/1 on the “desecration of religious texts”, briefing more than 100 states and speaking as the only NGO at the informal consultations. Its research is cited in UN Special Rapporteur reports; it briefs the EU Special Envoy on freedom of religion or belief before country missions; it chairs the NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief in Geneva. Output runs to roughly 30 UN statements a year. Since 2021 more than 80 leaders from member organisations have been trained in UN advocacy, and in 2026 the organisation was consulted directly by the United Nations for the first time.
What is proposed to 2030. Three named priorities: freedom of religion or belief for all and the rights of humanists and the non-religious; defending equality where the misuse of religion, or of the right to freedom of religion or belief, threatens it; and civic space and democracy, including artificial intelligence and humanist values under the 2025 Luxembourg Declaration. A flexibility margin of around 20 per cent is kept for member-driven and emerging issues, with a short decision filter for new requests. The UN stays at the centre, with Europe fully integrated through the European Policy Forum and Africa as the region to build next. Progress is reviewed at each Annual Strategy Meeting.
See also: Advocacy at Humanists International.
The European Policy Forum coordinates European humanist organisations in advocacy across the EU institutions and the Council of Europe. It is the organisation’s most developed piece of member-coordination machinery: 23 European Member and Associate organisations take part and fund it through additional voluntary contributions rather than external grants, and a European Advocacy and Research Officer in Brussels coordinates it. It was launched at the end of 2022 as a separately funded project, restoring organised European engagement after the 2021 decision to focus on the UN, and it grew out of a 2021 proposal to absorb the work of the European Humanist Federation, whose members had voted in 2020 to merge with Humanists International.
Results. The 2024 European Humanist Pledge, drafted with members and translated by them into 11 languages, was signed by 72 candidates for the European Parliament, nine of whom were elected. In 2026 the Forum delivered seminars on artificial intelligence and humanist values at both the European Parliament and the European Commission, submitted to the consultation on the EU Civil Society Strategy 2026 to 2030, raised concerns about the proposed Digital Omnibus legislation, and brought the Vice-President of the European Parliament to the launch of the Freedom of Thought Report in Brussels. Project income from members was £50,506 in the first quarter of 2026 against a target of £35,000.
What next. A June 2026 policy paper, “Future Directions for the European Policy Forum”, asks whether the Forum should remain a broad monitoring hub or channel collective resources into one or two focused campaigns, and proposes opt-in working groups as the way to do both. It goes to the Forum’s in-person meeting in Brussels in early 2027, timed with the Freedom of Thought Report launch and a board meeting. The agreed direction is that by 2028 the Forum becomes core work, with a core budget line and guaranteed hub functions, while continued member contributions could fund additional European research and advocacy capacity. Its three standing strands are:
See also: European Policy Forum.
Direct advocacy in the institutions of the European Union to safeguard secular values and human rights in EU policy-making. Humanists International has been on the EU Transparency Register since May 2017. The work is delivered by the Brussels-based European Advocacy and Research Officer, through the European Policy Forum, under the Senior Advocacy Officer. Since the 2024 European elections a growing number of governments in Europe have shown less regard for democracy and human rights, and that shift is reflected in the institutions, which makes a consistent secular voice in Brussels more necessary rather than less.
The Council of Europe is the one pan-European body whose work feeds directly into the European Convention system: a Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) resolution or a well-placed report can influence 46 member states and the doctrine the European Court of Human Rights later draws on. The work defends secularism, freedom of expression and the rights of the non-religious at the standard-setting stage, before issues reach litigation, and also covers freedom of expression, LGBTI+ rights, women’s rights and reproductive rights. Access rests on participatory status, held by fewer than 500 international NGOs, which gives a formal seat in the Conference of INGOs (CINGO) and its committee on interreligious and inter-convictional dialogue, where the non-religious voice is otherwise easily crowded out.
How it works. PACE meets four times a year for week-long part-sessions in Strasbourg and CINGO meets twice a year; lobbying continues between sessions. The highest-leverage point of entry is the report stage: feeding evidence and language to a rapporteur while a text is being drafted shapes everything downstream. The Senior Advocacy Officer oversees strategy and the European Advocacy and Research Officer leads operationally, giving roughly 5 per cent and 20 per cent of their time respectively; the officer usually attends Strasbourg in person twice a year at a cost of about £700 for a week.
Results. In April 2026 PACE adopted a resolution on countering discrimination based on religion and protecting freedom of religion or belief with direct input from Humanists International at drafting stage, which the rapporteur highlighted in his report. The adopted text affirms that freedom of religion or belief includes the right not to hold a religious belief, and that religious education must be pluralist, objective and non-confessional, a long-standing recommendation of the organisation. Its positioning has also helped keep participatory status from being granted to well-resourced organisations that use religious freedom arguments against the rights of others.
What is under discussion. Protecting in-person presence at part-sessions carrying relevant reports; using CINGO more deliberately; tracking upcoming reports systematically so drafting windows are not missed; documenting contacts so the work does not rest on one person; and selectively seeking observer status on Council of Europe intergovernmental committees, where European standards are first drafted, weighing the cost of uncompensated travel.
Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union commits the EU to an open, transparent and regular dialogue with churches and with philosophical and non-confessional organisations. Humanists International is a recognised Article 17 dialogue partner, which places the non-religious voice in the EU’s formal consultation channel alongside the churches and lets the organisation nominate humanist speakers. Strategic coordination of member speakers is a distinct part of the work, so that the non-religious presence is not confined to the secretariat. In 2026 the organisation delivered seminars on artificial intelligence and humanist values at both the European Parliament and the European Commission under Article 17, cited as evidence that the artificial intelligence agenda gives it a distinctive, forward-looking niche. Continuity of Article 17 status and relationships is one of the strongest reasons for bringing the European Policy Forum into core work.
The Universal Periodic Review examines every country’s human rights record in turn. Humanists International submits evidence on the treatment of humanists and the non-religious as countries come up for review, lobbies recommending states, and, above all, trains and supports member organisations to make their own submissions. The advocacy team monitors UPR agendas to identify opportunities, and UPR cycles are tracked alongside the Freedom of Thought Report schedule.
Results. Since 2021 more than 80 leaders from Member and Associate organisations have been trained in UPR engagement, with participants rating the training around 9 out of 10. In the first quarter of 2026 the training reached 14 member organisations, with 18 participants and an average Net Promoter Score of 9.42; a newly admitted member, Humanists Trinidad and Tobago, made a UPR submission after the training. Since 2023 more than two dozen members have addressed the UN, fed into UN reports or prepared UPR submissions with the organisation’s support.
What is under discussion. Funding to bring members and minoritised individuals to Geneva for Human Rights Council and UPR sessions is proposed as a budget priority from 2027, since members delivering their own statements in person has the highest impact. A regional training track is proposed to build member routes into the African Commission, the Inter-American system and ASEAN. The known weaknesses are slow member response rates, language barriers and heavy reliance on email against short UN deadlines.
Formal written statements to Human Rights Council sessions and inputs to the thematic and country reports of UN Special Rapporteurs. They place documented concerns about freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and the treatment of the non-religious on the official UN record and create a durable text that others can cite. In the first quarter of 2026 Humanists International secured citations for itself and its members in the official report of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, who also joined the February 2026 Freedom of Thought Report launch. Written work feeds the wider briefing effort: 72 senior officials and stakeholders were briefed on issues of concern in that quarter, against 12 a year earlier. Reporting on this work is moving from counting outputs towards tracking outcomes, within a monitoring, evaluation and learning framework planned to be live from 2027.
