Here’s what your gift to The Humane League will accomplish in 2025

100 years ago, it was normal for hens to hunt for bugs, shake dirt from their feathers, and spread their wings in the warmth of the sun. In fact, 107 years ago my grandmother was born in the granary on one of these very farms in North Dakota. But over the past century, the agricultural landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation. Today, all over the world, more than 4 billion hens are confined in the cruelest invention of industrial animal agriculture—the battery cage.

These small, barren wire enclosures deprive hens of their most basic natural behaviors. No fresh air. No room to roam. It’s a living hell, responsible for 60% of the suffering a hen will endure in her lifetime.

At The Humane League, we’re determined to eradicate this unnecessary practice and usher in a new era of commonsense compassion. And in 2025, we have a critical opportunity to reach a tipping point in our global campaign to end cages.

We need your help to get there. Which is why I take this opportunity every year to share our plans for the year ahead with you, and ask you to stay with us, or join us, in our work to transform our global food system. We still need to raise $3.6 million—17% of our annual operating budget—to fund this year's budget. To help us get there, a very generous group of donors have once again come together to help us close out 2024 and start 2025 strong by matching your donations through the end of the year. I hope that you'll consider donating to support this work—by making a year-end gift, becoming a monthly donor, or even joining our Legacy Society—to help improve the lives of billions of animals trapped on factory farms.

In 2025, your support will help us…

Push the US to be 50% cage-free

In the coming year, hundreds of major food companies will be reaching their self-imposed deadlines to eliminate cages from their egg supply chains. This represents a pivotal moment in our movement. When we achieve 50% cage-free hens in the United States, we’ll hit a tipping point that will snowball progress worldwide.

We’ve seen this dynamic play out before. When The Humane League UK helped the country reach 58% cage-free in 2019, it catalyzed even faster progress. Retailers, manufacturers, and foodservice providers rushed to keep up with consumer demand and the new industry standard. In less than five years, the UK hit 77% cage-free in 2023—a remarkable transformation that is already inspiring change across Europe.

The US is primed for a similar breakthrough. As the world’s largest economy and home to the headquarters of so many global companies, progress in the US has an outsized impact across the world. When American consumers and corporations set a new standard for hen welfare, the ripple effects are felt worldwide.

That’s why pushing for the 50% cage-free milestone in the US in 2025 is such a pivotal goal. It will demonstrate the power of this movement, empower companies to completely eradicate battery cages, and pave the way for them to go even further for the billions of animals trapped in our food system.

But getting there won’t be easy. With hundreds of cage-free commitments coming due in 2025 alone, we must hold these companies accountable and ensure they follow through on their promises. We’ll be closely monitoring their progress, publicly acknowledging those that lead the way, and shining a spotlight on those that fail to deliver.

Build a powerful global movement

Achieving the 50% cage-free tipping point in the US is just one piece of our comprehensive strategy to eliminate the cruelest practices in industrial animal agriculture, forever. We’re also laser-focused on strengthening the global movement that will be essential to securing permanent change everywhere that factory farming exists.

The Open Wing Alliance (OWA)—the global coalition of 90+ nonprofit organizations we founded to end battery cages worldwide—is a cornerstone of this effort. In 2025, we need to expand our capacity to support and empower this rapidly growing alliance.

With new regional strategies developed for Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, we now need to invest in the grants, summits, and trainings required to equip each OWA member organization for maximum impact in their local contexts, as the true power of the OWA lies in fostering global collaboration and shared expertise. Through our mentorship programs, regular campaign coordination calls, and regional and global summits, we create opportunities for member organizations to learn from and support one another. More experienced groups train emerging advocates, local leaders share vital regional insights, and successful campaign strategies are adapted across markets. While we focus primarily on corporate campaigning given its proven effectiveness, each member organization maintains the independence to work in ways that best suit their local cultural norms. By connecting and empowering these diverse perspectives, we multiply our collective impact and move faster toward our shared goal of ending battery cage confinement worldwide. Customized support for each member group will be critical as we work to stop the spread of factory farming, especially in emerging markets that could bypass battery cages altogether. 

Strengthening the OWA is absolutely essential, because the global factory farming crisis demands a globally coordinated response. We cannot allow the industry's worst practices to simply shift to new regions while we make progress elsewhere. Africa, for example, faces unique challenges, including the import of used battery cages from other nations like the US. This is a major issue. Even if we eradicate cages from one country, the used-up cages might be resold to another where industrialized egg production is still in its infancy. 2025 will be a pivotal year in this fight—a time when we must rapidly scale our movement to match the scale of the problem.

