Freedom is every animal’s right.
We’re building a fully vegan Midwest by 2056, one heart, one mind, one stomach at a time.
100+
events a year across the Midwest and online
860,000
St. Louisans reached in 2025, more than 1 in 4 people in the metro
140,000+
followers across our chapters and platforms
2,000+
grassroots supporters behind the work
Three problems holding the movement back.
Three ways we’re solving them.
Here’s what stands between animals and freedom, and what we’re doing about it.
THE PROBLEM
The Midwest has been left behind.
Roughly two-thirds of the Midwest’s major metro areas have no local animal rights organization. No protests. No potlucks. No one making veganism visible. Yet this is the heartland of factory farming, the states that raise most of America’s pigs and lay most of its eggs. The animals are here. The movement mostly isn’t.
OUR SOLUTION
We build animal rights hubs where none exist.
We launch chapters in overlooked Midwestern cities and grow them into thriving vegan hubs, often from scratch. Through our Compassionate Cities Campaign, every chapter organizer gets a dedicated coordinator, one-on-one mentorship every other week, organizing guides, event supplies, and funding. Today we have six chapters across four states. In many of them, we are the only animal rights group in town.
THE PROBLEM
Most new vegans quit.
About 84% of people who go vegetarian or vegan eventually give it up, most within the first year. Isolation is one of the biggest reasons. Going vegan alone, in a culture built around animal products, rarely lasts. The movement pours most of its money into convincing people and almost none into keeping them. That’s a leaky bucket. Every convert who quits is outreach poured down the drain.
OUR SOLUTION
We make veganism stick.
Our core work is creative grassroots vegan community building: potlucks, markets, book clubs, karaoke nights, marches, expos, festivals, and holiday feasts. More than 100 events a year. Each one gives people a reason to stay vegan and a community to stay vegan with. And community is outreach. A single STL Vegan Market reaches around 50,000 St. Louisans and racks up some 300,000 views, showing an entire city what vegan living looks like. From community, all else follows.
THE PROBLEM
The movement burns through its people.
Animal rights work is hard. New activists show up on fire, and too many burn out within a few years, exhausted and alone. Organizers in smaller cities get no training, no budget, and no one to call. So the movement keeps starting over, rebuilding what it just lost.
OUR SOLUTION
We recruit, train, and sustain activists for the whole movement.
Project Animal Freedom is a home base for activists, whether they organize with us or with someone else. We recruit new advocates, train them, plug them into community, and keep them in the fight for the long haul. Our organizers are free to volunteer and collaborate with any group in their area. And we share what we learn, nearly eight years of playbooks and hard-won lessons. Community building is capacity building.
Proof it works: St. Louis
St. Louis is where we started in 2018 and where our model runs at full strength. In 2025, our St. Louis chapter alone organized 56 events, earned nearly 3.6 million impressions, and reached an estimated 860,000 St. Louisans, more than one in four people in the metro. 768 people signed up for our first St. Louis Veganuary Challenge. This year we’re on track for 70+ St. Louis events, and we’re turning everything we’ve learned into a playbook every chapter can run.
56
events in St. Louis in 2025
3.6M
impressions in 2025
768
sign-ups for the first St. Louis Veganuary Challenge
2M+
digital views and site visits in 2026 so far
Why freedom?
Because farmed animals are raised and killed by the billions and endure some of the worst suffering imaginable. Because every one of them is someone, not something. And because they deserve more than a slightly bigger cage.
We don’t want humane exploitation. We want no exploitation. Not bigger cages. Empty cages. Nothing less than freedom.
That’s why our mission has a date: a fully vegan Midwest by 2056.
Fund the movement the Midwest has been missing.
We run more than 100 events a year on a budget smaller than many nonprofits spend on a single salary. Your gift rents the hall, feeds the potluck, prints the leaflets, pays the speaker, and launches the next chapter in a city that has never had one. Dollar for dollar, few places in America offer more impact for animals than the Midwest. We’re already here, and we’re already building.
Give monthly
Monthly donors are our backbone. Steady support lets us book venues, promise organizers a budget, and say yes to the next city.
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Until every animal is free.
Their freedom is our freedom. We will fight until every last animal is safe, happy, and free. Fight with us.