The Human Rights Council plenary is one of the few global platforms where states can be named directly for violations against humanists, atheists and the non-religious. Each 90-second statement, delivered under a general debate or interactive dialogue across the three annual sessions, puts the criticism in the room with the state concerned and produces an official UN record and video. The strategic value is less the 90 seconds than what it anchors: diplomatic pressure on offending states, visible solidarity for defenders on the ground, working relationships with Special Rapporteurs and sympathetic missions, and the standing credibility that underpins the rest of the UN work.
How it works. The distinctive feature, which sets the organisation apart from most international NGOs, is delegation: where possible, speaking slots are handed to member organisations so that grassroots voices address the Council directly on their own countries, tying the international platform back to national advocacy and building members’ capacity and profile. Members from Myanmar and Malaysia delivered video statements at the 60th session. The November 2025 work plan commits that every new Member or Associate is offered at least one opportunity to address the UN within its first 12 to 24 months. Each statement takes roughly one to one and a half staff days from drafting to delivery, filming, subtitling and news coverage; remote delivery keeps direct costs low, while travel to Geneva costs about £700 per trip per staff member.
Results and challenges. Six to eleven statements per session, roughly 30 a year. The challenges are real: speaking slots are allocated by a competitive lottery with poor transparency, scheduling is unpredictable, the work concentrates into heavy session periods for a two-person team, and impact is hard to measure. The development focus is to get more from each statement rather than to make more: short practical guidance for members on building a delivered statement into a national campaign, and help lining up national media on the day of delivery.
Engaging state delegations on the text of Human Rights Council resolutions that touch freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and civic space: the workstream where a small organisation can change international language rather than comment on it. The clearest result is the 2024 withdrawal of the second iteration of resolution 53/1 on the “desecration of religious texts”, when Humanists International briefed more than 100 states and was the only NGO to speak at the informal consultations. Two UN resolutions were influenced by the organisation’s advocacy in the first quarter of 2026, and it coordinated 79 civil society organisations to urge continued United States engagement with the UN. The context has hardened: the consensus around religion and expression at the UN has been destabilised, the freedom of religion or belief agenda is fragmenting into single-faith tracks outside the universal framework, and UN budget pressures are reducing civil society access. In 2026 the organisation contributed, with the UN Human Rights Office, Article 19 and the Swiss Government, to an expert workshop on the Rabat Plan of Action, the UN’s framework on the line between free expression and incitement to hatred.
Humanists International has been in official partnership with UNESCO since 1958, one of its two oldest international accreditations, and holds associate NGO partnership status. Engagement focuses on UNESCO’s education, science and culture agenda where humanist concerns arise: objective education about religions and beliefs, cultural rights, science and rationality, and participation in the 2005 Convention on Cultural Expression and related conferences. In 2026 UNESCO meetings were used to lay the groundwork for long-term funding and cooperation. Engagement is intermittent and limited by capacity, since travel to Paris competes with Geneva and New York; the proposed answer is not withdrawal but choosing each year, through board-agreed priorities, where the organisation will be most active.
A third-party intervention lets Humanists International put legal argument before a court hearing a case that will shape the rights of humanists, atheists and the non-religious, without being a party. Done well, it is some of the highest-leverage advocacy available: a single intervention in a strong case can move doctrine across an entire regional system and bind dozens of states at once, which no statement or report can do. UN outputs are seldom binding; these courts can and do bind.
How it works. The work is ad hoc and reactive, with a conservative target of one or two interventions a year, relying on in-house legal research capacity. Three systems are in scope: the European Court of Human Rights, where the organisation has the deepest doctrinal footing and where anti-rights litigators are most active; the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, where blasphemy and apostasy issues arise that few others can address; and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where the humanist perspective is largely absent. A single intervention can absorb anywhere from a few days to several weeks of advocacy and legal research time, concentrated into a short window once leave to intervene is granted; direct costs are low.
History and status. Added to the work plan in November 2025. In the first quarter of 2026 the organisation sought leave to intervene at the European Court of Human Rights for the first time; the application was not accepted, and no reasons were given. The question is not whether to keep or cut the strand but how much to invest and how fast: prove the model with one or two carefully chosen European cases; apply a go/no-go test (is the mandate squarely engaged, is the argument missing from the case, is leave plausible); agree a fast internal sign-off; turn existing research on blasphemy, apostasy, freedom of religion or belief and secularism into intervention-ready argument; partner with pro bono legal advisers as many members do; and build Spanish-language capacity so the Inter-American Court becomes realistic. An international network of humanist lawyers and advocates sharing expertise across jurisdictions is a related idea under discussion.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is the continental human rights body, and a priority venue given the concentration of blasphemy and apostasy enforcement in the region and member demand for routes into regional mechanisms. Humanists International holds observer status, one of around 570 organisations to do so, but is not yet active there. The November 2025 work plan provided for activating that status as part of an African and Asian advocacy project, and in September 2026 Africa was confirmed as the priority region for advocacy development to 2030, with a scoping exercise by 2027 and formal proposals by 2028. The board’s 2027 Annual Strategy Meeting in Africa, alongside a meeting of African members, gives that ambition a natural anchor. Earlier timelines were missed because of the travel load elsewhere and hiring gaps, and prioritising Africa involves explicit trade-offs against Asia and Latin America.
The OSCE’s human dimension process reviews the freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression commitments of its 57 participating states, and civil society can intervene. Its reach into Central Asia is the specific attraction, since Humanists International has no Members or Associates there. Engagement was re-trialled at the end of 2025 with a positive assessment on four counts: the organisation can deliver statements there; OSCE technical guidance is influential beyond the OSCE itself; its 57 states give reach into Central Asia; and the humanist voice is being actively sought. A further visit was planned for autumn 2026 on a minimal budget.
Representation at UN headquarters, engaging the Commission on the Status of Women and the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which handles social, humanitarian and human rights questions, and working with the UN Population Fund. Humanists International holds special consultative status in New York as well as Geneva and Vienna. The strategic case has sharpened because the freedom of religion or belief agenda is stretching from Geneva to New York, so a Geneva-only footprint no longer covers the file. The structural weakness, first documented in a 2024 review, is that the organisation has no standing presence in either city; UN side events in New York are a 2027 target.
Well-resourced anti-rights and religious-right actors operate in the same rooms as Humanists International, with full-time presence at every major international institution, national litigation networks in dozens of countries and training pipelines for young lawyers, and they are willing to use humanist issues and cases for their own ends. Opposition monitoring tracks these actors, their arguments and their funding so that the organisation’s advocacy anticipates rather than reacts. A partner test agreed in November 2025 asks of any prospective ally: is this group actively working to undermine our values, or working against democracy? Applying it, the organisation works constructively with a range of faith-based and interfaith bodies while declining to engage those that instrumentalise religious freedom against the rights of others.
Ad hoc expert briefings and opinion to other actors on request, drawing on the Freedom of Thought Report evidence base and in-house expertise: a low-cost, high-credibility channel where Humanists International is often the only source able to speak specifically to the situation of the non-religious. Briefing relationships include the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), where a briefing to commissioners was scheduled for 2026 to inform its monitoring and reporting; US State Department desk officers, who seek briefings on countries in their remit and draw on the report in International Religious Freedom reporting; the EU Special Envoy on freedom of religion or belief, briefed before country missions; and former UN Special Rapporteurs and networks such as the Faith in Democracy Network. Seventy-two senior officials and stakeholders were briefed in the first quarter of 2026, against 12 a year earlier.
