Animal Rights Resources

American Anti-Vivisection Society

The mission of the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) is to end the use of animals in science through education, advocacy, and the development of alternative methods. Founded in 1883, it is the first nonprofit animal advocacy and educational organization in the United States dedicated to ending experimentation on animals in research, testing, and education. It works with individuals, students and parents, educators, grassroots groups, corporate and government decision makers, and members of the scientific community toward this goal.

Animal Equality

Animal Equality is an international organization working with society, governments, and companies to end cruelty to farmed animals. It is guided by compassion, determination, and effectiveness, committed to saving as many animals as possible and reducing the enormous suffering animals endure on factory farms.

Animal Legal Defense Fund

Animal Legal Defense Fund’s mission is to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system. It accomplishes this by filing high-impact lawsuits to protect animals from harm, providing free legal assistance and training to prosecutors to assure that animal abusers are held accountable for their crimes, supporting tough animal protection legislation and fighting legislation harmful to animals, and providing resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the emerging field of animal law.

Animal Welfare Information Center

Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC) was established in 1986 as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s National Agricultural Library (NAL) in Beltsville, Maryland. It provides information, products and library services related to the improved care and use of animals in research, testing, and teaching as described in the Animal Welfare Act.

Anonymous for the Voiceless

Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV) is a nonprofit animal rights organization specializing in using conversation and standard practice footage to edify the public about animal exploitation. Initially founded in Melbourne, Australia, it is now a global community of like-minded people using their voices for justice for fellow earthlings. With an abolitionist stance against all forms of non-human animal exploitation, it holds street activism events worldwide to edify the public toward supporting animal rights, living vegan, and speaking up for the animals.

ASPCA

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has been at the forefront of animal rescue and protection since its founding as the first animal welfare organization in North America in 1866. For more than 150 years, it has been the leading voice in animal welfare, bringing the critical protection of animals to the forefront of society.

Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade

Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) USA exists to forever end the killing of animals for their fur. Its method is to dismantle the retail market, forcing one company after another to abandon fur, until the industry collapses. Its team has fought whalers alongside Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, closed mink farms through non-violent direct action, faced off with multi-billion dollar corporations in various international campaigns, and have won. 

Cruelty Free International

Cruelty Free International works to create a world where nobody wants or believes we need to experiment on animals. Its dedicated team includes experts across diverse fields, combining award-winning campaigning, political lobbying, pioneering undercover investigations, scientific and legal expertise, and corporate responsibility. Educating, challenging and inspiring others throughout the globe to respect and protect animals, it investigates and exposes the reality of life for animals in laboratories—challenging decision-makers to make a positive difference for animals, and championing better science and cruelty-free living.

Dansk Vegetarisk Forening

Dansk Vegetarisk Forening (DVF), the Danish Vegetarian Association, works to reform the food system and reduce animal product consumption to decrease animal suffering and promote a more sustainable food system. Its comprehensive approach includes engaging in government policy advocacy, collaborating on plant-based food initiatives, educating the public, supporting product labeling, and encouraging institutions and companies to offer more plant-based options.

Eleventh Hour Rescue

Eleventh Hour Rescue is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization dedicated to saving the lives of innocent dogs and cats on death row. Many of them are rescued at their Eleventh Hour—when they are scheduled to be put to death by other shelters that can no longer care for them. The group gives these dogs and cats all the medical attention they require, a place to live, and through its extensive adoption services, a second chance at a happy and fulfilled life. Eleventh Hour Rescue is not subsidized by government grants and receives no major corporate funding. It relies solely on the generosity of its volunteers, the community, and animal lovers everywhere.

Farm Animal Rights Movement

Founded in 1976, Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) is a national nonprofit organization advocating for animal rights, veganism, and sustainability. For many years, it was the only national animal rights organization fighting for farmed animals and advocating to end the use of animals for food. Operating from Washington, D.C. and New York through a network of activists, FARM conducts massive public awareness campaigns and international programs (including MeatOut, Vegan Earth Day, World Day for Farmed Animals, and Compassionate Holidays). Its Animal Rights National Conference has inspired thousands of animal rights activists and motivated movement newcomers for nearly 50 years.

Food Empowerment Project

Food Empowerment Project seeks to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power of one’s food choices. It encourages healthy food choices that reflect a more compassionate society by spotlighting the abuse of animals on farms, the depletion of natural resources, unfair working conditions for produce workers, and the unavailability of healthy foods in low-income areas.

Food & Water Watch: Factory Farm Maps

With more than 2 million supporters, Food & Water Watch fights for safe food, clean water, and a livable climate for all of us. It protects people from the corporations and other destructive economic interests that put profit ahead of everything else. Among other resources, it publishes comprehensive annual factory farm maps and reports based on the latest USDA Census of Agriculture,which includes density rankings that reveal the extreme concentration of factory farms—and their waste—in communities across the country, endangering clean water and public health.

FOUR PAWS International

FOUR PAWS International is a global animal welfare organization that takes a problem-solving approach toward ending animal suffering, providing animals in distress with swift and direct aid. It strives to achieve and establish changes in politics, society, and the economy that will benefit animals—through projects, campaigns, and education. Its work is based on scientific expertise, sound research, and national and international advocacy for positive legislative changes for animals.

