The best charity to help animals

If you care about animals and want to reduce their suffering, but are not sure how, the Animal Charity Assessor (ACE) is an organization that may be able to help.This California-based non-profit organization has issued an annual guide to recommending animal charities, and has just released This year’s list(Disclosure: ACE helped fund some of Future Perfect’s work in 2020 and 2021.)

Two of the top three charities focus on improving the conditions of factory farms-which makes sense because they are sites of mass suffering.It’s not just the death that happened there—in the United States alone, factory farming killed approximately 10 billion Every year there are land animals-but the pain that animals are forced to endure while they are alive.Hens, calves and pigs are usually confined to a small space They can barely move, And the conditions are so painful that “gag“The existence of the law is to hide cruel behavior from the public.

When we hear about some of these situations—for example, chickens are forced to lay eggs at such a speed that their The intestines sometimes fall off partly Under pressure-we may want to stop them. But it is difficult to know which charities will actually make good use of our funds.

ACE researches and promotes the most influential and effective ways to help animals. Group Use three main criteria when deciding whether to recommend an organization, as my former colleague Kelsey Piper explain:

• The charity must be “May bring the greatest benefit to animals“-In other words, they are doing high-impact work, and they have evidence to support it.
• The charity must “Actively evaluate and improve their plans“-They have been trying to figure out the most effective way to advocate for animals (which may change over time) and adjust their plans accordingly.
• Charities must “show a need for more funds”-they actually need more funds to reach everyone they know how to reach (not every charity does).

With this in mind, ACE has selected three top charities in 2021:

1) Animal analysis: This is based in the U.S. Non-profit organizations Its animal advocacy method is somewhat primitive: it conducts and publishes independent research, mainly related to farmed animals, in an effort to make other animal advocates more influential and evidence-based.

For example, it checks Social psychology data About how to influence public opinion about animals in a way that actually leads to changes in behavior. ACE pointed out that advocacy research is a neglected intervention, writing: “Faunalytics’ plan supports the animal advocacy movement by examining effective advocacy strategies, problem areas and strategies, and by providing advocates with a carefully curated database of academic research abstracts. .”

2) Humane Alliance: This company was founded in 2005 organization Currently operating in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Japan. It has launched a successful campaign to urge companies to adopt higher animal welfare standards.It is committed to ending the use of battery cages internationally, and Improve conditions Chickens raised for meat. It also conducts grassroots legislative propaganda. Importantly, The Humane League has an evidence-driven view, collecting and using data to guide its methods and testing new ways to improve its programs.

3) Wildlife Initiative: As my colleague Dylan Matthews said record on file, This group is doing something unique: research and Advocate ways to help wild animalsIt does not focus on the welfare of factory farm animals, but on the welfare of free-range animals ranging from birds to raccoons to insects.it Learn Questions such as this: Which animals are capable of subjective experience? What is their quality of life in the wild? How can we help them safely and sustainably?

ACE also listed some outstanding charities-it said that although it did not make the top three, it did a good job-for example xiaobuVEGAN, A Chinese organization that aims to reduce the suffering of farmed animals and increase the supply of animal-free products in China, and Federation of Animal Protection Organizations of India, It pursues similar goals in India. In light of this, it’s great to see these non-American groups being highlighted because Marc Gunther explain In Vox, The vast majority of farmed animals are outside the United States and the European Union.

If you donate to one of the above-mentioned charities, you have reason to believe that your funds will be effectively used to reduce animal suffering.If you are not sure which of them you want to donate to, you can donate to Recommended charity fund And let ACE allocate funds based on their research showing the most effective way at the time.

When so many people are suffering, is it wrong to worry about animals?

Americans are increasingly concerned about animal welfare.Incredibly fast Embrace plant-based meat products like Impossible burgers and beyond meat Part of the reason is that people are becoming more aware that we can and should cause less suffering to animals.

A 2015 Gallup Poll It was found that 62% of Americans believe that animals deserve some legal protection. Another 32% (nearly one-third) expressed a stronger pro-animal stance, saying that they believe that animals deserve the same rights as humans. In 2008, only 25% Expressed this view.

It seems that more and more Americans are beginning to regard animals as part of our lives Moral circle, We draw imaginary boundaries around those who we think are worthy of ethical consideration.

However, some people’s response to this is “whataboutism”: what about pressing human issues such as epidemics and poverty? Behind this objection is usually a feeling that we cannot “waste” compassion on animal suffering, because every little care we invest in this cause means that we invest less in human suffering.

But as Ezra Klein wrote, Research Research by Yon Soo Park of Harvard and Benjamin Valentino of Dartmouth shows that attention to human suffering and attention to animal suffering are not zero-sum—in fact, where you find one, you tend to find the other:

In half of the study, they used comprehensive social survey data to see whether people who support animal rights are more likely to support various human rights, which is a zero-sum test of abstract sympathy. Then they compared the animal treatment laws in various states with the laws that protect humans to test whether political activism is zero-sum.

In both cases, the answer is that sympathy seems to produce sympathy.People who strongly support the government to help patients are “80% more likely to support animal rights than those who strongly oppose”, author Write. Even after controlling for factors such as political ideology, this finding is still valid. Support for animal rights is also related to support for LGBT individuals, races and minorities, unauthorized immigrants, and low-income people—albeit on a smaller scale.

Similarly, the countries that have done the most to protect animal rights are also doing the most to protect and expand human rights. Countries with strong laws to protect LGBT residents, strong protections for hate crimes, and inclusive policies for undocumented immigrants are more likely to provide strong protections for animals.

The question of why these correlations exist remains to be discussed, but the most important thing is that we better hope that our society will take action on animal suffering: if it does, we are more likely to see it also take action on human suffering.