Our Giving Fund: Improving Animal Welfare in H2/2025

Although most people are against cruelty to animals, many find it difficult to switch to an animal-free diet. The demand for eggs, for example, is actually increasing. That is why we want to use the money that our donors entrust to us in a targeted manner to help as many animals as quickly and effectively as possible.

To achieve this, the experts from the EA Animal Welfare Fund have been recommending activist campaigns targeting large corporations — especially in the Global South. Key companies are put under pressure through protests and campaigns until they promise to switch to cage-free eggs or crate-free pig farming in their supply chains. The companies are then closely monitored to see whether they comply with their voluntary commitments; if they do not, protests are held again. This strategy often works faster than legal requirements and quickly reaches a large number of animals in factory farming.

Fund Allocation

In the second half of 2025, 1.1 million euros were donated to our Giving Fund: Improving Animal Welfare from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As always, we followed the recommendations of the EA Animal Welfare Fund for allocating the funds. The funds were disbursed to the following organizations:

• Sinergia Animal
  • approx. €476,000 in unrestricted funds
• The Humane League
  • approx. €476,000 in unrestricted funds
  • approx. €180,000 in project-specific funds

Sinergia Animal

Sinergia Animal conducts corporate campaigns in eight countries in South America and Southeast Asia. Since its foundation in 2017, the organization has secured over 190 voluntary commitments by companies including Carrefour, Burger King and McDonald’s.

Animal Charity Evaluators, has been recommending it as a particularly effective animal welfare organization since 2018 and estimates that with every dollar donated to Sinergia Animal 53 hens or 21 sows can be helped. Sinergia Animal received unrestricted funding from us.

Founder Carolina Galvani summarized what Sinergia Animal is working on in 10 minutes in her presentation to us in Berlin in 2025 and also told her own story:

The Humane League

The Humane League (THL) maintains an international network of over 100 animal welfare organizations: the Open Wing Alliance. By joining forces, the network has already been able to secure 2,700 voluntary commitments of companies to cage-free eggs, including megacorporations such as Unilever and Ahold Delhaize.

Animal Charity Evaluators estimates that with every dollar donated to THL, 12 animals can be helped and has been recommending it as a particularly effective animal welfare organization since 2014.

Training Project: Empowering Local Activists

Part of our funding for THL is project-based and is specifically intended to accelerate the animal welfare movement in the Global South. The project consists of four face-to-face training sessions in 2026, including in Colombia and Tanzania. In the training programs, local activists learn everything about campaign strategy, negotiation and escalation planning in order to persuade companies to make voluntary commitments. THL exports successful strategies to where they are most urgently needed - and adapts them to local conditions. The training courses are made possible by the donations we have received in Austria through our Viennese association “Effektiv Spenden Österreich”. You can find more information about the project here.

Why the Global South?

In coordination with the EA Animal Welfare Fund, we particularly want to support animal welfare movements in the Global South. Why?

1. Sheer scale: Approximately 80 % of all poultry birds worldwide are kept in Asia, South America, and Africa—mostly in cages.
2. Proactive action: Factory farming is expanding rapidly in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa. It is far more effective to prevent the rise of cruel industries now than to try to reform them later.
3. Funding Gap: Estimates suggest that only ~1.2% of global animal welfare donations go to Southern Africa, for example, leaving enormous potential untapped. Where few organizations are active, additional resources are more likely to make a significant difference.
4. Wealth Gap: Due to differences in the cost of living and purchasing power, donations go much further in the Global South. For example, more staff can be hired while still being paid a fair, local wages.

As our donor Felix Werdermann aptly writes: “For the animals, it makes no difference in which country of the world they suffer.” But it does make a difference to our donation: our money can simply do more in the Global South.

About the author

Anne Schulze

Founder & Managing Director

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I am one of the founders and managing directors of Effektiv Spenden. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to send me an email. I'll get right back to you.