Here’s what your gift to The Humane League will accomplish in 2026

I started working in the animal protection space 20 years ago after graduating college. I remember thinking that if I could be a part of eliminating battery cages from the planet—barbaric wire cages that trap billions of animals in horrifying conditions for their entire lives—that would have been a life and career well spent. Something I could be proud of. Now, just 20 years in, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary, I can see the end of battery cages on the horizon because of what we’ve done together these past two decades.

Last year, I told you that reaching 50% cage‑free in the US would unlock a cascade, with companies setting new standards that would, in turn, shift the paradigms of entire sectors. In 2025, we saw the first wave: you drove real‑world progress for hens in the US as we reached 45% cage-free for the first time in history, sparked change across continents through the Open Wing Alliance, and showed corporations that silence isn’t an option when the lives of millions of animals are at stake.

Twenty years ago, imagining a world without cages felt impossible. Today, because of people like you, hundreds of millions of hens are already free—and in the US alone, your advocacy has helped spare 169 million hens from cages since 2005. With Dan Shannon stepping in as CEO this past year, we’re turning what once felt ‘impossible’ into something ‘inevitable’—and we’re setting our sights on freeing every last hen from a cage and proving that this isn’t just the end of caging animals, it’s the beginning of a better world for all animals. The next chapter starts now—let’s finish what we started and ensure every cage, everywhere, is destroyed.

THL’s strategic and effective approach is dismantling factory farming—feedlot by feedlot, cage by cage, animal by animal—and our leverage continues to grow. In the US, hundreds of deadlines come due as companies face the reality of their own promises to spare hens from cages. Globally, regional strategies we built with our partners across the Open Wing Alliance in 2025 are now ready to be rolled out—ensuring progress doesn’t stall in one region as cruelty shifts to another. Our job now is twofold: make sure no company gets away with backsliding, and see to it that the most powerful brands in the world set public standards that ripple through markets. That’s how you turn a tipping point into a new normal.

We still need to raise $3.6 million—16% of our 2025 operating budget—to power this plan. A group of donors is prepared to match gifts up to $750,000 to help us get there. Those are big numbers, but think about it like this: it costs us about $0.50 to spare a hen from a cage through our corporate campaigning. Significantly improving someone’s quality of life costs less than the stamp on a holiday card.

In 2026, your support will help us…

Ensure that no company gets away with animal abuse.

Corporate accountability is how promises made become lives changed. Next year, we’re meeting corporate power where it lives: in public. In 2025, Walmart spent over five billion dollars on marketing alone—more than 250 times THL’s entire annual budget. If we’re a speck of dust on a speck of dust, let us be the most brilliant one by designing smart, splashy, eye‑opening campaigns that expose what corporations hide, and make it impossible for them to spin suffering as “business as usual.” Our advantage over them isn’t money—it’s people. When we make abuse visible in cities far and wide, executives and politicians feel the heat—fast. We’ll pair executive negotiation with unapologetically public truth‑telling, and we’ll shift the blame off everyday people and put it where it belongs: on corporate deception. Because you didn’t create factory farming—they did.

In the US, we’ll focus on grocery stores—the gatekeepers who can move entire supply chains away from cages. Globally, we’ll prioritize the brands whose decisions move markets; because when a household name steps up for animals, competitors follow. The goal is simple and non‑negotiable: close the loopholes where cruelty hides in fine print or missed deadlines, and prove—again and again—that backsliding costs more than progress. We will hold every single company accountable until every hen is free.

Strategically eliminate more battery cages from the planet.

The Open Wing Alliance’s new regional strategies—built in 2025 from comprehensive market data and analysis—will guide decisive campaigning toward clear, measurable targets. In Europe, we’ll push the percentage of companies in the UK and EU that aren’t reporting their transition to cage-free systems below 15%, turning policies on paper into literal cages torn down. In Latin America, we’ll increase the percentage of LatAm‑headquartered companies following through on their cage-free commitments to over 50% and push national and regional corporate leaders, whose follow‑through can tip entire markets, to commit to going cage-free. In Africa, we’ll establish foundational cage‑free guidelines that fit local realities, laying the groundwork for adoption in two or more countries by 2030 so emerging economic markets can bypass cages altogether. And across Asia, we’ll strengthen OWA capacity through the new Corporate Engagement Academy, where our training translates into coordinated, assertive campaigns in the region that produces most of the world’s eggs.

This is the OWA’s dual focus in action: securing fulfillment from global corporations while expanding influence in high‑impact emerging markets. By 2030, we envision a world where the vast majority of global companies have delivered on their pledges, a substantial share of Europe’s broiler market has moved to higher welfare, and OWA groups are confident, strategic, and leading change in their regions.

Help pigs and chicks on factory farms.

Ending cages for hens is one lever for change. Ending other extreme cruelties—like gestation crates and chick culling—is another key part of our plan to undo factory farming.

For decades, and still ongoing today, the egg industry kills newly hatched male chicks because they don’t lay eggs and don’t have the right genetics to be raised for their meat. Billions are ground up or gassed within a day of hatching. In‑ovo sexing changes that. Using technology to identify a chick’s sex inside the egg before hatching, this groundbreaking technology means male eggs can be diverted without bringing a living chick into the world only to be killed moments later. With this innovation scaling in the US and abroad, including at heavyweights like Walmart, we’ll follow up on the commitment we secured from United Egg Producers back in 2016 to ensure the industry implements in-ovo sexing at real speed and scale, so male chick “culling” becomes an artifact of a less compassionate past.

