Why We Don't Recommend Donating to Animal Welfare Observatory
Animal Welfare Observatory (AWO) is a charity that claims every euro you donate helps 37 animals.
While it would be great if this were true, we believe that donating to AWO actually helps close to zero animals.
The Core Problem: AWO Assumes Their Corporate Campaigns Are Highly Impactful
On their website AWO claims that their corporate campaigns have caused multi-billion dollar businesses like Starbucks, Subway, and Burger King to commit to stop using eggs from caged hens:
At face value, these impact claims are impressive. However, these impact claims assume that AWO's campaigns actually caused businesses to meaningfully alter their behavior. And given that there are numerous reasons to believe this is not the case, we would expect the true impact of AWO's campaigns to be virtually zero.
This is important because AWO's claim that each euro donated helps 37 animals is built on their campaign impact claims.
Conclusion
AWO's impact claims are based on a favorable assumption. And that's the core problem.
By making favorable assumptions, any amount of impact can be claimed—even if the true impact is zero.
For this reason, we do not consider AWO's impact claims to be credible, and we do not recommend donating to them.
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