Standing membership of NGO coalitions pools influence, keeps humanist priorities inside broader civil society platforms and gives early sight of emerging issues; change pathway 2.2 of the strategy is that other NGOs understand our priorities and take action on them. Formal memberships are the Human Rights and Democracy Network, the European Citizen Action Service, the Council of Europe’s committee on interreligious and inter-convictional dialogue, and the NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the UN in Geneva, which Humanists International chairs; the organisation is also a founding participant in the UN Faith for Rights framework. Informal coalitions, such as joint open letters, are quick-response initiatives. Six joint NGO initiatives were recorded in the first quarter of 2026, including coordinating 79 organisations on continued US engagement with the UN and joint letters on protecting civil society funding, protecting UN human rights mechanisms and investigating the repression of protests in Iran.
Two intertwined strands: the Freedom of Thought Report, the only global survey of discrimination and persecution against humanists, atheists and the non-religious, and the Humanists at Risk casework program, which since 2024 has focused its support primarily on leaders of humanist organisations. Both are led by the Casework and Research Manager, with a full-time Freedom of Thought Report Research Coordinator and a share of the European Advocacy and Research Officer’s time. Together they are the evidence base for the organisation’s advocacy, and the reason states, UN experts and journalists come to Humanists International for information they cannot find elsewhere.
The Freedom of Thought Report carries an entry for every country in the world, 196 in all, organised under four strands: constitution and government; education and children’s rights; family, community, society, religious courts and tribunals; and freedom of expression and advocacy of humanist values. Each country is assessed against around sixty “boundary conditions”, statements such as “blasphemy is outlawed and punishable with a prison sentence”, each at one of five severity levels from Grave Violations to Free and Equal. It is published under a Creative Commons licence as an online edition at fot.humanists.international, updated on a rolling schedule, and as an annual printed Key Countries edition of around ten in-depth entries and a watch list.
History. The report began in 2012, when, at the request of the US State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, the American Humanist Association convened the Center for Inquiry, IHEU, the Richard Dawkins Foundation and the Secular Coalition for America to produce a report on discrimination against atheists; it launched on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2012, covering 60 countries. The 2013 edition covered every country. Ratings matured through 2014 to 2017, with a launch at the European Parliament in 2017. In 2021 the board agreed a rolling update cycle and commissioned a review of the boundary conditions; a member consultation in the tenth-anniversary year, 2022, led to a five-year schedule of updates, a “significant factual update” facility, and quarterly training and monthly drop-in sessions for contributors. In 2024 the casework review protected investment in the report and consolidated research under the Casework and Research Manager.
Reach and impact. A former UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief called it “an invaluable source of well-researched and important information for policymakers”. US State Department desk officers seek briefings on countries in their remit and the report is drawn on in International Religious Freedom reporting. It directly aids asylum applications, including embassy applications by Afghan humanists at risk that ended in resettlement. The 2025 Key Countries edition ran to 124 pages with around 700 references, featured Bangladesh, El Salvador, Georgia, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malta, Myanmar, Sudan and the United States, and carried a foreword by Mubarak Bala. The 2025 launch cycle recorded 479 attendees across events, and a previous launch cycle tripled newsletter sign-ups in a year.
2026 developments. A discussion paper in July 2026, “The Future of the Freedom of Thought Report”, and a board strategy paper for October 2026 set the direction to 2030. The headline decisions in hand are to retire the composite world map and public summary scores, which force 196 countries into five colour bands and can place very different countries in the same band, replacing them with a neutral locator map, per-strand indicators and visible “last updated” dates; to complete a full review of the boundary conditions by mid-2027 and apply it from the 2027 edition; to add a country dashboard showing external indicators alongside each entry; and to publish a methodology note explaining that the report classifies problems, not countries. The board is asked to endorse that level of ambition with a 2027 budget line of roughly £12,000 to £18,000, and to consider a new strategic aim in which the report is the flagship for documenting and defending the rights of the non-religious. Its component workstreams are:
The year-round engine of the report: reviewing, researching, editing and finalising country entries before publication. Staff research is combined with engagement of Member and Associate organisations, framed as an opportunity for them to become involved, share their insights and shape their country entry for future use in advocacy, supported by guidance documents and one-to-one meetings. Staffing is the Casework and Research Manager, the Research Coordinator (four days a week on the report) and about 20 per cent of the European Advocacy and Research Officer’s time; £400 a year is budgeted for external researchers and translators, with website maintenance covered centrally. Seventeen country entries were updated in the first quarter of 2026, against six a year earlier. Reference documents include the guidance on contributing to the report, the country entry guidance, the style guide, the watch list criteria and the guidance on the online editing system. The guiding principle is that the quality of country updates must come first, to protect the integrity of the report.
Content editing, proofreading and overall production management of the annual published edition. The 2025 edition (124 pages, around 700 references, ten countries, six infographics) was launched at the Press Club in Brussels on 25 February 2026 and live-streamed, with speakers including the Vice-President of the European Parliament and the Head of the Human Rights Division of the European External Action Service, and video addresses from the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, a US Congressman and Mubarak Bala. By April 2026 the edition had been downloaded 666 times and its social media content had reached more than 25,000 people. The 2026 edition launches in Brussels in February 2027, alongside the board’s meeting there.
Small grants enabling Member and Associate organisations to hold national launches of the report, turning a global publication into national advocacy moments. Three members hosted launches in the last quarter of 2025 and the 2025 cycle recorded 479 attendees in total; the Oslo launch in March 2026, run by the Norwegian Humanist Association with the United Nations Association of Norway, drew 60 to 70 people. Separately, a 2026 Development Grant of £4,985 is bringing the report to Malaysia in Bahasa Malaysia. Template letters that members can send to national institutions on launch day are proposed as a next step.
The report’s annual global launch, the centrepiece of its media and diplomatic visibility. The February 2026 Brussels launch was the biggest campaigning success of the quarter and was accompanied by the release of the Freedom of Thought podcast. From 2027 the launch is timed with the European Policy Forum’s in-person meeting and a board meeting in Brussels, so that the report, the European network and the board are in the same city in the same week.
The Schedule of Updates, introduced in 2021, lets Humanists International and member organisations plan, prioritise and complete a set number of country entry updates each year. A 2026 review, carried out by the Casework and Research Manager at no additional cost, found discrepancies between the schedule and the planning tool used to manage updates, and concluded that the previous target of updating all 196 countries over five years (around 39 a year) was not achievable at current capacity without sacrificing quality. The refreshed schedule is 28 updates a year over roughly seven years, with the intention of expanding if research capacity grows; securing funding for a dedicated second researcher is a 2027 goal. The schedule is to be reviewed regularly against internal and external developments.
A comprehensive review of the rating criteria, initiated by the board in June 2026. Staff analysis has found that the conditions are inconsistent (some binary, some vague, some with clear “laddering” between severity levels and others without), that the rules distinguishing neighbouring levels are often undefined, and that the conditions do not capture whether laws are enforced or whether checks and balances prevent abuse, so the report leans towards the letter of the law rather than lived reality. Five working principles are proposed: distinguish law from practice within each strand and add enforcement-sensitive conditions; define every condition and its ladder; rate only what has been researched, showing “insufficient information” rather than defaulting to a favourable reading; publish no composite scores; and plan the transition carefully so that fourteen years of comparable data are not lost. Rule of law is to be captured through internal conditions and a contextual display of external indices rather than by importing another organisation’s index. The review completes by mid-2027 and applies from the 2027 edition.
Continuous review of how the report is managed, feeding improvements to guidance, tools and ways of working. Three structural questions are open. The report website needs investment: search and regional menus have needed repair, the PDF download is poor and references must be entered by hand. Whether to migrate the report onto the main Humanists International website, which would mean one set of maintenance costs rather than two and better discoverability, is being scoped. And the monitoring of how the report is used, in advocacy, asylum cases, media and research, is captured only patchily; a single collection point for recorded uses, an annual request to members and routine staff logging are proposed. The proposed country dashboard would add a compact, clearly attributed panel to each entry showing external indicators (for example the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, Freedom House, Pew’s Government Restrictions Index, the CIVICUS Monitor, UN treaty and UPR status, and the organisation’s own End Blasphemy Laws data) with source links, displaying context without feeding the ratings, at an estimated £10,000 to £15,000 of development plus staff time.