Friends of Animals

Friends of Animals (FoA) is an international animal advocacy organization incorporated in the state of New York since 1957. It advocates for the rights of nonhuman animals, free-living and domestic. Its goal is to free animals from cruelty and institutionalized exploitation around the world. The organization has grown from its beginnings as the most comprehensive low-cost spay neuter program in the country, facilitating more than 2.8 million spay/neuter procedures to date, and now places critical habitat, wildlife protection, and veganism at the core of animal advocacy. It addresses the biggest contributors to climate change caused by human activity: deforestation, animal agriculture and fossil fuels.

Humane World for Animals

For more than 70 years, Humane World for Animals—formerly called the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International—has been a leader of the animal protection movement, tackling the root causes of animal cruelty and suffering to drive permanent change and create a better world for all animals around the globe.

Last Chance for Animals

Last Chance for Animals (LCA) is an international, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating animal exploitation through education, investigations, legislation, and media attention. It believes that animals are highly sentient creatures who exist for their own reasons independent of their service to humans; they should not be made to suffer for the latter. LCA opposes the use of animals in food and clothing production, scientific experimentation, and entertainment, and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle and the ascription of rights to non-human beings.

Mercy for Animals

Mercy For Animals exists to end one of the greatest causes of suffering on the planet: the exploitation of animals for food. Its mission is to discontinue industrial animal agriculture by constructing a just and sustainable food system.

New Roots Institute

New Roots Institute is dedicated to ending factory farming by empowering future generations with the critical knowledge and training to create a just and sustainable food system for all. Its leadership development programs offer fellowships for students motivated to dig deeper into the impacts, and solutions, of factory farming—while being trained in effective communication, advocacy, and leadership skills. With continued support, alumni go on to develop and empower other leaders to create change in their communities toward the shared goal of ending factory farming.

No Kill Advocacy Center

Nonhuman Rights Project

The NhRP is the only civil rights organization in the United States dedicated solely to securing rights for nonhuman animals. Its groundbreaking work challenges an archaic, unjust legal status quo that views and treats all nonhuman animals as legal “things” with no rights. As with human rights, nonhuman rights are based on fundamental values and principles of justice such as liberty, autonomy, equality, and fairness.

Open Wing Alliance

Initiated by The Humane League, Open Wing Alliance brings 90+ member organizations together to create a unified front in its goal to end the abuse of chickens worldwide. It shares campaign strategies, tactics, and resources around the world in the march toward this shared objective. 

Our Honor

Our Honor’s goal is to create an organized network of professionals who are able to formally challenge unethical institutionalized systems and amplify the voices of those who have been marginalized. Its members practice nonviolence and believe in forging alliances with industry, and believe everyone who seeks out a career with animals has the desire to protect them from suffering.

People for Animals

The mission of People for Animals, Inc. is to prevent animal suffering through affordable essential healthcare, public policy advocacy, and community programs. Its key service to the public and animal welfare groups is affordable, routine pet care aimed at specifically driving more animals to early spay/neuter procedures to prevent accidental pregnancies, make pet ownership more affordable, and reduce the number of homeless animals in local shelters.

Tree House Humane Society

Tree House Humane Society was founded in 1971 on the dream of a group of volunteers who wanted better things for Chicago’s homeless animals. Its mission is to empower communities of caregivers and ensure that every cat thrives. It strives to provide model cat care through Socially Conscious Sheltering. The Socially Conscious Animal Community framework is about creating the best outcome for all animals and nurturing the human-animal bond through thoughtful placements, assessing and thoughtfully addressing animal needs, and considering the health and safety of both animals and communities.

Vegan Feminist Network

Vegan Feminist Network is an academic-activist project founded by Dr. Corey Lee Wrenn that engages intersectional social justice praxis, connecting animal rights with feminism and other social justice movements. Its site functions as a safe community for activists of all backgrounds, and its mission is to eradicate oppression from the Nonhuman Animal rights movement and improve inclusiveness through dialogue and educational resources.

VINE Sanctuary

VINE Sanctuary is an LGBTQ-led farmed animal sanctuary that works for social and environmental justice as well as for animal liberation. It offers refuge to nonhuman animals who have escaped or been rescued from the meat, dairy, and egg industries or other injurious circumstances, such as cockfighting, experimentation, petting zoos, or pigeon shoots. In addition to sheltering and advocating for animals, it conducts research and community education aimed at diet change, agriculture reform, and more effective animal advocacy.

Wildlife Conservation Network

Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN)’s mission is to protect endangered wildlife by supporting conservationists who ensure wildlife and people coexist and thrive. It does so by providing entrepreneurial organizations with in-depth, ongoing support through its Network of Conservation Partners. Members receive the needed financial resources, tools, and services to effectively protect wildlife. The group's Wildlife Funds offer flexible grants to projects to protect a threatened species across its entire habitat. These investments kickstart new approaches and bolster tried and true conservation efforts—amplifying donor support by combining contributions, for the biggest impact possible. WCN helps local conservationists grow and thrive so that they have the support they need to protect wildlife. It invests in these brave women and men to strengthen their skills, build their organizations, and advance their careers in conservation. Through scholarships and grants, it provides support to locals shaping conservation in their home countries—ensuring a greater and more sustainable impact for wildlife.