More than three billion animals are killed for food in the US alone every single day. And nearly every one of them was raised on factory farms where they had to endure horrible conditions. Unfortunately, the industry has continued to fail in terms of the ethical treatment of these farm animals. But, fortunately, many charities are working hard on this issue. So we had to ask: What are the best charities for helping farm animals?

The best charities to help farm animals include Faunalytics, with their approach focused on research and data, the Humane Farming Association, working to protect animals and sensitize the public, and the Farm Sanctuary, with their pivotal role to get better conditions for farm animals.

The rest of the article will take a closer look at the 21 best charities for helping farm animals, how you can help them to achieve their goals, and other ways you can contribute to a better life for farm animals.

These Are the 21 Best Charities for Helping Farm Animals in 2024

Below are our favorite charities for helping farm animals:

• Faunalytics
• Humane Farming Association
• Farm Sanctuary
• The Humane Society of the United States
• Animal Outlook
• Anima International
• The Humane League
• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• Compassion in World Farming
• Animal Welfare Institute
• Sinergia Animal
• Animal Equality
• Barn Sanctuary
• The Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira
• Mercy for Animals
• The Good Food Institute
• Farm Animals Rights Movement
• Vegan Outreach
• National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
• The Albert-Schweitzer Foundation
• United Poultry Concerns

(At the end of this article we’ll also share our six-step approach on how you can select the best charity to support. And we’ll give you an overview of how you can find out how to best support your chosen charity.)

Faunalytics

Research is important when it comes to animal welfare activism and advocacy. It ensures that statements can be backed up with verified data, giving more weight to bits of information and generally painting a clearer picture of the situation of farm animals. 

Founded in 2000, Faunalytics has been working hard to create and maintain a database relied on by animal welfare advocates and educators to produce educational content on why industrial animal farming has to be stopped.

They add over 200 studies to their database yearly and can provide information on the suffering of animals in various sectors, including on farms, in science, wildlife, the pet industry, etc. Faunalytics also offers consultancy services to other charities in the animal welfare niche.

Humane Farming Association

Founded in 1985, the Humane Farming Association focuses on protecting farm animals in the US from cruelty and abuse. They also work hard to sensitize the public on the negative side to using hormones, antibiotics, and other such substances on farm animals, as well as helping the environment cope with the fallout of industrial animal farming.

Donations made to the group go into funding media campaigns, providing refuge and emergency care for abused farm animals, and funding anti-cruelty investigations and legislations. The group is popular for championing the National Veal Boycott, which has helped cut down veal consumption across the US by more than 80%.

Farm Sanctuary     

Farm Sanctuary was one of the first animal sanctuary charities in the world and is still one of the largest today. They play a pivotal role in the struggle to get better conditions for farm animals. 

Their activities include outreach programs, volunteer placements, animal rescues, grassroots advocacy, farm animal adoption programs, and more. They also produce informational resources, all designed to encourage businesses and individuals to improve the lives of farm animals.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)

HSUS is one of the biggest animal rights charities in the world. They are committed to driving legislative change for animal welfare, and they also work hard to bring defaulters to the light. They are also consistently raising awareness on the issues plaguing all animals, including those on the farms. 

HSUS is also a part of the Meatless Monday campaign, which is geared towards raising awareness for animal abuse while also encouraging people to cut down on their meat consumption.

Animal Outlook

Since their establishment in 1995, Animal Outlook has been at the forefront of the fight against the practices in factory farms. They have a strong focus on exposing the hidden evils that occur on these farms, helping more people join the boycott against factory-farmed meat, and ultimately reducing overall meat consumption. Since their establishment, they have helped to change the meat-eating habits of many people.

Anima International

Anima International is a group that runs a range of corporate campaigns and takes on undercover investigations. Some of their programs also involve organizing animal advocacy protests and conferences, as well as encouraging eateries to make plant-based options available.

More importantly, the charity has expanded its animal advocacy movement to neglected countries in different parts of the world, partnering with smaller charities or young movements to give them the training and support they need.

The Humane League

The Humane League‘s mission is simply about ending the abuse suffered by animals raised for food. The organization takes part in various programs geared toward persuading individuals and organizations to adopt behaviors and processes that will help reduce the suffering farmed animals have to go through.

The charity is based in the US, but they operate globally, with teams or affiliates in the UK, Mexico, and Japan. They also help grow animal advocacy internationally via the Open Wing Alliance (OWA)—a global coalition founded by THL to end the use of battery cages worldwide.

Their biggest programs focus on grassroots organizations and corporate campaigns. They push corporations to create policies that will improve animal welfare standards, and they teach the public with online videos and publications.

With their grassroots programs (including the campus leadership program), they are constantly recruiting and training new advocates that will champion the anti-animal abuse message locally.