A short new report built on a thematic or regional trend emerging from the 2025 and 2026 Freedom of Thought Report research, extending the report’s evidence base into standalone analysis. Thematic spin-offs from the report are identified in the advocacy strategy as an opportunity because they create ready-made action moments for members, and one of the strategy’s illustrative outcomes to 2030 is the report consolidated as the movement’s evidence engine with regular thematic outputs. Scoping of the theme and timetable is in hand.
A short report for humanists at risk focused on safety and security best practices, distilling casework experience into usable guidance for individuals and for the member organisations supporting them. It connects to the internal audit of the Humanists at Risk web resources, which covers safety and security among its topics, and to the Congress session that is the dissemination route to members. Content will be informed by engagement with partner organisations, involvement in the EU Temporary Relocation Mechanism and staff experience. Capacity is the constraint: the same small team carries casework, security reporting and funding applications.
A 2026 project to consolidate the secure channels through which at-risk individuals contact the organisation, protecting both the people seeking help and the integrity of casework. Humanists at Risk policies have been developed since 2020 and crisis management frameworks are in place. Information security is a live concern across the organisation: board members are asked not to download confidential papers or enter their contents into artificial intelligence tools, and a formal policy on the use of artificial intelligence by staff and board members is being drafted.
Ongoing and new support to at-risk humanists connected to Member and Associate organisations, plus limited support to legacy cases. The program is deliberately scoped. In 2019 the organisation redirected resources from a communications post to create a Casework and Campaigns Manager role, supported by an annual crowdfunding appeal; in April 2020 the first full-time Humanists at Risk Coordinator was appointed; and by 2021 the program was handling hundreds of requests for help a year, including the four-year campaign for Mubarak Bala, President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, arrested in April 2020 and released in August 2024. In 2024 a strategic review concluded that an open-door approach was not sustainable for an organisation of this size: applications for support were closed in mid-2024, the board moved humanists at risk from a distinct strategic aim into the organisation’s vision, and the program was refocused on supporting leaders of humanist organisations rather than any individual who applies.
Today. In the first quarter of 2026 one active case remained after two earlier cases ended in the individuals’ safe relocation; the active case received a grant for relocation and subsistence, and when visa issues prevented relocation the funds were used for subsistence and security alongside personalised advice on long-term options and a shelter scheme application. Support is also given to member organisations whose leaders are at risk, such as the Council of Ex-Muslims in Sri Lanka, an Associate. The board is being asked in October 2026 to consider a new strategic aim covering the rights of the non-religious, with humanists at risk understood as human rights defenders and the Freedom of Thought Report as the flagship. See also: Humanists at Risk.
Working with protection partners so that a small team can route cases to specialised support and keep its guidance current. The named examples are the ProtectDefenders meeting and the EU Temporary Relocation Mechanism. ProtectDefenders.eu is the European Union’s human rights defenders mechanism, led by a consortium of 12 NGOs; it runs a permanent rapid-response mechanism for defenders in danger, manages temporary relocation within countries, regions or internationally, facilitates shelters and coordinates the EU temporary relocation platform. Humanists International’s work with the platform, and the Mubarak Bala case, are among the themes identified for the organisation’s 75th anniversary history. Two meetings or briefings with other NGOs on individuals at risk were held in the first quarter of 2026.
An internal audit of the public-facing Humanists at Risk resources, particularly the Humanists at Risk section of the website, which covers emergency assistance providers, temporary relocation, safety and security, and asylum. The section is an essential resource for member organisations and for the individuals who contact the organisation seeking help. It is comprehensive and well researched, but it has not been refreshed recently, leaving broken links and potentially outdated guidance, and most of the information sits in drop-down sections that are easy to miss. The audit, carried out by the Casework and Research Manager in the second half of 2026 at no additional cost, will review all content, add, edit and remove material, and produce a refreshed resource library for members, partners and the public. The intention is that the resources page is then updated at least every two years.
A dedicated session at the 2026 World Humanist Congress in Ottawa bringing safety and security practice directly to members, the in-person counterpart to the best-practice report and the refreshed resource library. The Congress theme, “Humanism as Resistance”, and the Ottawa Declaration adopted by the General Assembly commit the movement to “radical, compassionate solidarity” with those who must remain silent out of a justifiable fear of reprisal, and to building resilient grassroots communities that provide safe havens for vulnerable voices so that no one has to resist alone.
The End Blasphemy Laws campaign seeks the complete abolition of all laws that criminalise “blasphemy” in any form and limit the freedom of expression of all people. Humanists International, then IHEU, took the lead in forming the coalition in 2015 after the killings at Charlie Hebdo, bringing together humanist and atheist organisations to work for abolition globally, starting with Europe. Its standing asset is the End Blasphemy Laws website, with a page for every country that has laws penalising blasphemy, religious insult or apostasy, whether or not they are used; it has become an essential reference for researchers and campaigners and records that individuals face capital punishment for blasphemy in seven countries.
Results. In the five years after launch, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Ireland, Norway, Malta, Iceland, Denmark, Greece, New Zealand and France took steps towards or completed repeal, with coalition partners heavily involved in several. Advocacy under the campaign’s name has included educating legislators and the human rights community, raising individual cases, and feeding into UN plans of action including the Rabat Plan of Action and the Fez process, contributing to a marked shift in how the repeal of blasphemy legislation is perceived by UN member states.
Status and options. A campaign strategy was drafted for consultation in 2020 but not completed, and the campaign has been dormant since, with the website out of date. The lessons recorded in that draft still hold: the broader the coalition, including religious and general freedom of expression groups, the greater the likelihood of success; partner engagement needs a shared calendar and coordinated actions to be sustained; and a passive approach does not attract partners from outside the existing network. The advocacy strategy to 2030 proposes relaunching the campaign as a member-powered effort under the freedom of religion or belief priority, with demonstrable movement on blasphemy or apostasy laws in an agreed set of focus countries as the outcome, a possible annual humanist advocacy week, and the campaign’s country data displayed on Freedom of Thought Report country dashboards. A keep, revive or retire decision on the website is flagged for the board.
The operational backbone behind strategic aim 3. Humanists International runs two legal entities: Humanists International, Inc., a New York not-for-profit with 501(c)(3) status, and Humanists International 2020, a Scottish charity (SC050629, registered 14 December 2020) and company limited by guarantee, which employs the staff and handles European banking. It holds a US endowment of around $3 million, of which the original gift of $2.7 million must be preserved under New York law, carries multiple insurances across two jurisdictions, meets UK compliance through the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and Companies House and US compliance through the IRS and the New York Attorney General, and employs or contracts personnel in more than five countries as a fully remote team of about eleven. Income in 2024 was $712,666 on the consolidated accounts, with membership dues the largest source and personnel around 60 per cent of expenditure. By income this is a small organisation; by what has to be managed, it is a complex one.
Annual invoicing and renewal of Member and Associate dues, run jointly by the finance and membership teams through the CiviCRM database, and the organisation’s primary income source. Fees are set as a proportion of each organisation’s income under the 2019 reforms: 1 per cent of average gross annual income over the previous three years for Members, 0.7 per cent for national-level Associates and Associates in countries without a Member, and 0.5 per cent for other Associates, with alternative arrangements available for the largest organisations. Ninety per cent of fees, £262,000 of a £292,000 budget, had been collected by the end of March 2026, and retention runs at over 90 per cent. Membership fee income has grown from £108,078 in 2017 to $393,144 in 2024 as the reformed structure took effect. See also: Join Humanists International.