Secure lasting protections through US policy

Factory farming interests are sinking massive amounts of money into politicians' wallets to legalize animal abuse. In 2023, poultry and egg industries spent $1,280,000 on lobbying efforts, and 50% of the lobbyists were former government employees. That same year, agribusiness spent $177,251,252 on lobbying efforts, with the dairy, livestock, and poultry and egg industries collectively spending $14,176,547 of that. And in 2022, agribusiness spent a record-breaking $165 million on federal lobbying. Agribusiness is big business. And—behind closed doors—politicians are colluding with Big Meat to erase critical animal protections. With the Farm Bill up for renewal, decades of progress for animals are on the line. 

The onset of a new presidential administration in 2025 also presents both challenges and opportunities for farmed animals. In the face of this uncertainty, animals need your support now more than ever. 

But there is hope. Animals don't need to be caught in the crossfires of competing political agendas. Kindness to animals is a rare, bipartisan issue, with lawmakers coming together across the aisle to collaborate on policies that are better for animals, better for people, and better for the planet. 

What we're prioritizing at The Humane League is power-building and policy change at the local and state levels. Alongside our global work to eliminate the cage confinement of hens, we're securing important protections for animals in the US food system. Through the Animal Policy Alliance (APA)—a coalition of 22 leading animal advocacy groups we launched in 2022—we're working to transform state and local policy to end large-scale animal cruelty. And, while we're doubling down on local- and state-level efforts, we're continuing to hold the line and fight to safeguard animals at the federal level.

Farmed animals have long been excluded from the policy conversations that shape our food system. But with the APA, we're changing that—giving a powerful collective voice to the voiceless.

The fight against battery cages is just the beginning

When we talk about eliminating battery cages, we're not just talking about getting rid of nightmarish wire crates—which, as pressure from customers and advocates mounts, are already on their way out. In 2023, half of US egg producers tore down cages. 

No, when we talk about ending cages, we're talking about something even bigger. We're laying the groundwork for a complete transformation of our food system. Every company's promise to go cage-free does more than spare hens from extreme confinement—it creates a domino effect that ripples through the entire industry.

Here's how: When major companies transition to cage-free eggs, they take a crucial first step towards accepting that animals deserve basic protections and redefining the role of animal welfare in their business practices. This initial commitment opens the door for continued progress. We've seen this play out repeatedly over the last decade—companies that start with cage-free commitments go on to adopt more comprehensive animal welfare policies. Their competitors follow suit to stay competitive. Supply chains adapt. New industry standards emerge. And, crucially, these corporate changes pave the way for stronger legal protections, as we've seen increasingly progressive laws passed in countries where companies have already committed to higher welfare standards.

Like all social justice movements, ending factory farming is a journey of incremental changes. Each step forward—whether it's eliminating cages, providing more space and enrichment, or banning cruel slaughter methods—reduces real suffering for a vast number of animals. With more than 80 billion land animals raised for food each year, these “small” changes create enormous impact. They also help shift public consciousness away from viewing animals as mere units of production and toward recognizing them as sentient beings deserving of protection. A world free from animal suffering starts with a world with less animal suffering. And through this pragmatic, step-by-step approach, we're not just reducing cruelty—we're building the foundation for a food system that respects the basic dignity of all living beings.

That's why reaching the 50% cage-free tipping point in the US is so critical. It's not just a milestone—it's proof that large-scale change is possible. It demonstrates that when we come together, we can eliminate even the most entrenched forms of animal cruelty. And with your support in 2025, we'll push it past the tipping point, creating unstoppable momentum for even greater transformations ahead. To get there, we will need to raise at least $21 million to fund our 2025 operating budget.

When history looks back on the era of battery cages, it will be remembered as a wrong that humanity corrected. But more than that, it will be remembered as the moment we proved that a better food system is possible. Together, we're not just ending cage confinement. We're building the movement that will ultimately end factory farming as we know it.

With partners like you on our team, we can cement the 50% cage-free milestone, supercharge the global movement to end cages, and fight for lasting legal protections for animals. Together, we can eliminate the cruelest inventions of our lifetime, within our lifetime. And then we'll keep going—until not a single animal suffers in our food system.