There's just a few days left to donate effectively and receive a receipt for 2022! View giving deadlines by payment method, and give today.

Wild Animal Initiative

Your donation will be received by Rethink Charity Foundation, a Canadian charity with CRA registration number BN 79318 7881 RR 0001. Rethink Charity Foundation will issue you an official donation receipt, which can be used to claim charitable tax credits.

In compliance with CRA regulations, Rethink Charity Foundation maintains complete independent discretion over direction of the gifts it receives. Rethink Charity Foundation will make every reasonable effort to fulfill your wishes for gift direction. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us to speak with a member of our team. We’re here to help!

Wild Animal Initiative is a nonprofit research organization that strives to understand and improve the lives of wild animals. Through research, grants, and professional services, the team at Wild Animal Initiative supports the global community of scientists exploring questions about wild animal suffering and welfare.

About this charity

The natural world can be a source of great beauty and happiness for humans and animals alike. But life in the wild can also be brutal. For many wild animals, it’s a constant struggle to avoid harms such as natural disasters, disease, starvation, and resource competition.

Wild Animal Initiative believes it’s possible for people to make changes that will alleviate wild animals’ suffering and improve their well-being. But interventions can have harmful unintended consequences if they are not properly researched first. Because wild animals have diverse needs and ecosystems are complex, people will need scientific data to inform the interventions they design. 

That’s why Wild Animal Initiative’s ultimate goal is to advance the field of welfare biology. We believe it’s the most promising way to produce a critical mass of research necessary to help wild animals effectively and at scale. Our work centers on three main programs:

  1. Research: We produce research to answer important questions about wild animals’ lives, which can include things like: How is individual welfare influenced by population density? How do genetics affect the ways individual animals experience the world? What are the best practices for monitoring wild animals?
  2. Grants: We fund promising research projects at universities and other institutions. We’ve funded researchers investigating biomarkers of stress in songbirds, sentience evolution in octopuses, effects of farmland management on caterpillars, and much more. 
  3. Services: We facilitate networking and collaboration opportunities to help interdisciplinary scientists around the world who are interested in welfare biology. 

Your donation will support these programs and help us support the establishment of an academic field fully dedicated to wild animal welfare science.

Don't want to make a donation right now?

If you prefer making your donations at the end of the year, we can remind you later about RC Forward.

You will receive a simple reminder. No regular newsletter. No spam.

Other Charities Working on

Animal Welfare

The Humane League

The Humane League works to reduce animal suffering through hard-hitting corporate campaigns and education programs for consumers.

Learn More

Support RC Forward

Multiply your impact. Our latest best estimate is that when you donate $1 to RC Forward’s operations, you inspire Canadians to donate an additional $6 to our high-impact partner charities. RC Forward is run by a small nonprofit team.

Explore your giving options

Please visit our FAQ to learn how RC Forward's giving options and regranting process can best serve you.