Support highly-impactful, evidence-based solutions to reduce animal suffering on a global scale. 

At least 75 billion farmed land animals and more than a trillion fish are slaughtered each year. That is more than 2000 land animals and 25,000 fish are killed every second. This is possible due to the mechanization and intensification of factory farming, driven by global increase in demand for meat.

Although this situation seems bleak - and the numbers almost too large to comprehend - there are reasons to be hopeful. Recent years have seen rapid progress in the animal welfare movement. Many large companies have pledged to phase out or drastically reduce some of their industry’s most harmful practices. Governments have banned some of these practices outright. And companies working to commercialize alternative proteins, such as plant-based meats, have raised billions of dollars from investors. Yet farm animal welfare remains highly neglected, with just 0.03% of US philanthropic funding going to this cause in 2017. 

By giving to the Founders Pledge Animal Welfare Index, you can spread your donation across several highly-impactful and neglected global initiatives to alleviate suffering and improve the conditions of factory-farmed animals. By pooling your donations, this Index fund allows you to make larger grants and thereby maximize your impact.

### Our Approach to Grantmaking
When evaluating potential grants, we consider several key points:

- **Counterfactual impact.** Our grants are designed to create a meaningful outcome that would not otherwise have happened. This means that you can rely on the Funds to create meaningful, real change, rather than just maintaining the status quo.
- **Impact-driven philanthropy.** The goal of this fund is maximal positive impact, irrespective of this impact being “sexy” or visible. This means we will focus on opportunities that others focused on clear attribution of their work or shiny outcomes might neglect.
- **The organization’s funding gap.** Not all organizations are set up to scale up their programming and many can’t productively absorb large amounts of unsolicited funding. We evaluate all potential grantees’ capacity for growth and consider how much money they could put to good use.
- **Organizational strength.** Particularly with unrestricted funding, it’s important to have trust in the leadership and capacity of the organizations we support. We look at their track record of success and their transparency about failures as well as successes, and we only support those organizations which are exceptionally well run.


To learn more about our approach to Animal Welfare as a cause area, please visit [www.founderspledge.com](https://www.founderspledge.com/research/topic/animal-welfare).

Founders Pledge: Animal Welfare Index

Outreach and research in defense of animals.

Animal Ethics provides information and promote debate about issues in animal ethics, sentience, animal interests and speciesism.

Detailed information on the data regarding the situation of nonhuman animals as well as on the arguments to defend animals is not always available, and we intend to provide it to all those who want to help them. In addition, we do outreach work ourselves aimed not at stopping particular ways in which animals are harmed (which other organizations are already addressing), but at achieving a shift in attitudes towards speciesism.

Our work deals with the way nonhuman animals are considered in everyday life, as well as how they are considered in fields that affect human attitudes and activities that are relevant to animals. These include academia, scientific fields, and the law. We look at the way nonhuman animals are impacted by current human activities, and how they might be impacted by future planned or unplanned human activities. This involves not only the ways we might harm them, but also how we might help them even when the cause of their plight is not human action.

The field of animal ethics deals with why we should take nonhuman animals into consideration in our moral decisions, and the ways in which we should. This has tremendously relevant practical consequences. Many people currently have little regard for nonhuman animals. But more often, people do give some consideration to the interests of animals, but still have a discriminatory attitude towards them. We can morally consider someone but still discriminate against them in a way that harms them. We can also discriminate against them in ways that don’t harm them at all, such as by helping some individuals more than we help others, for reasons that are unfair. Animal ethics as a field addresses these questions, and it is our aim to deal with them.

Animal Ethics

Exists to end the greatest cause of suffering on the planet: the exploitation of animals for food.

Mercy For Animals exists to end the greatest cause of suffering on the planet: the exploitation of animals for food.

Mercy For Animals

Spreading awareness on cultivated meat, real meat made from cells instead of animals

From Fauna

Compassion in World Farming

We want to make life better for wild animals.

We are dedicated to finding evidence-backed ways to improve the lives of animals in the wild.

We depend on individual donors to help us make life better for wild animals. To a small nonprofit working hard on a big problem, your support is more crucial now than ever!

Wild Animal Initiative

International nonprofit ending the abuse of animals raised for food.

The mission of The Humane League, why we exist, is to end the abuse of animals raised for food. This sense of purpose drives every action in our unrelenting march forward for animals.

The Humane League

FWI reduces the suffering of farmed fish by researching and executing evidence-based interventions in high-priority contexts.

