About Vegan Outreach
Vegan Outreach is a 501c3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to end violence towards animals. We envision a future when sentient animals are no longer exploited as commodities.
We focus on reaching the people who are motivated enough to make changes now—there are always many in our target audience who just need some guidance.
Founded in 1993, we’ve been most known for our massive outreach program of leafleting on college campuses. At its peak, we were handing booklets to over 1 million students at 1,000 schools per semester.
By steadily increasing the number of vegans, we’re laying the groundwork to reach a tipping point in which sweeping public policy changes for animals will become realistic.
10 Weeks to Vegan
Based on research showing that veg challenges are highly effective ways to facilitate change, we refocused our college outreach from handing out booklets to signing people up for our program, 10 Weeks to Vegan. The pandemic required that we move our outreach online, but allowed us to expand to many more countries (listed below) and over 1.6 million people have signed up since the beginning of 2019. See our spreadsheet of the number of signups per country per year.
We have 22 different 10 Weeks to Vegan series tailored to 18 countries:
Support for Making Changes
Our regional 10 Weeks to Vegan programs have companion Facebook groups with moderators and a dietitian to answer questions. Thousands of people join these groups each month.
We also provide nutrition support from registered dietitians via VeganHealth.org and our 30-day Get Healthy challenge using whole plant foods.
For more personal guidance, we have a vegan mentorship program with mentors in over 600 cities and dozens of countries.
Vegan Chef Challenges
Our Vegan Chef Challenges are month-long events showcasing new vegan menu items at local non-vegan restaurants in a specific city. Typically, 10 to 30 restaurants take part and the dining public is encouraged to vote for their favorite dishes.
Vegan Chef Challenges create a positive buzz about veganism in areas that don’t normally have many options with over one-third of restaurants that didn’t have a vegan entree keeping one after the challenge ends. In all, we held vegan chef challenges in 43 cities in 2024.
The challenges receive positive media coverage, such as for our July 2022 Albuquerque challenge with 30 participating venues (Vegan Chef Challenge invites community to help end animal cruelty) and our July 2024 Amarillo challenge that received no less than ten news segments!
Adopt-a-College
2025 has seen a significant revitalization of Vegan Outreach’s Adopt-a-College program. Yuri Mitzkewich fired up his Vegan Outreach van and toured the eastern half of the United States. Between Yuri and his volunteers, they gave booklets to over 70,000 students at 75 colleges during the spring semester. Brian Chavez also leafleted 37 colleges in southern California.
To volunteer for this program, please see our Adopt-a-College website.
Green Tuesday Initiative
Our Green Tuesday Initiative works with institutions to add vegan options and decrease their animal product usage in India and Vietnam. We’ve helped 64 educational institutions and corporate offices implement more sustainable food policies and reduce large quantities of animal products from their menus.
About Food Planet Health
Food Planet Health: Talks for Future is a campaign by Vegan Outreach where we educate the youth in India about the impact of our dietary choices on animals, health, and the environment. Through awareness sessions, we reach out to over 50,000 students every year helping them make informed and compassionate food choices.
Measuring Our Effectiveness
Vegan Outreach aims to be as effective as possible by regularly studying the impact of our outreach, including a randomized controlled survey explained in our article, Impact of 10 Weeks to Vegan.
A Big Tent
Vegan Outreach believes in never shaming people but rather embracing them in making changes at a pace that works for them.
Rather than focusing our veganism on personal purity or trace ingredients, we put the emphasis on avoiding obvious animal products while using our time and energy advocating to others—see Talking to Friends and Family.
Vegan Outreach strives to hire a diverse staff and to place women and people of color in leadership positions.
How Your Donation is Spent
Each dollar donated to Vegan Outreach is allocated to the following programs and expenses.
