Methods of Vegan Activism
It is often said that Veganism is the least we can do for the animals. For many people after being Vegan for a few months, it'll start to feel as though just making a dietary change is not enough, and the urge to start doing good on top of that kicks in. It can be a bit tricky, because people tend to be unsure of how exactly to help. Newer, younger vegans often gravitate towards more provocative and "in your face" approaches to animal rights activism, but the effectiveness of these strategies tend to be dubious.
This article will present a list of things the average Vegan can do to help out more animals beyond the ones that are being spared suffering thanks to their choices to stop eating those animals and their products. None of these options will necessarily involve significant time or money investments, and are often things that can be done either by dedicating an hour or so week, or come passively when you're just going about your daily life.
There will be some overlap with a few items on the list of things to do to reduce your carbon footprint. Despite the overlap, that article is more in discussion with minimizing your carbon footprint, while here it'll discuss ways of maximizing the good you do for animals. Since they generally will result in fewer animals being bred and slaughtered, it by extension reduces carbon emissions as well.
Donation to Effective Charities
This is probably the most cost effective thing the average person can do, that is, if they give their money to the right charities. The vast majority of money donated to animal charities tend to go to animals that the average person likes more than farmed animals, namely cats and dogs. For the average Vegan who cares about animals whose suffering is oft neglected, namely animals on farms, there are dozens of charities that can help reduce the suffering.
The best evaluator for farmed animal-charities is Animal Charity Evaluators. They recommend charities that help animals in all sorts of ways, such as improving welfare on farms, lobbying for animal rights, developing Vegan alternatives, and helping get others to reduce consumption of animal products. All of these are extremely helpful and worthwhile avenues to help, and are all pretty high impact per dollar. For example, one dollar to the Humane League on average helps improve animal welfare for a dozen animals. One dollar to Dansk Vegetarisk Foreneing replaces seven meat based meals with Vegan ones. One dollar to the Good Food Fund influences an expected two and a half people.
