Make a difference for animals — your way
Thinking about eating more plant-based meals? That's great! Every step toward reducing animal products helps create a kinder food system.
But we know diet change isn't easy… Life gets busy, family members have different preferences, and sometimes plant-based options just aren't available.
Here's something you might not know: You can help end factory farming without changing your diet at all.
The biggest difference you can make
Donating to truly impactful charities can do even more to tackle factory farming than going 100% plant-based.
Working with expert charity evaluators, we’ve identified 6 of the world’s best charities making the lives of factory farmed animals better and building a more sustainable food system. See how little you’d need to donate to do as much good for animals and the planet as going fully plant-based.
It’s like a carbon offset calculator, but for your plate. Still have questions?
What is this calculator for?
Not everyone is willing or able to cut meat and dairy out their diet right now. But almost all of us can give, even a little, to help. We’ve built a calculator to help you donate an amount to our expert-recommended charities that does as much good to fix factory farming as your diet contributes to it. This way you can help animals and the climate as much as going plant-based, but without changing your diet!
How do I use it?
- Choose your diet from the options (or toggle to ‘advanced’ to customize the calculation based on how much you eat different foods)
- See how many animals are impacted in producing your food
- We automatically calculate how much you’d need to donate to our expert-recommended charities to help animals enough to balance your diet
- Click 'Make a donation' to begin the donation process, if you'd like to do so.
Where does my donation go?
Donations through our Compassion Calculator are distributed to all six of the recommended charities in our Impact Fund. We've worked with expert charity evaluators to handpick charities that make a massive difference to help all of the types of animals that make up your diet. They help animals in a wide range of ways, like:
- Holding corporations accountable: Our charities have successfully pressured over 500 massive companies like Walmart, PepsiCo and KFC, to commit to phasing out some of the cruelest practices for farmed pigs and chickens, so that food production is kinder to animals.
- Increasing access to plant-based options: Our charities help universities, government bodies, workplaces and even prisons offer more plant-based options and vegetarian menu days, reducing their use of factory farmed products by 20-40%. By reducing the number of animals raised to produce our food, they prevent the harms they would experience on factory farms.
- Developing alternatives to factory farmed meat: Our charities are buiiding a world where factory farming isn't needed to produce our food: They support scientists, businesses and policymakers to accelerate the development and adoption of plant-based and cell-cultured meat products.
Meet our recommended charities here.
Why should I trust you?
- We work with trusted partners: FarmKind collaborates with Every.org, a non-profit donation platform that has processed over $62,000,000 in donations and is trusted by over 5,000 US non-profits. This way you can be confident your donations will reach your chosen charities and be put to good use to help animals.
- We are independently funded: As a grant-funded non-profit, we don't take any cut from your donations – 100% goes to your chosen charities. Plus, none of the charities we recommend are paying us. This way, we have no financial incentives influencing our charity selections, guaranteeing unbiased, independent recommendations for donors like you.
- We’re backed by respected voices: FarmKind has been featured in reputable press outlets including Forbes, We're also endorsed by prominent figures such as Peter Singer, Professor and best-selling author of books like "The Life You Can Save."
How do the calculations work?
Can I see how it works for myself?
We have written a short blog explaining in detail how our calculators work here (includes a link to the underlying calculations, which you can check for yourself)
How do you know how much it costs for the charities to help animals?
- We look at our recommend charities track record in the real world: Our calculations combine how many animals they have helped, what it cost them to achieve this, and how much each animal is helped (using estimates from independent animal welfare researchers).
- All our charities have also been vetted by Animal Charity Evaluators, who have recommended our charities for being among the most cost-effective ways to help factory farmed animals.
- Plus, to account for the inherent margin of error in such calculations, we have modelled conservatively so you can be confident that your donations do enough good for animals to balance the impact of your diet.
What about overhead costs?
Our charities have all been recommended because they are able to do the most to help animals per dollar they receive, rather than the money merely covering overhead costs without helping animals. The donation amounts suggested by the calculator are sufficient to both fund the charities' work helping animals and the overhead costs that go along with being a functional organization.
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In short, our calculator combines data on the average adult diet in the U.S, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand with our recommended charities' estimated costs to help different animals. Learn more about where these numbers come from here (includes a link to the underlying calculations, which you can check for yourself). Keep in mind that there is a significant margin of error in these kinds of calculations, which we have accounted for by modelling conservatively.
When I go to donate, why does it say I'm helping so many more animals than are raised to produce my food?
All of our expert-recommended charities either significantly improve the lives of factory farmed animals, or reduce the number of animals that are factory farmed. The welfare improvements they achieve today make a massive difference, but they don't yet result in completely benign farming practices.
For example, chickens raised according to the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) suffer roughly 50% less those raised with standard industry practices. This means your donation needs to cause two chickens to be raised in accordance with the BCC to help chickens as much as they're harmed when factory farmed.
Because of this, when you balance your diet through FarmKind, you are helping a far larger number of animals than contribute to your diet, giving each a smaller benefit than is commensurate with the harm of raising them.