Regular management accounts and quarterly reporting to the board, supporting its financial scrutiny role. The quarterly management report carries a red, amber, green dashboard for financial solvency, operational capacity and strategic progress, with a data snapshot for each strategic aim. In the first quarter of 2026 financial solvency was green, operational capacity amber (because three World Humanist Congresses were in planning at once) and strategic progress green; the forecast operating deficit for the year had fallen to 12 per cent from 28 to 29 per cent a year earlier. Reporting to the board is being redesigned after the 2026 Annual Strategy Meeting around the strategic markers adopted for each aim.
Statutory accounts and audit across both legal entities and at group level, meeting Scottish charity, UK company and US requirements, with filings to OSCR, Companies House, the IRS and New York Charities. The first consolidated audit in US dollars covered the year ended 31 December 2021. At the 2026 General Assembly in Ottawa the audited consolidated statements for 2025 were approved unanimously and Alta CPA Group of Annapolis, Maryland, was appointed as US auditor. Published consolidated figures: income of $1,135,869 in 2021, $907,035 in 2022, $1,554,621 in 2023 and $712,666 in 2024, with the swings largely reflecting investment gains and losses on the endowment and the timing of grant revenue. Annual reports from 2017 onwards are published on the Humanists International website.
The team is fully remote, and in-person all-staff meetings are its coordination rhythm and its main investment in cohesion. Meetings were held in London in March 2026 and at the end of June 2026, with further meetings scheduled for November 2026 and March, June and November 2027. The same function covers the logistics of the organisation’s in-person events, principally the World Humanist Congress and General Assembly, and the board’s in-person meetings.
The annual budget cycle: prepared by management, approved by the board at its December meeting, and presented to the General Assembly by the Chief Executive with the Head of Finance and Operations and the Treasurer. The 2026 General Assembly approved the future budget unanimously. The outcomes of the October 2026 Annual Strategy Meeting will inform the full 2027 budget, which goes to the board for approval in December 2026; management’s proposal is a trajectory to a balanced core budget, before endowment returns, by 2029.
An open discussion about whether to establish a physical office in London as a central hub and resource centre for the team. The organisation had London premises until 2023, when the board decided to close the office to save resources and maintain a virtual registered office in Glasgow; the registered office moved to Clyde Offices, Glasgow, in June 2025. A physical office is not legally required. Management will bring options and costs to a quarterly board meeting.
Employment, payroll and people management for a team of about eleven across several countries, some employed through an employer of record, each with its own employment law, tax and payroll arrangements. Staff satisfaction was 90 per cent in both 2023 and 2024, up from 76 per cent in 2022; turnover is 11 per cent. An appraisal system is in use with individual goals for each staff member, and a salary review takes place in November 2026. The staff expenses policy and all staff contracts were reviewed in 2025 to 2026. The strategic intention is to keep the core team stable and properly resourced for the compliance load, and to add temporary project capacity through restricted funding rather than growing the core beyond what unrestricted income supports.
The policy and control framework that keeps a small, distributed organisation compliant in two jurisdictions: the Delegated Authority Policy (2021), which sets the division of roles between the board and the Chief Executive; the Finance Regulations, revised by the board in May 2026 to set the Chief Executive’s delegated limits (authority to spend against the approved budget, movement between budget lines of up to £16,000 before board notification, overspend of up to £5,000 on a single item before board approval, and notification to the Treasurer of any single expenditure of £20,000 or more); the Financial Controls Policy and Personnel Expenses Policy (2022); the Board Handbook; and procurement, safeguarding, data protection and whistleblowing policies. A live compliance risk is banking: because the board is international, the organisation faces strict compliance checks from UK banks each time it changes, and keeps funds across several accounts while advocating for banking rules fairer to global charities. A single compliance calendar and a policy register with review dates are being introduced, along with a policy on the use of artificial intelligence and information security.
The membership function delivers strategic aim 1: successful and sustainable humanist organisations exist in every part of the world and are networked together. Humanists International unites 120 Member and Associate organisations (67 Members and 53 Associates at the start of 2026) in 60 countries: 49 in Europe, 19 in Africa, 18 in the United States and Canada, 13 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 7 in South-East and East Asia, 6 in South Asia, 5 in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific and 2 in the Middle East and North Africa. Sixty-nine per cent of the world’s countries still have no humanist organisation. The Membership Manager is the first point of contact for members and applicants. The four change pathways under the aim are: leadership teams are supported and developed; organisations are supported to develop their activities; organisations have ongoing opportunities to connect and collaborate; and humanists in countries with no organisation are supported to establish one. A Membership Strategy 2026 to 2030, covering every program below, goes to the board in October 2026; it proposes Latin America as the target region for growth to 2030, a Latin American regional network launched at the 2027 Congress in Lima, and a regional meeting of African leaders alongside the 2027 board meeting in Africa.
The General Assembly is the sovereign body of Humanists International and its policy-making body, made up of representatives of Members and Associates together with the board. It must meet at least once every calendar year, may be held online or by correspondence, and every three years takes the form of a World Humanist Congress. It receives the accounts, appoints the auditor, elects the board and adopts the resolutions and declarations that make up the policies library dating back to 1952. Quorum is one third of Member votes from at least three countries; voting weights are 13, 7 and 1 for Members according to size and dues history, and 1 for nationally operating Associates. The Assembly is announced 120 days ahead, with resolutions, nominations and voter registration closing 40 days before. Attendance is free and not tied to a Congress ticket. It elects a board of ten trustees on three-year terms, with reserved seats for a member aged 35 or under and for Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Recent history. Valletta 2016 expanded the board from six to nine; London 2017 mandated the change of name; Reykjavik 2019 reformed membership, voting and dues so that voting was no longer concentrated in a few large European members; the first online Assembly in October 2020 drew 111 delegates; Glasgow 2022, the 70th anniversary Assembly, adopted the Declaration of Modern Humanism unanimously; Copenhagen 2023 brought 130 delegates from 27 countries and created the under-35 seat; a 2024 Emergency General Assembly adopted electronic voting; Singapore 2024 raised Member voting weights; Luxembourg 2025 elected Maggie Ardiente as the first President chosen by the whole Assembly and adopted the Luxembourg Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Humanist Values; and an Emergency General Assembly in January 2026 amended the bylaws, including a new procedure for emergency resolutions.
Ottawa, August 2026. With 283 votes present against a quorum of 161, the Assembly approved the 2025 accounts and the future budget unanimously, appointed a new US auditor, and elected Leo Igwe as Vice-President and Adrián Núñez (Latin America), A.J. Surin (Asia) and Alavari Jeevathol (under-35) to the board. It adopted the Ottawa Declaration on Humanism as Resistance and a resolution on rebuilding multilateralism, referred a draft declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples back to the board for a consulted statement, and mandated the board to conduct a governance review on term limits, cooling-off periods between staff and board roles and an electoral commission, with bylaw amendments to come to the 2027 Assembly in Lima. Delegates agreed to submit a one-page annual update on their organisation. Proposals under discussion for future Assemblies include a genuine strategic session with member dialogue, action plans attached to resolutions, and remote participation so that members refused visas are not excluded. See also: General Assembly.
