The Vegan Heartland: Building a Movement in America’s Most Neglected Region for Animal Advocacy

In May 2025, we had the privilege of attending the world’s premier animal rights conference: the Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit in Los Angeles. We were one of roughly 110 organizations selected to participate in Grantee Day. Below is a transcript of the fundraising pitch we gave while at AVA, a breakthrough moment for our organization.

How many of you are familiar with the term “flyover country”? Raise your hand.

Now, how many of you flew over flyover country to get to this summit? Raise your hand again!

Well, Al, Alex, and I are from flyover country, specifically St. Louis, Missouri, and we are here to tell you that the Midwestern animal rights movement is critically underfunded, underdeveloped, and underutilized.

We are accustomed to the East and West coasts and parts of the South dominating vegan culture. But I can tell you that there exists massive untapped potential in the Midwest. Nearly 70,000,000 Americans live here, and we are arguably the most neglected region in the US for animal advocacy. Even Texas is vegan-friendly compared to many parts of the Midwest.

At Project Animal Freedom, we are working to unlock this vast untapped potential, a mass movement in waiting. Our vision is clear: a fully vegan Midwest by 2056. Through a tested, grassroots, chapter-based model, we’re mobilizing communities where none existed before, and turning neglect into power. We strive to build thriving vegan communities in every major metro area across the Midwest, which we define as metro areas with 100,000 or more people.

“We believe that the people in these communities are just as worthy of being reached and that vegans in these communities are just as deserving of a strong, community-based organization to rally around.”

There are 56 such metro areas across the Midwest, and over half of them lack so much as a single local animal rights organization. Many of them even lack so much as a single local online vegan community.

At Project Animal Freedom, we are working diligently to address this deficit by launching, supporting, and growing chapters and building online vegan communities. In just six years, we've built a digital base of over 110,000 followers, amassed over 24,000 group members, and reached nearly 20 million people, with just $10,000 in grant funding last year. Imagine what we could do with major investment.

After all, our chapters serve as powerful community organizing hubs, each projecting its influence into the local community. Our chapters regularly reach tens of thousands of people and as many as 1 in 5 area residents, especially in medium-sized cities, where there aren’t as many events and organizations to compete against.

Medium-sized cities with metro populations between 100,000-500,000 people are our specialty, in fact: large enough to enable far-reaching impact, but small enough that they don’t typically have a local animal rights organization prior to our intervention. We believe that the people in these communities are just as worthy of being reached and that vegans in these communities are just as deserving of a strong, community-based organization to rally around.

“Our goal is to inject as many people into the movement as possible to build the momentum we need to facilitate revolutionary social and political change for animals.”

We provide the model. We provide the infrastructure. And we provide critical support to each of our chapters. As part of our Compassionate Cities Campaign, we pair each local chapter organizer with a regional chapter coordinator who provides regular one-on-one advice for growing their chapter. This advice often proves invaluable, helping organizers build community more quickly and successfully than they could on their own. Our model is specially calibrated to the Midwest, taking into account some of the unique challenges small- and medium-sized cities here face.

We expect our chapters to organize at least one event a month, reach a minimum of 20,000 people a year, and raise a minimum of $2,000 a year to supplement the funding we supply. By their second year of operation, we ask our chapters to commit to organizing two events a month: one community-building event and one activism/outreach event. By their third year of operation, we expect our chapters to be mostly, if not wholly, self-sufficient, though we can provide additional funding as needed.

We’ve developed a robust, iterative model that helps new chapters become self-sufficient and fully integrated into the larger organization. By working together across chapters, we create opportunities to learn and grow collectively. Our approach is flexible and practical—like a Swiss Army Knife—and we empower each chapter to thrive as its own organization. We do this by teaching them how to market themselves, fundraise effectively, and develop strong leadership. Each chapter operates as a semi-autonomous force under the larger Project Animal Freedom umbrella, maximizing impact both locally and regionally.

Our goal is to inject as many people into the movement as possible to build the momentum we need to facilitate revolutionary social and political change for animals.

Indeed, we are not only a community-based organization, but a deeply grassroots, movement-based organization. 74% of our funding last year came from small grassroots supporters, and our average donation was just $26, with a comparatively small amount coming from grants and major gifts.

“This is your moment to ignite a grassroots revolution in the most neglected region for animal advocacy in the country.”

While we're proud of what we’ve accomplished with mostly grassroots support, I am here to tell you that it is not easy to build a movement $5, $10, $20 at a time. With your support today, we will launch 10 new chapters, reach 200,000+ Midwesterners over the coming year, and permanently shift the balance of animal advocacy in the United States.

Imagine what we can accomplish if properly funded, the hundreds of thousands of people we can reach across the Midwest with our message of a sustainable, vegan lifestyle. Imagine the thriving vegan communities we can build in dozens of cities across the Midwest, building from scratch something desperately and vitally needed. Imagine, 5-10 years from now, the millions of Midwesterners we will reach and the tens of thousands of community members we will mobilize.

This is your moment to ignite a grassroots revolution in the most neglected region for animal advocacy in the country. Let’s make history. Together.

Thank you.