Why We Don't Recommend Donating to The Humane League
The Humane League (THL) is an organization that claims to have helped hundreds of millions of animals through corporate campaigns like the one below.
However, we believe that THL's campaigns actually help close to zero animals.
The Core Problem: THL Assumes Their Corporate Campaigns Are Highly Impactful
On their website, THL claims that their corporate campaigns have caused multi-billion dollar companies like Starbucks and Conagra to commit to reduce animal suffering.
At face value, these impact claims are impressive. However, these impact claims assume that THL's campaigns actually caused corporations 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 THL's campaigns to be virtually zero.
Conclusion
THL'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 THL's impact claims to be credible, and we do not recommend donating to them.
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Frequently Asked Questions
References
Note: see the section talking about The Humane League celebrating 100 victories. The Humane League's graphic features Burger King and Walmart.
Key Quote: "Horror-movie villains stood outside Food Lion’s headquarters to spotlight a real-world nightmare: hens still trapped in cages while a major company stalls on its promise to animals."
Note: Food Lion's 2025 revenue exceeded 10 billion dollars.