Comments
In recent years, animal advocacy has seen some promising victories. Unfortunately, given the scale of animal suffering, organizations continue to be significantly constrained. This means that a humble donation can go a long way. With this post, I want to highlight a few groups you may want to consider as targets for your (greatly appreciated) support in 2025.
You may not be looking forward to the future. Sometimes it’s hard to be optimistic, especially when we think about the scale of factory farming. Never in our history as humankind have we created so much unnecessary misery. To make matters worse, factory farming continues to grow.
At the same time, we do observe progress. Each year brings new developments and victories, and so has 2024. In Anima International, we did our part, which I’m very happy about.
It is easy to underrate this very trajectory because we often get frustrated that the changes are not happening fast enough. However, I would argue that we—including you, dear reader—are making history together. Big market players and governments are making consequential changes, and the animal advocacy movement has never been in a better condition (I wrote more about it here).
Working in this cause area and remaining hopeful may feel bizarre. You need to hold two very contrasting thoughts in your mind at the same time: 1) the current world is hell, built by us, humans; 2) it is us who are capable of making it great. It’s doable: we see how tractable the work has been, how receptive the society is, and how—even with limited resources—we can achieve progress.
I’m optimistic but also cautious. We need to tread carefully to be sure we are spending our limited resources responsibly.
I don’t want to imply the work is easy and that we should expect a lot of success in the short term.
Animal advocacy continues to be neglected—with not enough competence, not enough people, and not enough support. 80,000 Hours, a career-advising organization, recently estimated that roughly only around 3,000 people are working directly on the issue of factory farming, including in the for-profit sector. If these estimates are correct, my organization alone makes up over 3% of the resources dedicated to fixing the problem globally. It’s literally hard to believe.
We need more people, more resources, more knowledge, more evidence, more truth-seeking, and more collaboration. This is even more true for small groups who are just starting out. For them, the marginal dollar can have an incredible impact.
For such organizations, even minor support can be game-changing. When we started in Poland in 2011, we had zero funding other than what we were able to chip in from our own humble pockets. The key bottleneck was not having the means to do our first investigations. At some point, we were donated a few thousand dollars and some obsolete cameras by the Danish group—Anima. Thanks to being able to afford petrol and equipment, we could release groundbreaking investigations into factory farming.
Though circumstances have changed over the past decade, I’d argue you can still find opportunities where your support will bring great value.
If you are an Anima International supporter, I cannot express my deep gratitude for you with mere words. If it wasn’t for you, we would not be able to do the work we do, and I think—probably with a slight favoritism—that we do great work. Any of our success is yours. At the same time, while we still can accept funding and we need more people to help us, we are in a privileged position now compared to many other groups. If you were planning to donate to us, you may want to check the groups below and support them instead—with a donation or otherwise.
I just want to stress that this list is not a statement about the cost-effectiveness of these groups. It’s more about my hunches and impressions; it’s about the discussions I have been part of and the passion I have observed. Finally, it’s about the mission these people undertook. These premises can be deeply misguided, so expect bias! All in all, I was inspired, so maybe you will be too.
Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği is an inspiring, relatively young organization. They operate in a consequential region—Türkiye is an important geopolitical player and a predominantly Muslim country where animal advocacy is less established. Emre Kaplan, one of the organization’s leaders, is one of the best thinkers I’ve had the pleasure to meet. I hope they will be even more successful in the coming years.
Animal Enterprise Transparency Project is a promising and hard-working group from Slovenia that has similar roots to Anima International—an investigations group turned campaigners to fix the problems they witness and implement the necessary changes themselves. While Slovenia is a small country, I think their campaign to ban cage egg production can positively impact other countries in the European Union, contributing to the momentum for legislative changes.
ICAW is an organization that I’m very excited about. They started just a few months ago, so there is no track record, but I know the people behind it. They are experienced in changing markets to move them away from using products that cause the most suffering. I’m looking forward to seeing what they will bring to the table with their clear focus on responsible corporate practices and some of the animals that suffer the most—chickens, hens, and shrimp.
I’m really hopeful about this new entity led by Bob Fischer. It’s a shame that we know so little about the welfare and sentience of arthropods. This is especially worrying seeing that there are moves to recreate factory farming, just as is the case with insects. I hope that with more scientific scrutiny, we will learn how to prevent another moral catastrophe.
By this point, SWP has earned somewhat of a rock star status in the animal advocacy space. I believe it’s all well-deserved. All the SWP’s people I have had the pleasure to meet are hard working, innovative, relentless, and slightly crazy. Their work and track record on slaughter methods for shrimp seem incredibly cost-effective, so I’d encourage you to donate to them—these people are the true trailblazers.
Good Growth helps organizations, including companies, increase their pro-animal impact in Asian markets. Due to her resilience and proactivity, their founder, Jah Ying Chung, is a very inspiring leader. Good Growth, being a consultancy organization, is not a typical animal advocacy charity. However, since tractability in Asia has been low, I think we need a more diverse theory of change, and they seem to be a perfect fit for testing various approaches.
I admire Global Food Partners for their innovative work for hens in Asia—an important, challenging, and neglected region. Using their expertise, they help important market players shift their production to cage-free. They work highly collaboratively with the industry, pushing for changes from within. I admire this approach because I think we need more groups that have the courage to try novel solutions outside of their comfort zone. I especially enjoyed listening to the reasoning of Jayasimha Nuggehalli, their Chief Program Officer.
I consider the Welfare Footprint Project’s goal to quantify animal pain crucial for animal advocates. Nowadays, seeing WFP’s scientific brilliance and thoroughness, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around how we even operated without their invaluable insight. It’s worth noting that their task is not easy. Most evidence concerning factory-farmed animals is produced by the industry itself, and the industry focuses on optimizing animal production, disregarding the animals’ well-being unless it impacts the profit. This means you have to be especially well-versed in methodology to navigate the data. Finally, what I admire the most in the work of the Welfare Footprint Project is their cautious and conservative approach, which means we can be somewhat less worried about introducing bias in the interpretation of evidence. I’m not sure if they look for help, but if they do, I recommend supporting them.
The newly-founded AI for Animals seems like an important organization that will work to make sure that animals will not be overlooked in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence. I observed their founder, Constance Li, to have good building skills, and both me and others in Anima International are greatly impressed by Constance’s energy.
That's it. Join me in crossing fingers for these groups and wish for the best in 2025, for humans and animals alike. Let’s hope it won’t be too turbulent.
I really enjoyed reading this. I appreciate you advocating for other organizations, and think this team spirit and support ultimately makes us stronger as a movement.