Live compassionately
Compassion is...
...standing in solidarity with all life, arising from a wish for mutual happiness and growth.
...creating an atmosphere of love and empathy.
...not exclusive to simply humans, but all life.
...home
Our Mission
The mission of Rancho Compasión is to provide a loving, lifelong home for rescued farmed animals, and to change public perception about animals typically viewed as “food”. Our Sanctuary promotes a compassionate and sustainable lifestyle for the sake of non-human animals, our planet, social justice, and our wellbeing.
Our story
Rancho Compasión was founded in 2015 in the beautiful hills of west Marin to provide a forever home to rescued farmed animals. What started with the Schinner family adopting two goats became a community effort, blossoming into a non-profit sanctuary that provides a safe haven and forever home for over 100 non-human residents of 12 different species today.
Rancho Compasión is a diverse hub that models interspecies care and invites community to consider a compassionate lifestyle. The sanctuary provides food, shelter, medical and veterinary care, and enrichment for its over one hundred animal residents, and is supported by tours, volunteering, online outreach, events, and humane education programs to all ages of the public. In recent years, it has evolved to include a robust Friends & Food program, where youth plant and play in the Compassion Garden and forage on the property to learn about plant-based foodways and connect with the ecosystem.
Rancho Compasión is made up of a highly-involved and passionate team of staff, volunteers, and Board of Directors. It is sustained by the generous contributions of individual donors and has no corporate sponsorships. Consider making a donation today.
The Land
For over 300 years, the land we are situated on has been altered by the effects of settler colonialism and ranching, and we carry that challenge with us as we work to re-envision our relationship to other-than-human beings and spaces. The ancestral home of the Tamal Coast Miwok, Nicasio—formerly called Etcha-tamal—was a thriving village colonized in the 1800s by Spanish missionaries and rancheros, dispossessing the huukuiko of their lands. This area was turned into a several thousand-acre ranch called Rancho Nicasio that took advantage of both indigenous peoples and the bodies of animals like cows and pigs, providing industry and wealth to the missionaries and colonizers.
In California, it’s commonplace to see Spanish ranch names. We chose the name Rancho Compasión, Spanish for "compassion ranch," as a nod to this tradition. Our name places a stake in the ground that we are here to flip the idea of “ranching” on its head, relating to animals with kindness, justice, and compassion. Compassion is at the heart of what we do and how we live.
Our Vision
We envision a world where non-human animals are no longer seen as here for human use. We, like other sanctuaries, have set forth a model where animals are not food, property, or products—they can simply just be. In our vision of a farmed animal sanctuary, the animals we typically associate with a barnyard setting, production of byproducts and flesh, or consider dirty, dumb, or less-than, are treated with the same awe we would give a magnificent whale, adoration of a cute puppy, respect of fierce lion, and the dignity we give our own species.
We wish to see a world where systems of oppression and exploitation of all beings are dismantled and rebuilt upon a foundation of compassion.
We are vegan because we believe in reducing harm to our fellow earthlings. We believe in a vegan future.