Mission: Since its founding in 1951 the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has sought to reduce the sum total of pain and fear inflicted on animals by people. In the organization?s early years our particular emphasis was on the desperate needs of animals used for experimentation. In the decades that followed we expanded the scope of our work to address many other areas of animal suffering.Today one of our greatest areas of emphasis is cruel animal factories, which raise and slaughter pigs, cows, chickens and other animals. The biggest are in our country, and they are expanding worldwide.Specific goals are:--Abolishing factory farms and achieving humane slaughter for all animals raised for meat. --Improving the housing and handling of animals used for experimentation and pushing for the development of animal research alternatives. --Ending the use of steel-jaw leghold traps and reforming other cruel methods of controlling wildlife populations. --Preserving species threatened with extinction and protecting wildlife in international trade. --Enforcing strict regulation of transport conditions for all animals. --Encouraging animal-friendly science teaching and preventing painful experiments on animals by students.
Programs: One of the main goals of AWI is the support of the "3 Rs," the replacement of experimental animals by alternatives, the refinement of testing to reduce pain and suffering when animals are still used, and the reduction of numbers of animals used in testing. AWI's other goals include efforts to end use of steel jaw leghold traps, to protect endangered and threatened species, and to reform methods used to rear farm animals. One of AWIs recent accomplishments was successfully fighting to maintain a moratorium on the commercial killing of whales.
Lean financials, transparent with 990. They fundraise so much less than similar orgs so you feel like your money is actually being used to help animals rather than print t-shirts, stuffed animals, stickers, etc.
One of the few animal organizations with 90%+ of each dollar going to programmatic expenses. They also don't make you feel guilty about your donation amount if it's small. They fundraise less than any other animal organization I'm aware of. It's hard to quantify policy and how much one organization contributes to the passage of a bill with dozens of stakeholders at play, but I'm confident my dollar is used to help animals when I donate to AWI.
Great charity with a great mission. They work on many different fronts to end needless animal suffering. I’m proud to be a continual supporter of this group.
They do great work at very little cost. If worldwide impact on the lives of suffering or unfairly exploited animals is important to you, consider donating or volunteering with this org. I plan to give again soon.