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

The ASPCA is the first humane society in North America. It was established in 1866, and since then, the society has remained a beacon for animal cruelty prevention groups. They have donated over $12 million to other animal welfare groups and programs and have helped over 47,000 animals. The organization has also overseen around 90,000 spay and neuter procedures.

Compassion in World Farming

This is another international organization with programs that have been designed to improve the welfare of farmed animals. The group’s mission is to stop factory farming and give farmed animals around the world a better life. Compassion in World Farming was founded in the UK in 1967, giving them over five decades of experience campaigning against keeping farm animals in poor conditions.

The organization’s US-specific branch was formed in 2011. Here, they focus on influencing corporate policies and practices via their Food Business program. These campaigns are designed to push manufacturers and food retailers to adopt animal welfare practices that can improve the lives of farmed animals across the country and also reduce the number of animals that are forced through the supply chain every year.

To succeed with this, they run several initiatives to generate engagement and influence companies to take action. They also support legislative efforts towards banning close confinement systems.

Animal Welfare Institute 

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), established in 1951, is another animal charity with a rich history. Their goal is to reduce the suffering inflicted on animals by humans. To meet this goal, they work together with industry leaders, scientists, and policymakers to identify alternatives to the many problems and dangers facing both farm and wild animals.

The AWI has programs geared towards abolishing factory farms while encouraging family farms and teaching them how to humanely handle animals raised for food. 

Their other programs targeting other animals have goals such as preserving species on the brink of extinction, improving the living conditions of research animals, putting an end to the use of steel-jaw leghold traps for capturing wildlife, and protecting pets from violence and cruelty.

Sinergia Animal

This organization is relatively new, but it has grown a strong presence across South America. It was founded in 2017, but they now operate in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile. Their mission is to reduce animal suffering and also cut down the consumption of animal products. They have a long-term goal of completely ending animal exploitation.

Sinergia Animal has plans to move into other countries where the biggest international animal advocacy organizations don’t have an adequate presence. They love to act as pioneers, creating in-roads for similar organizations to expand and grow. Some of the dietary changes encouraged by Sinergia Animal include veganism, vegetarianism, flexitarianism, and reductionism. 

They are constantly creating programs that will feed into their ultimate goal of causing a visible shift in the consumption of animal products around the world. Some of their corporate programs involve campaigns against the use of gestation crates and phasing out battery cages.

Animal Equality

This is another organization working hard to improve the lives and treatment of farm animals across the world. They are against large factory farms and encourage smaller, family-run farms across countries like Spain, Brazil, Mexico, India, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the US. 

They sponsor underground investigation of large farms to ensure they are transparent and treat animals humanely. The educational materials they produce are also useful in raising public awareness of the plight of farm animals.

Animal Equality also deploys legal advocacy to help push for better animal protection laws in the countries where they have a presence.

Barn Sanctuary

Barn Sanctuary is a charity that focuses on saving and rehabilitating farm animals that have suffered abuse in factory farms. You’ll find some touching stories of how they rescued animals on their web page. The sanctuary is home to all kinds of farm animals, including ducks, sheep, pigs, goats, turkeys, chickens, cows, and more.

They help these animals in various ways, including rescuing them from slaughter, providing rehabilitation and medical care, and helping them to regain mobility where needed. In the sanctuary, the animals get to live a better life.

Barn Sanctuary also works hard to educate the public on the dangers of factory farms, helping more people to become more compassionate towards these animals.

The Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira

The SVB was established in 2003. Their campaigns are focused on reducing meat consumption. They promote the adoption of plant-based diets through their veg festivals and their Meatless Monday campaigns. They also work with restaurants to create vegan meal options, administering the Vegan Label to those that are compliant.

The organization also works with health professionals to spread more information on the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet. Their plant-based conference aimed at health professionals started in 2018, and there’s also a 16-hour course on vegetarianism.

Mercy for Animals

Mercy for Animals is one of the leading names fully committed to exposing how farm animals are treated in farms across the country. They have led some important undercover reporting and investigations in the industry. They are also very active in promoting a vegan lifestyle across the country through education and outreach.

The Good Food Institute

The institute is helping farm animals by encouraging more consumption of plant-based foods. These are more eco-friendly when compared to animal-based options. Its movement is still in the early days, but the charity is growing in stature every year.

They are not just pushing for vegetarian burgers and other such foods; instead, they have adopted a holistic approach that encapsulates animal welfare, human health, poverty, and environmental damage.

Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM)

The FARM organization is an international public education and outreach charity focused on promoting veganism and animal rights. They have an abolitionist ideology in terms of the exploitation of animals. They have multiple programs running per time and are highly involved in the campaign against the use of animals in food.

Vegan Outreach

With more than 10 million leaflets printed and handed out since establishment over the last decade, the Vegan Outreach has shown the effectiveness of condensing anti-animal cruelty information into bite-sized colorful print.

