User:JesseClifton/Albert Schweitzer Foundation for Our Contemporaries

The Albert Schweitzer Foundation for Our Contemporaries (ASF) is an animal protection organization focused on reducing the suffering of farmed animals. Its activities include campaigns to change corporate animal welfare policies and spreading information about vegetarianism and veganism.

Organizational History
ASF was founded by attorney Wolfgang Schindler in 2000. The Foundation's website states that its mission is to relieve as much suffering as possible, and therefore their focus in on helping farmed animals, 60 billion of which are raised and killed each year.

ASF has been one of Animal Charity Evaluators' (ACE) Standout Charities since 2014. (ACE's Standout Organizations are not as highly recommended as their Top Charities, but are "exceptionally strong" compared to animal charities in general.)

Despite its name, ASF does not make grants like a typical foundation but works as a nonprofit.

Campaigns
ASF's largest program in terms of budget is its corporate outreach program. In 2013 corporate outreach led to 33 corporate policy changes: 26 companies switched to cage-free eggs, 1 stopped selling foie gras, 2 removed eggs from meat alternatives, and 4 added vegan menu items. In addition, four universities switched to cage-free eggs. In a 2012-2013 campaign ASF successfully convinced all of Germany's major grocery store chains to stop selling lobster. In January 2016, along with American animal protection group The Humane League, ASF secured a cage-free pledge from Mondelez International.

According to their website, ASF played a major role in convincing all supermarket chains and the most important cash-and-carry wholesalers in Germany to stop selling eggs from chickens raised in battery cages.

Another ASF campaign is their Pig Mobile Tour, a plant-based diet outreach campaign across Germany. In 2013 the tour made 142 stops throughout Germany and distributed 95,000 leaflets.

ASF also does outreach by printing pro-vegan and animal rights messages on truck canvasses, publishing scientific information related to animal protection, organizing and supporting local groups and protests, lobbying, and reaching out to media.

General

 * Animal rights movement
 * Timeline of animal welfare and rights
 * Timeline of animal welfare and rights in Europe
 * Animal consciousness

Animal activist organizations

 * Animal Equality
 * The Humane League
 * Mercy for Animals
 * Farm Animal Rights Movement
 * Vegan Outreach