The youth section of Humanists International, the connecting link between young people in humanist organisations around the world, automatically encompassing members aged 18 to 35 of every member organisation. Its mission is to connect young humanists globally, support their development within the movement, and empower them to contribute to humanism’s growth nationally and internationally. Since 2021 it has run to an Annual Working Plan with a coordinator and five regional volunteer coordinators (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and North America) meeting monthly. Activities include regional meetings, social media campaigns, Freedom of Thought Report training, workshops and grant distribution; named projects are Young Humanist Faces, the Humanist Voices blog and Young Humanist Climate Action. The annual budget of £5,400 to £6,400 principally funds the Young Humanist Grant, which awarded £3,000 each in 2026 to Freedom Centre Uganda for a leadership, ethics and agency program and to the Humanist Alliance Philippines International for an undergraduate philosophy conference. Sixty-two Members and Associates now have a dedicated youth engagement leader.
Status. The program has been a vital bridge for member organisations facing youth recruitment challenges and has catalysed youth sections within them, but operations are currently on hold: the coordinator role is held alongside the Membership Manager role, and Congress workload has made regular programming unsustainable. The Membership Strategy proposes restarting it in 2027 on a minimum plan that the regional volunteers can carry, with clearer recognition for regional coordinators and a dedicated part-time coordinator if funding is found. Youth representation on the board and in member organisations, mentoring and succession planning are priorities of the under-35 board member’s term, and a moderated online community space for young humanists is being launched. See also: Young Humanists International.
Assessment of applicant organisations against the bylaws criteria: that the applicant is an organisation, has a humanist purpose, is not for profit and, for full Members, operates nationally with a real membership. Applications recommended by the Chief Executive and approved by the board are put to Members for a 56-day objection period, after which the organisation is inducted. Five Member applications were received in the first quarter of 2026, and three organisations (in Canada, Costa Rica and Iceland) were welcomed in May 2026 after the objection period closed; website improvements have increased enquiries. Membership has moved from 148 organisations in 55 countries in 2017 (before the 2019 reforms tightened the categories) to 116 at the end of 2024 and 120 in 2026. Two reference documents:
The Growth and Development Program is the core of the organisation’s support to members: capacity-building tools, training events, educational publications and, above all, the annual Grants Program. The grants enable member organisations, most of them run entirely by volunteers, to address pressing local issues, scale their digital outreach, introduce humanist ceremonies and engage young people, and they work as an extension of the organisation’s advocacy in places where it could not act directly.
Budget and grant types. The 2026 envelope is £46,000, almost entirely restricted to projects in developing countries: Development Grants £17,000 (£500 to £5,000 per grant, up to £7,000 for exceptional proposals); Digital Humanism £12,000; Young Humanist Grants £6,000; Humanist Ceremonies £5,000; Regional Networking Meetings £4,000; and Café Humaniste £2,000 (a standard £200 per event). Grants address thirteen issue areas including the promotion of humanism, critical thinking, women’s rights, freedom of religion or belief and anti-discrimination.
How it works. Applications are preceded by technical grant-writing workshops hosted by the Membership Manager. Submissions are scored by a committee of board and management members against seven criteria using a rubric introduced in 2022. Awarded projects enter a mandatory monitoring and evaluation framework, adopted in 2021 to 2022: an orientation, formal progress and financial reports, quarterly monitoring meetings and a review interview. The program was designed in 2016 for 2017 to 2020, with a dedicated officer and a regional focus rotating through Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Results. Grants distributed have run at £102,669 (2019), £87,849 (2020), more than £86,000 (2022), over £95,000 (2023) and £80,000 across 13 projects (2024). In 2026, 22 applications were received and 13 projects funded totalling £42,327: five in Africa, four in Asia, three in Latin America and one in the Middle East, including institutional development in Lebanon, justice for people accused of witchcraft in Nigeria, women’s empowerment in Uganda, a Malaysian-language edition of the Freedom of Thought Report, a virtual Asian humanist conference and humanist ceremonies in Peru. Grantees reported 133,588 beneficiaries in the last quarter of 2025, driven mainly by Digital Humanism grants, alongside thousands reached in person; over its life the program has reached hundreds of thousands of people online.
What is proposed to 2030. Maintain the envelope at its current level from core funds, with growth only through restricted or external funding; give priority in scoring to applications from Latin America, the target region for growth to 2030; narrow Development Grants towards projects that build the organisation itself (governance, membership systems, succession, income); pair every grant with a mentor, a short activity report from the organisation and an expectation that grantees present at the Members Showcase; engage eligible organisations proactively before each round; divert a large share of the 2027 envelope to the costs of a regional meeting of African leaders alongside the board’s 2027 meeting in Africa, with the envelope restored in 2028; and report to the board through an annual grants synthesis. See also: Growth and Development.
Technical grant-writing workshops hosted by the Membership Manager ahead of each grants cycle, raising the quality of proposals before they are scored. The 2026 workshop was a two-day event with 12 participants covering project descriptions, strategic budgeting, and risk and needs assessment; as a result most projects exceeded the minimum qualifying score, and applications were markedly stronger than in previous years. A related event is the Members Showcase, a 90-minute online session first held on 24 April 2026 and inspired by a model used by the Secular Coalition for America, at which members present their work and the results of past grant-funded projects; the next is on 20 November 2026. Advocacy and UPR training for members, delivered by the advocacy team, is described under aim 2 and is proposed to become a standing benefit of membership.
Travel grants enabling member representatives, particularly from developing countries, to attend the World Humanist Congress and General Assembly, so that the Assembly is representative of the whole movement. Fourteen delegates were supported to attend the 2025 General Assembly in Luxembourg, out of 69 attending. The program dates from the earliest years of the federation; the 2016 program design made pre-Congress training a condition of every grant. The question now is value: the cost per head of intercontinental travel is high and the lasting effect is hard to show, and several board members have argued that the same money would do more good invested in regional meetings closer to home. The Membership Strategy proposes keeping travel support for General Assembly participation, conditioning it on a pre-Assembly briefing and a report back, and rebalancing the total towards regional meetings over the period to 2030.
The European Humanist Services Network is a partner network of European organisations working on the services side of humanism: ceremonies, existential and pastoral care, youth activities and, from 2026, fundraising. It is not a Humanists International program, but it is closely linked, meets separately from the board cycle and is a working model of what a regional network of members can become with its own secretariat and rhythm of meetings; the Chief Executive leads the relationship. In its third year, 17 European organisations have agreed a common standard for a humanist wedding, with a European Humanist Wedding Portal launched in September 2025 and a funeral standard in negotiation; a professional standard for humanist existential care practitioners has been published with organisations from seven countries, with an autumn school in Luxembourg in October 2026; and an annual coming-of-age seminar and a youth camp planned for Romania in 2027 make up the youth strand. The network was platinum sponsor of the 2026 Ottawa Congress and hosted a panel there on regional capacity building. Its next chief executives’ meeting is in Bucharest in November 2026.
A pilot of a new structural model for the whole network: dedicated regional personnel providing culturally tailored, linguistically accessible support, rather than everything running through a small team in London. The annual commitment is $24,000 for a part-time Membership Development Officer for Latin America, plus travel: to Peru to help local organisers prepare the 2027 World Humanist Congress, and to Costa Rica for the Latin American Freethinking event. Administered under the Membership Manager, the officer sustains the existing network of 13 Members, Associates and youth branches in the region, and actively identifies and recruits humanist groups in the 26 Latin American countries where the organisation has no representation, with a target of at least two new member organisations in unrepresented countries by the end of 2026. Latin America and the Caribbean currently has a Member or Associate in 27 per cent of its countries.