They’ve been able to reach thousands of people—thanks to the grassroots activism method they’ve adopted—helping to positively impact the lives of millions of animals. With their regular training sessions on activism, the organization has created local foot soldiers that can take action for animals across their local area.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation was established in 1984 by the US congress. It is a partnership between the private and public sectors to protect fish, wildlife, plants, and ecosystems across the country and in US territories. 

The foundation has worked on more than 16,000 projects since establishment and has generated around $5 billion in funding. 93% of all the money they’ve raised has gone towards the various programs leaving the remaining 7% for administrative costs.

The Albert Schweitzer Foundation

This group’s outreach aims to make sure that corporations are using products that are humanely raised. They are also one of the first charities that devised outreach programs targeted at the welfare of farmed fish.

The organization believes that fish advocacy can be very impactful, as many people tend not to take farmed fish as seriously as farmed mammals. The charity also takes on some legal work. They have defended undercover investigators in the past.

United Poultry Concerns

UPC is a charity that campaigns against cruelty to domestic fowl. From their Virginia poultry paradise, they run programs designed to help the public learn the reality behind the poultry industry. The organization is passionate about encouraging people to seek cruelty-free alternatives to poultry.

They also teach about the benefits of the relationship between humans and chickens. UPC is one of the front runners helping schools replace their hatching programs and ending the forced molting practice.

How Can You Select the Best Charities to Support?

The charities on this list are, we deem, the best charities for helping farm animals. But don’t just take our word for it! You might want to do your own due diligence for each of these – as you should. Or for a particular charity that you may have in mind.

Either way, check out our six-step approach to select the best charity to support:

1. Check out the charity website and their mission. Charities that are worthy of your donations are transparent in their mission and their figures. Familiarise yourself with their history, mission, and values. The website is the best place to start. And while you are on it, also check out their mission to see how clearly you align with it.
2. Check if the charity has measurable goals. An effective charity has clear goals. You want to know your donation will help the charity reach its goals. But if it doesn’t have targets, it’s likely to fail or squander your gift. The charity should be able to account for its spending and supply evidence of the work they do.
3. Assess the successes or goals the charity has achieved. You wouldn’t invest in a business if it kept missing its targets. In the same way, charities are like this too. If no one is assessing the progress a charity makes in reaching its targets, the chances are not making positive change.
4. Check the charity’s financials and stats. Trustworthy organizations will publish financial statements and reports each year. Some might be exempt from having to do so, but they should be able to provide them to public members who are interested in donating.
5. Double-check the charity’s independent ratings. Two great places for this are Charity Navigator, the largest database on charities that analyze their financial health, accountability, and transparency, and Charity Watch, which details the amount of money spent on charitable activities versus overheads.
6. Locate sources who work with or benefit from the charity. Word of mouth and first-hand experience of a charity’s work lets you know the charity’s quality. If you’re able to do so, check out the charity for yourself or speak to someone familiar with it. This way, your donation will go to the right place.

How You Can Support Your Favorite Charity?

After you’ve made your decision, it’s time for you to decide on how you’d like to help the charities you’ve chosen. Check how you can help – each charity runs specific programs that have unique aims. Find out what the aim of such programs is and whether they are right for you. 

Here are a few ways you can help your chosen charity:

• Donate money. You can find donation pages on the website of most charities. Your donation can be a one-time payment, or you can set it to be deducted regularly at different intervals. You can mostly pay via credit card, but some charities also take PayPal or Bitcoin payments.
• Buy their official merchandise. The charities can also raise money by selling merchandise. So, you can support them by buying the mugs, shirts, caps, pens, pencils, and any other such items they may be selling. Ideally, you should buy as much as you can to share and spread the word about the charity’s activities.
• Engage in volunteer work. As you’ve seen from our descriptions above, most animal charities engage in a lot of local and grassroots programs. You can help by taking on and organizing the program in your local area.
• Help their fundraising efforts. You can spread the word about the charity in your workplace, school, church, etc., and hold creative fundraising drives on social media or offline within your small circles.
• Share their stories. Most animal welfare charities have compelling stories that you can share with your audience to attract more people to the cause.

Other Ways You Can Help Farm Animals

Reduce Your Consumption of Animal Protein

Billions of animals are killed for food each year across the US. This is to meet the demands of the average meat-eater who will directly or indirectly consume animal protein from thousands of animals over their lifespan. 

Unfortunately, not even 1% of these animals are raised in merciful conditions.Factory farming is used to meet the animal protein demands of meat-eaters in the right conditions, leading to more and more animal abuse. How can you help reducing this? Simply by consuming fewer animal products.

With more people adopting a vegetarian, vegan, or near-vegan diet, the number of animals that have to suffer in industrial farms will continue to decline. Eating more plants and fewer animal products may also have some health benefits for you. Plus, it’s good for the environment too.

