Archived Version: May, 2014
| Status | Exploratory |
| Primary Work Area | Industrial Agriculture |
| Website | America For Animals |
| Review Published | May, 2014 |
| Type | Archived Review |
| Current Version | November, 2017 |
America for Animals is a relatively young organization focused on making technological tools to help stop animal cruelty. During 2014 they plan to launch the first two of these tools, both mobile apps. The Humane Eating Project will help users find restaurants serving vegan, vegetarian, and humanely raised food, while Animal Ally will allow users to report incidences of animal cruelty in general.
America for Animals is a relatively young organization focused on making technological tools to help stop animal cruelty. During 2014 they plan to launch the first two of these tools, both mobile apps. The Humane Eating Project will help users find restaurants serving vegan, vegetarian, and humanely raised food, while Animal Ally will allow users to report incidences of animal cruelty in general.
Impact Evaluation
Young but good potential
America for Animals is a young, volunteer-run organization with almost no track record but that has significant potential to do good effectively. In particular, if The Humane Eating Project becomes a popular app, it could encourage and support aspiring vegans and vegetarians on a broad scale by making it easier to stick to their commitments when eating out.
Programs with uneven strengths
ACE is not sure whether promoting humane standards for meat and animal products is generally good or bad for animals, but for The Humane Eating Project it could be helpful by encouraging people interested in humane consumption to use an app that would also promote plant-based foods to them. This app is particularly promising because it fills a need for users in a way that should require relatively little ongoing effort from advocates, compared to maintaining and distributing print guides to humane or vegetarian eating. The Animal Ally app looks less likely to make a difference on a large scale for a variety of reasons. In particular, only a small proportion of animal cruelty happens in ways that are visible to the public, and fewer people are likely to be interested in an app about animal cruelty than in one about restaurants.
Interesting opportunity for knowledgeable advocates
ACE does not have enough specialized domain knowledge to judge the likelihood of success for apps that have not yet been released, but we encourage donors who are particularly knowledgeable about and interested in the methods employed by America for Animals to make their own judgements about whether to fund their “high risk, high reward” projects. America for Animals also offers volunteer opportunities that could be very effective ways to use software development and design skills to help animals.