Status and future. As a brand-new pilot the team is building workflows from scratch across 33 very different political and cultural landscapes, some with restrictive climates or active opposition to secular organisations, and many local groups are small and volunteer-led. The immediate value is in one-to-one meetings that establish a baseline for the health of each group, and in removing the language barrier for Spanish-speaking members. The recommendation is to maintain the baseline until member mapping is complete and to use that data to target viable groups. The Membership Strategy proposes Latin America as the organisation’s target region for growth and development to 2030, with the aim of a Member or Associate in at least half of the region’s countries by then, the launch of a Latin American regional network of members at the Lima Congress in 2027 with the officer as its secretariat, an evaluation at the end of 2027, and replication of the model for Africa and Asia only with new funding.
Held in Ottawa from 7 to 9 August 2026 in cooperation with Humanist Canada on the theme “Humanism as Resistance”, addressing authoritarianism, religious nationalism and scientific misinformation. The Congress sold out, with more than 500 delegates from 41 countries. The three-day program opened with a keynote from Rebecca Goldstein and ran sessions on misinformation, human rights, chaplaincy, legislative advocacy, reproductive rights, hope and organisational strategy; the General Assembly met as a half-day session on the Sunday, followed by a board meeting. Live translation was deployed for the first time, paid social media advertising promoted the event, and the European Humanist Services Network was platinum sponsor. A gala dinner raised around £4,000. The Ottawa Declaration on Humanism as Resistance was adopted. A number of delegates and board candidates were unable to attend because of visa refusals, a lesson carried into the planning of Lima 2027. World Humanist Congresses are held every three years alongside the General Assembly and are organised with a host member organisation; planning three at once (2026, 2027 and 2028) has taken a very large share of staff time this year. See also: World Humanist Congress 2026.
A regional meeting of the leaders of African Member and Associate organisations, held alongside the board’s 2027 Annual Strategy Meeting in Kenya, Ghana or South Africa from 9 to 11 October 2027. Africa has 19 Members and Associates in 21 per cent of its countries and is where concerns about volunteer burnout and inactive groups are sharpest, so it is the right place for the first meeting of this kind. The proposal is two days of peer exchange, problem-solving and capacity building for African leaders, with the board present to listen, funded largely by diverting a big share of the 2027 Growth and Development grants envelope to travel, accommodation and the program; for the cost of flying three or four African delegates to a Congress in North America, most of the region’s leaders can be brought together on their own continent. If it works, a regional meeting in a different region each year becomes the pattern.
The board decided in May 2026 to hold the 2027 Congress in Lima, Peru, at the end of August 2027, having also considered Antigua, Guatemala; Lima was preferred for accessibility and capacity, with a contingency plan for 125 attendees and the hope of 250. It coincides with the 75th anniversary of the organisation’s founding in 1952, and the General Assembly held with it will receive the bylaw amendments mandated in Ottawa and the launch of the Latin American regional network. Ground coordination runs through the Latin American Development Plan, with an experienced volunteer events manager assisting. The Congress registration will collect cost and value data from delegates so that the board can take a decision on the frequency of future Congresses, from 2029 onwards, with numbers in front of it by the end of 2027.
The board agreed in May 2026 to hold the 2028 Congress in Ireland, where the recent liberalisation of law and society, including the 2018 repeal of the constitutional blasphemy offence, offers a natural theme. The advocacy strategy treats it as a European advocacy moment marking the European Policy Forum’s move into core work, and the organisation’s 75th anniversary history is planned for launch there.
A proposal under discussion to add internships to the Growth and Development strategy, placing young humanists from member organisations with Humanists International or with larger members. The organisation has hosted interns before and the idea fits both the succession agenda and the Latin American focus, where placements with the Membership Development Officer would be a natural start. It is proposed to scope internships in 2027, with any cost met in kind by host organisations.
A proposal for a structured training and leadership development program for the movement, championed by the Vice-President and the subject of a dedicated paper for the October 2026 Annual Strategy Meeting. The analysis behind it is a shift from crisis-responsive support to proactive development of the people who run member organisations, prompted by volunteer burnout, inactive groups and the limited lasting effect of funding Congress attendance as the main form of support. The vision is a regionalised model, potentially with institutes in Africa, Asia and Latin America and collaboration with larger member organisations, together with short practical training in human rights, lobbying and organisational management and a “service-focused” humanism that includes pastoral care and community building. Board consultations show strong support for the direction and a clear preference for starting small, using existing humanist institutions and treating a full institute as conditional on dedicated funding; the questions to answer are who the training is for, how it is funded and what it leads to.
The governing plan for this area, approved by the board in 2025. It prioritises high-return activities over labour-intensive grant applications, a lesson learned when a previous full-time push produced fifty foundation applications in a year for around £10,000 in income, and since January 2026 it has shifted public communications from a background, technical-expert model to an active public profile led by the Fundraising and Communications Officer. The context is a severe “aid drought”, with deep cuts to major funders and intense competition for the government grants that remain. The plan’s development to 2030, including the ideas raised in board consultations (external foundations and corporate sponsorship, a fundraising think tank drawing on the finance leads of larger member organisations, a grant-intelligence and consortium-building function, and a multi-year plan to grow the grants envelope), is the subject of a stand-alone report to the October 2026 Annual Strategy Meeting. The plan’s channels are:
A weekly podcast examining the state of freedom of belief, expression and human rights worldwide, hosted by the Chief Executive and the Senior Advocacy Officer and produced by Humanise Live, bringing together human rights defenders, policy experts and researchers as a living extension of the Freedom of Thought Report. Approved by the board in November 2025 and launched alongside the February 2026 report launch, it is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube and other platforms. Ten episodes were published in the first season and the board funded two further seasons in May 2026. Leaders of member organisations have said the podcast has helped them understand the depth and scope of the organisation’s work, and it doubles as a youth engagement asset and a way of making technical advocacy accessible. See also: Freedom of Thought podcast.
The expanded public communications program: organisational channels on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Bluesky and LinkedIn, an average of five posts a week in short-form video and carousel formats, and a deliberate effort to tell the story of members’ UN and advocacy work. In the first quarter of 2026 Facebook reached 157,100 views (up 44 per cent) with 6,000 interactions (up 94 per cent) and Instagram 25,100 views (up more than 900 per cent); a TikTok account launched; YouTube Shorts repurposed from Reels generated 26,800 impressions; and website sessions rose to 136,786 from 72,487 a year earlier. Paid advertising began in March 2026, with a promoted Congress reel reaching 13,400 views. The organisation has around 75,000 Facebook followers and 19,000 on X. Social media “takeover weeks” from Geneva and Strasbourg are planned, and a proposal for a stratified media strategy, with distinct messages and channels for the movement’s own community, the general public in open societies, international institutions, the countries rated most severely in the report and the large constituency of non-affiliated non-believers, is under consideration.
Physical mailing campaigns to donors in the United States, where the organisation has a long-standing individual supporter base through its New York entity. A campaign in late summer 2026 was expected to return between $10,000 and $20,000. Appeal contributions are tracked quarterly alongside online giving.
Movement news and usable material for member organisations, sent monthly. Total email subscribers rose 20 per cent in the first half of 2026, from 13,815 in January to 16,623 in June, with open rates around 22 per cent and click-through around 6 per cent. A previous Freedom of Thought Report launch cycle tripled sign-ups in a year. A grant-intelligence section flagging open funding calls to members with enough lead time to act is proposed.
A regular giving ask to supporters, launched as a new monthly series in March 2026 with a first email focused on the Freedom of Thought Report, which generated 106 visits to the support page. Each email is tied to a piece of work or a moment in the calendar, so that supporters see what their giving funds.