The mission of Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI) is to reduce the suffering of farmed fish as much as possible. We do that specifically by researching and testing evidence-based welfare interventions, and then implementing them in high priority contexts. Our main implementation program right now focuses on collaborative farmer outreach in India to improve water quality and reduce stocking densities. As of this writing, this program currently works with about 100 farms (www.fwi.fish/farmers). FWI also invests significantly in research to identify and test more promising welfare improvements (www.fwi.fish/post/rnd-plans-2024).

Thanks to the support of all those who have donated, as of this writing FWI estimates that we have improved the lives of about 1.5M fish. You can learn more about our impact and how we came up with these numbers at www.fwi.fish/impact.

To learn more about our work, you can subscribe to our monthly in-depth newsletter at www.fwi.fish/news.

To learn about the value of a donation to FWI, as well as its pros and cons, see www.fwi.fish/donate.

Fish Welfare Initiative

The Albert Schweitzer Foundation works to eliminate cruel farming practices in Germany and to boost the use of plant proteins.

More than 60 billion farm animals are slaughtered every year. Inadequate welfare requirements and legal protections mean that the overwhelming majority of these animals suffer greatly, living their entire lives in crowded, uncomfortable, unhealthy conditions. While recent progress on these issues in Europe is promising, welfare standards in some sectors are still very low. Albert Schweitzer Foundation (ASF) works to raise standards in Germany and in the European Union. ASF also works to boost the use of plant proteins and to reduce the amount of animal products in the supply chains of large buyers such as supermarket chains and catering companies.

The Lobby Register Act (LobbyRG) requires us to disclose the names and places of residence (without specific addresses) of all donors who donate €20,000 or more to us in a calendar year on www.lobbyregister.bundestag.de (site of the German Parliament). If you prefer not to be mentioned, the only option is to donate less than €20,000.

Albert Schweitzer Foundation

We empower animal advocates with research, analysis & strategies that maximize their effectiveness to reduce animal suffering.

We conduct essential research, maintain an online research library, and directly support advocates and organizations in their work to save lives. The range of data we offer helps our movement understand how people think about and respond to advocacy, providing advocates with the best strategies to inspire change for animals.

Our Original Studies are carefully selected, designed, and conducted to provide actionable and insightful data for the animal protection movement. Our research prioritization process helps us identify studies that have a high potential impact for animals, and our commitment to transparency and rigorous methodology ensures that our studies are of the highest quality. Our studies have been covered in hundreds of publications across animal advocacy circles as well as in mainstream media, and have been used by animal advocacy groups worldwide.

The Faunalytics Library is completely free, and houses summaries of over 4,000 peer-reviewed research articles, public opinion surveys, and blog posts offering deep analysis on every animal issue you can think of. It’s the world’s biggest collection of opinion and behavior research about animal issues, and it’s presented with an emphasis on effectiveness, readability, and useability. Sign up for our email alerts and you’ll get weekly or monthly updates on the latest research we cover, delivered straight to your inbox.

Get a comprehensive overview of a particular topic area by exploring our Faunalytics Fundamentals, a series that provides infographics and visualizations of data to help you get informed and stay informed. The Fundamentals series has everything you need to get started or update your knowledge in a familiar area, and the visuals are highly shareable beyond an advocacy audience.

Have a research question that you don’t know how to solve? Want to dive deep into a particular issue but don’t know where to start? Just ask us! Faunalytics’ Office Hours give you the opportunity to connect with us directly and get one-on-one help with research design, strategy, and general knowledge questions. We also engage in select partner projects with advocacy groups.

Faunalytics

Founders Pledge is a global nonprofit empowering entrepreneurs to do the most good possible with their charitable giving. 

Maximize your philanthropic impact with Founders Pledge. We empower a global community of over 2,100 members, equipping them with everything needed to give effectively: from evidence-led research and expert advice on the world's most pressing problems to comprehensive infrastructure for seamless global grant-making, and a powerful network for collaboration. Together, we've already channeled over $1.5 billion to high-impact causes globally, tackling critical issues like climate change, global health, and emerging existential risks. 

When you donate through every.org today, you're joining this proven movement, and our unique funding model ensures 100% of your contribution goes directly to charity, as our operational costs are generously covered by a dedicated community of philanthropists.

Founders Pledge

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We are a nonprofit, so instead of charging fees we rely on the generosity of donors like you.