to change the world and help animals

Animal Advocacy Careers, the Pledge and EA have helped me to identify my “giving niche” which is factory farming and my most effective method of giving which is to continue working to give rather than pivoting into advocacy work directly or donating my time in retirement. Preventing the suffering of hundreds of animals by being vegan and thousands during my life-long career as a veterinarian is almost nothing compared to the meaningful impact that my GWWC Pledge donations are making by supporting the tireless work of many highly effective animal advocacy organizations. Becoming part of the community that will end factory farming through effective giving is more rewarding to me than anything else that money could buy.

Some kids may think that donating money to help animals is only for adults, but we kids can create a huge change for animals by starting our donations now! We don’t make as much money as most adults, but every little bit can make a huge difference if we give effectively! By signing the Giving What We Can Pledge to donate some of our allowance or paycheck, together our generation will help end animal cruelty! We don’t have to wait until we finish school and start our careers, and while working at an animal charity might be perfect for some of us, those who choose a different career can still make a huge impact!

When I first started donating I was working outside the movement and donating felt like the best way I could make a meaningful contribution to help animals! It felt great to know more about how my donations were helping the organisations I was supporting

I was a GWWC pledger since 2017 but I donated more for global health and development charities. While I still think global poverty needs to be addressed, I came to the conclusion that factory farming is a more pressing and neglected problem.

I realised that being vegan wasn’t enough. Simply avoiding harm wasn’t going to stop the suffering—I needed to actively contribute to change. If those of us who care deeply about animals don’t step up, who will?

A lot of the suffering in our world today takes place on factory farms. Animals have to live through horrible conditions that we would never think of putting our pets through. There are very effective animal charities out there doing amazing work to improve the lives of animals in factory farms. By avoiding animal products, I don’t participate in this horrible industry, but I don’t feel like that’s enough. I can’t sit by and do nothing to help out the chickens, pigs, cows and fish who are very much capable of experiencing pain and pleasure like we do.

After taking a closer look at different ways to help animals, I realized that effective donations can have an outstanding impact, potentially much larger than actions I had already taken. Instead of relying on the idea that I was already doing something and therefore wouldn’t need to do anything else, I decided to add effective giving to my efforts.

You don’t even have to give that much to be impactful. Being vegan for a year spares tens of animals and just donating a few dollars to the most effective charities has the same impact (of course the best is to be vegan AND donate more than just a few dollars).

The scale of factory farming is so great that the changes we can bring about impact an unimaginable number of animals. Advocates have demonstrated that they can get results so I’m excited to put my money towards them continuing their efforts.

Knowing how much the animal advocacy cause is funding constrained and how far a double-digit percentage of an average salary in a Western country can go, committing to a giving pledge seems like a no-brainer. I believe that enabling high-skilled professionals to expand their operations and campaigns to help animals is an incredibly worthwhile use of any animal advocate’s money.