Avoid Animal Products From Factory Farms

Most animal products you’ll find in supermarkets come from factory farms where animals are subjected to inhumane conditions that are nowhere near the glossy images painted in marketing brochures by the farm owners. Companies label products with the tag “Natural,” but it doesn’t say much about how animals are treated on the farm.

You can contribute your quota towards discouraging such practices by only shopping for your animal products from your local farmers’ market.

Alternatively, you can visit small family-owned farms that invariably treat animals better than the corporations for your purchase. Don’t take the farmer’s words alone, though. They should be open to a visit and discuss how their animals are raised.

If you can’t find a farmers’ market nearby or small farmers you can buy from, put pressure on the supermarket manager to stock more products from farms where animals are raised as free-range or pasture-raised. You can submit this opinion anonymously through the welfare forms.

Animal foods from farms that adopt the highest animal welfare standards will come with logos such as Certified Grassfed by AGW, Global Animal Partnership, and Certified Animal Welfare Approved by AGW. Where these certifications are not available, you should watch for products classified as pasture-raised or free-range.

Don’t Eat Products That Likely Came From Abused Animals

Some products immediately communicate the fact that an animal was raised or slaughtered in terrible conditions. Some of them include the following:

• Live sashimi: Some species of aquatic animals are cut-up while still alive and sent out on a plate while they’re still moving. Octopus and shrimp are some examples of animals that are subjected to this inhumane treatment.
• Shark fin soup: Around 73 million sharks are killed every year for their fins. After catching the sharks, the fishermen cut off the fins before tossing them back into the water to struggle without their fins, and they ultimately drown. Sharks in aquatic farms are slaughtered once their fins are ripe for harvest.
• Foie gras: This dish comes from the unnaturally enlarged liver of ducks or geese. To force the enlargement, farmers push a feeding pipe down the birds’ throat twice every day to force-feed them.
• Frog legs: Most frog farming operations rarely kill the animals humanely. Those taken from the wild may also be harming the ecosystem, with some being eaten to extinction.
• Milk-fed veal: Also known as white veal, these come from young calves typically under one month of age that have been kept in confinement to limit muscle growth and exercise. The animals are also milk-fed. It means that they don’t have iron and fiber needed so that they can produce their signature tender and pale flesh.

Guide More People Into Animal Welfare Advocacy

As we’ve touched on briefly above, we can achieve better results if more people get onboard animal welfare advocacy. Share everything you learned with your immediate circle offline and online. Teach them how to, directly and indirectly, encourage better conditions for farm animals, and tell them where to go to report inhumane treatment on any farm (local charities, law enforcement, etc.).

You should also get more politically active people to support candidates that are likely to push legislation to protect farm animals and make factory farming less attractive.

You should also encourage them to keep the animal welfare ethos in mind when they travel abroad. Don’t “sample” local dishes that most likely involve animal cruelty, such as live seafood, cat or dog meat, and whale meat. If you can’t ascertain the welfare of the farm animals in a dish, stick to diets that contain animal protein.

Final Thoughts

We’ve seen some excellent charities for helping farm animals above and how they are contributing to ensure a more humane environment for as many of these animals as possible. However, they can’t do the job alone.

We’ve seen the ways you can help your chosen charities, and most importantly, how you can directly or indirectly improve the lives of farm animals in your immediate environment. Don’t just donate money, do your bit to help reduce the number of animal product consumers in the world today.

Stay impactful,

PS: Finally, I want to leave you with a thought-provoking TED talk from Dan Pallotta, a leading philanthropic activist and fundraiser, about what is wrong with the way we think about charities – and what we can do about it:

Sources

• Sentient Media: How Many Animals Are Killed for Food Every Day?
• Mercy For Animals
• Humane Farming Association
• HFA: HFA’s National Veal Boycott – Campaign Decimating Sales
• The Good Food Institute
• The Humane Society of the United States
• The Humane Society: Start the week off right with Meatless Monday
• National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
• United Poultry Concerns
• Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM)
• Vegan Outreach
• Farm Sanctuary
• Compassion Over Killing
• The Albert Schweitzer Foundation
• Anima International
• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• The Humane League
• Open Wing Alliance
• Compassion in World Farming
• Sinergia Animal
• The Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira
• SVB: Is your business prepared to meet a constantly growing demand?
• Selovegano
• SVB Course
• Animal Equality
• Animal Welfare Institute
• Faunalytics
• Barn Sanctuary
• Harvard: Eat more plants, fewer animals
• Greenpeace: Eating Less Meat, More Plants Helps the Environment
• Livescience: Shark Slaughter: 73 Million Killed Each Year
• Science Daily: Frogs Are Being Eaten To Extinction, Experts Say
• A Greener World: Certified Animal Welfare Approved by AGW
• Global Animal Partnership
• A Greener World: Certified Grassfed by AGW