Stewardship of major donors and giving circles, alongside gala events. The Amsterdam Circle, a new giving circle, had 13 members by August 2026 yielding around £16,000 a year, with the ambition of doubling it repeatedly. Life Supporters make a single contribution of £750, $750 or €750; there were 93 by early 2026. Monthly and annual supporter tiers sit below these, and individual membership is free to people in countries where establishing a humanist organisation is prohibited. A gala dinner at the Ottawa Congress raised around £4,000. A review of the top US donors is being carried out by the President with an expert volunteer, on the principle that the most effective asks come from the Chief Executive, the President and board members rather than paid consultants.
Restricted, project-specific funding is used to hire temporary capacity beyond the sustainable core team: the model for scaling activity without over-extending core resources. Grant revenue in the consolidated accounts appeared at $115,066 in 2022, peaked at $299,963 in 2023 and fell to $22,563 in 2024, which shows both the value of such programs and the risk of relying on them. The strategy to 2030 aims to have at least one externally funded program running in every year, to build the grant-management capacity that makes the organisation a credible lead or partner, and to keep a clear line between restricted project staff and the unrestricted core.
Externally funded reporting on the situation of humanists at risk, funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Freedom of religion or belief remains a funded priority for several Western governments and networks, including the FCDO, the US State Department, the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief and the EU Special Envoy, and Humanists International is the distinctive non-religious voice within that community. The organisation first secured UK Foreign Office funding in 2020.
A funded program under a grant from the US Department of State, supporting work with member organisations. Grant revenue from externally funded programs peaked in 2023 at $299,963, when IDEAS was the organisation’s main source of income beyond members and donors.
A multi-year bid to NORAD, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, for a program to build the resilience of freedom of religion or belief defenders from 2026 to 2029. It was not funded, in a year when cuts to major funders made competition for remaining government grants intense. The bid is indicative of the consortium-scale funding the organisation is positioning for; the advocacy strategy proposes using its focused priorities to approach freedom of religion or belief donors and democracy and civic space funders for multi-year restricted grants aligned to them.
The board’s own machinery. The General Assembly appoints the board; the board holds legal and financial responsibility, adopts the strategy, and appoints and scrutinises the Chief Executive, with the division of roles set out in the 2021 Delegated Authority Policy. Board positions are voluntary and unremunerated. The board has ten trustees: the President, Vice-President and Treasurer and seven members, with reserved seats for a member aged 35 or under and for Africa, Asia and Latin America. The current board comes from the United States, Nigeria, Belgium, Peru, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Norway and Romania. The governance framework rests on the bylaws (Articles of Association and Governing Rules, most recently amended in January 2026), the Delegated Authority Policy, the Board Handbook, the Finance Regulations, the travel expenses policy, the investment policy, the Staff Handbook and the risk register, together with the guidance of the Scottish charity regulator, the IRS and the New York Attorney General. See also: Our people.
The bylaws require at least three board meetings a year; in practice the board meets around six times, three of them in person. The 2026 cycle included meetings in January (before the Emergency General Assembly), March, May (in Oslo, hosted by the Norwegian Humanist Association), August (in Ottawa after the General Assembly), September and October (the Annual Strategy Meeting in Berlin), with the budget meeting in December. The 2027 calendar is set: an in-person meeting in Brussels in February alongside the Freedom of Thought Report launch, online meetings in May and August, the General Assembly in Lima in August, the Annual Strategy Meeting in Africa in October, and the budget meeting online in November. A structured round table between the board and the whole staff team within six weeks of any election that changes the board’s composition has been agreed in principle.
The board’s yearly in-person strategy session: October 2023 (board and staff strategy review), October 2024 in Glasgow (where the strategy was reduced to three aims and board governance training took place), November 2025 in Ottawa, 16 to 18 October 2026 in Berlin hosted by the Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands, and 9 to 11 October 2027 in Africa alongside a meeting of African members. For 2026 the board agreed to move from year-to-year iteration to a time-limited strategy running to the end of 2030, with each Annual Strategy Meeting a review point, and to organise the discussion by strategic aim, with a strategy paper to 2030 for each aim proposing a small number of dated strategic markers the board can hold management to. The Berlin meeting opens with a one-hour presentation on ten years of the organisation’s history and strategy development, and board members contribute one-page vision statements for the next decade.
Induction and ongoing education for trustees. New board members receive an induction from the Chief Executive covering the governance structure, the strategic aims and change pathways, the advocacy program, the operational structure, the finances and the endowment, the bylaws, the Delegated Authority Policy, the Board Handbook, the travel expenses policy and access to the shared governance folder that holds board papers and minutes. Annual training sessions with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator are being rescheduled for autumn 2026 after a pause in 2025, and board governance training is repeated after each election. The travel expenses policy covers flights, accommodation for the nights before and after a meeting, visa costs and a flat per diem of £100 a day set in 2021. A governance working group led by the Chief Executive with a board member and the Head of Finance and Operations is proposed to report to the 2027 Annual Strategy Meeting on a formal induction and education program, a new board member expenses policy that makes service viable for candidates from any country, and the board member review and skills review process.
Oversight of the US endowment of around $3 million. The original gift of $2.7 million must be preserved under New York law; returns above that floor are available to the board’s discretion. The endowment has grown from £2.1 million in 2017; it fell to $2.2 million in 2022 in a poor market year and rose 20 per cent in 2023, movements that exceed the organisation’s entire operating budget in either direction. It is managed with US investment partners and overseen, under the Board Handbook, by the Treasurer. A question at the 2026 General Assembly about the fit between the investment policy and the actual portfolio, and the effect of a severe market fall, is being answered through the establishment of a formal Investment Committee, led by the Chief Executive and the Treasurer, with written terms of reference; a revised investment policy with a stress test goes to the board in December 2026 and the committee holds its first meeting by March 2027.
Effective from 1 January 2023 and updated in 2024, the Board Handbook supplements the Articles of Association and Governing Rules. Its nine sections cover board member requirements, including role descriptions and person specifications for board members and for the President (leadership of the board and oversight of the Chief Executive), the Vice-President (deputising, board member reviews and board development) and the Treasurer (oversight of financial affairs and investment performance); a code of conduct built on the seven principles of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, leadership and humanism, together with a social media policy; the application process for candidates; the annual declaration of interests; a complaints procedure; the induction process; a skills audit completed after each General Assembly; a weighted board member review; and the signed code of conduct required of every new member. The Handbook is due for review, to reflect the 2026 bylaws, the revised Finance Regulations and the Investment Committee, and to make the skills audit and board member review a consistent annual practice; that review is the first task of the proposed governance working group.
Ambassadors are leading humanists from around the world who work with the board to advance the organisation’s objectives, extending its reach and reputation. The current Ambassadors are Gulalai Ismail, the Pakistani women’s rights activist; Uttam Niraula, the Nepali humanist leader; and Andrew Copson, President from 2015 to 2025, appointed on stepping down. The program has been one of the ways the organisation has deliberately cultivated leadership from the global south. A review of the role, setting out what is asked of Ambassadors, what support they receive and how the role is renewed, is to conclude in 2027.
The organisation’s standing register of strategic and operational risks, created and adopted by the board in 2024 following work begun in 2023. The risks it needs to capture are visible across this page: reliance on a small number of large member fees; the value of the endowment; banking compliance for an international board; compliance failures in either jurisdiction; the loss of key staff in a team of eleven; security incidents affecting staff or people supported; reputational risk from the conduct of members or trustees; and single-person dependency in several advocacy workstreams. The register has not been reviewed since it was adopted. A full review by management by the end of 2026, then consideration by the board each December alongside the budget, with a named owner for every risk and a short risk update in every quarterly management report, is proposed so that it becomes a working document rather than an annual ritual.
Compiled September 2026 from annual reports, management reports, program review documents, board and General Assembly minutes and the Humanists International website, as background for the Annual Strategy Meeting (Berlin, 16 to 18 October 2026).