We’ll also keep pressure on food companies to accelerate their timelines for keeping pigs out of cages too. Gestation crates—metal cages so tight a mother pig cannot turn around—deny pigs virtually every natural behavior and cause severe physical and psychological distress. With several companies now past-due on their implementation deadlines, it’s time to hold them accountable. Our corporate accountability playbook works here too: clear standards, public timelines, and real consequences for delay.

Protect cage‑free sales and production bans in the US.

Corporate promises move faster when laws back them up—so we’ll defend hard‑won protections from industry attempts to roll them back. The so‑called “Save Our Bacon Act” (H.R. 4673) is the latest effort in Congress to override state‑led protections like California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3, echoing other threats like the "Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression" (EATS) Act, the so-called “Food Security and Farm Protection Act” (FSFPA) Act, and hostile Farm Bill drafts.

It’s no exaggeration to call this the most important policy fight in our movement: the ongoing effort to defend animal protection laws from industry attacks.

That’s why we’re also taking this fight to the courts and the halls of power. When the Department of Justice moved to dismantle Proposition 12—the strongest farmed‑animal protection law in the country—we joined California as a party to the case and will play an active role in defending the law in 2026.

And, through the Animal Policy Alliance, we’ll expand state and local power, build durable relationships with lawmakers, activate rapid‑response coalitions when federal threats emerge, and continue standing alongside states in court when necessary. The goal is staying power. We’re fighting for laws that stick, companies that comply, and protections that can’t be quietly erased. This past year, your support helped win concrete protections across the US: Missouri Alliance for Humane Legislation passed a bill to curb slaughterhouse waste and beat back multiple attempts to weaken oversight of factory farms; in California, Social Compassion in Legislation secured a first‑in‑the‑nation ban on octopus farming and the sale of farmed octopuses; and Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made Brookline the first municipality in the Commonwealth to ban the sale of foie gras. These aren’t isolated wins—they’re proof that when we pair legal defense with smart, local power‑building, protections stick and cruelty loses ground.

Invite millions more people to speak up against factory farming.

Most people already agree on this core truth: animal cruelty shouldn’t exist. We’ll take that consensus into the public arena with storytelling that doesn’t focus on guilt, or shaming, just clarity. This movement can’t continue to grow unless we appeal to the wider public—people across the political and dietary spectrum who care about animals but don’t see themselves as activists—and meet them where they’re at. The data is clear: 79% of Americans say they’re somewhat or very concerned about the negative impacts of industrial animal agriculture on animal welfare. There are millions of people who already believe factory farming is an abomination. Our job is to reach them and turn that concern into action. We’ll tell the truth about who owns the blame for animal suffering (hint: it’s not consumers) so communities across the country, and around the world, see what corporations work hard to hide so they can scrape a little more profit off the top. We didn’t build this system—corporate greed did. Together, we can dismantle it.

Pursue rigorous standards for research and evaluation.

Our work has always been research-backed and cost-effective—and we will stay this way no matter what. We’ll publish research that counters industry excuses and equips media with evidence that keeps attention on preventable suffering. We’ll conduct extensive data analysis to ensure we’re selecting the best corporate targets. Internally, we’re investing more in measurement and evaluation to ensure every dollar goes where it spares the most animals from abuse.

We take great pride in the fact that your gift to us is extraordinarily cost‑effective. Your support fuels systemic change—shifts that alter policies, supply chains, and norms for years to come. Based on a decade of THL’s global and US cage‑free campaign data and spend, our best estimate is this: for every $1 spent on our cage‑free campaigns, about two hens are spared from cages.

Put simply—about $0.50 spares a hen from life in a cage.

Reaching a cost of freedom this low didn’t happen by accident. It took years of disciplined, multi‑year campaigns, relentless accountability, and laser‑focused execution. Because this is aggregated across multi‑year work on corporate commitments and the fulfillment of those commitments, it reflects how progress happens in the real world: over time, through relentless determination and innovation, as we fight for better standards and hold companies accountable to following through. As remaining work shifts toward tougher accountability, costs may rise—which is precisely why acting now is so impactful.

What your gift makes possible—right now

In 2025, you helped push US progress toward half of hens out of cages while accelerating corporate transitions to cage-free systems globally. In 2026, your support will cement the tipping point in the US, drive reporting and fulfillment in Europe and Latin America, seed standards in Africa so emerging markets can skip cages entirely, and strengthen Asian capacity so “stay cage‑free” becomes the baseline. It will keep laws intact despite intense industry pressure—and invite millions more people to add their voice to a movement that doesn’t flinch in the face of corporate power.

This is within reach—within our lifetime. Twenty years ago, battery cages were the status quo. Today, thanks to supporters like you, they’re being dismantled. In 2026, your gift will help make cages a losing bet for any company that tries to keep them. Let’s press the advantage—so sparing hens from cages becomes not just a milestone but a memory. And let’s use that momentum to go further for pigs, for cows, for fishes, and for every animal exploited for profit.

We still need to raise $3.6 million to fund this plan. If you can, make a year-end gift, join monthly at any level, or leave us in your legacy. Together, we’ll convert momentum into permanence—until cruelty has nowhere left to hide.