International Fund for Animal Welfare, Inc.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare is a global non-profit helping animals and people thrive together. We are experts and everyday people, working across seas, oceans and in more than 40 countries around the world. We rescue, rehabilitate and release animals, and we restore and protect their natural habitats. The problems we confront are urgent, complicated, and resistant to change. To solve them, we match fresh thinking with bold action. We look at the issues from different angles, make unexpected connections, and challenge the way things are done.
We partner with local communities, NGOs, governments and businesses around the globe to create real-world solutions that make an immediate and enduring impact for animals, people and the place we call home.

IFAW is a network of experts exploring new ideas to create real solutions to fulfill our vision: Animals and people thriving together.

We see the world as it is, and we’re compelled to make it better. IFAW finds new ways forward for animals, people, and the place we call home—and we’ve been leading the way for over 50 years.

IFAW's strategic plan includes:
Increasing the impact of our work to rescue and protect more animals by increasing our focus in East and Southern Africa and Asia, areas that are hotspots of human-caused, climate change-related, and disaster induced impacts for animals and habitats.

Strengthening cross-programmatic linkages and project-advocacy linkages.

Demonstrating our program impact across the global program portfolio.

We are building a staffing model to support the strategy by attracting, retaining and developing a core group of geographically aligned, mission-critical staff who embrace our institutional values of compassion, commitment, courage, integrity, proactivity, pragmatism, and flexibility.

Our team includes animal rescuers and wildlife caregivers, veterinarians, wildlife rangers, community liaisons, policy experts, campaigners, scientists, educators and the highest quality support staff.

With projects in more than 40 countries, IFAW combines international strategic coordination with local leadership and expertise. IFAW promotes a holistic approach that forges unexpected partnerships and innovative solutions for individual animals and people, while engaging in disaster response and addressing the threats to wildlife and landscapes.

IFAW's locally based, collaborative projects inform and influence policies that increase protection for animals like ivory trade bans and protections for the remaining 340 North Atlantic right whales. We leverage support from donors all over the world to deliver solutions with immediate and enduring impact for people and animals.

In 2023, IFAW was named to Fast Company's annual list of the world's most innovative nonprofits for the work of our marine rescue program and the revolutionary way we are evaluating and treating stranded marine mammals.

Disaster Response and Risk Reduction
In our first 50 years, IFAW has rescued over 200,000 animals from disasters around the world. Recent events include helping pets and families impacted by the category 5 Hurricane Dorian which hit The Bahamas in 2019. We also supported hundreds of local carers who rescued native wildlife displaced and injured by the Australian bushfires in 2020. Our experts also help community planners include animals in their disaster response plans, increasing resiliency for the next disaster event.

Wildlife Rescue
IFAW supports wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release into safe spaces in India (elephants, rhinos and other animals); China (raptors at our Beijing Raptor Rescue Center); Zambia (elephants); Zimbabwe (elephants); USA (marine mammals); and Australia (koalas and other wildlife) through ongoing, long-term partnerships with local rescue and rehab experts. We create safe spaces and wildlife corridors.

Recent Policy and Advocacy Accomplishments
The UK Parliament implemented an ivory trade ban, informed by IFAW's advocacy.
The US government severely restricted ivory sales at a federal level.
In 2019, China closed all ivory markets as a result of IFAWs advocacy and demand reduction work, leading to a decrease in elephants poached for ivory.

The US government has allocated funding to support testing and adoption of ropeless lobster traps to reduce or eliminate the risk of endangered right whale entanglement in fishing ropes which restrict the whale's ability to move and feed, eventually resulting in death. The effort is based on a collaboration between IFAW and the Lobstermen's Association of Massachusetts.

The number of tourists in Iceland eating whale meat in Iceland has dramatically reduced due to the efforts of IFAW's Meet Us Don't Eat Us campaign. We have also helped cultivate a whale watching industry that has supplanted whale hunting in the country.

In 2022, after years of advocacy by IFAW, the US signed the Big Cat Public Safety Act into law, prohibiting keeping tigers, lions, cougars and other big cats as "pets".

Wildlife Trafficking
IFAW's wildlife rangers, in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service apply lessons learned from counter-terrorism operations to counter-poaching work reducing the number of elephants killed.

The European Commission launched an intergovernmental European Action Plan against wildlife trafficking including recommendations by IFAW which has led to a greater crackdown on illegal wildlife traders.

INTERPOL's Operation Worthy conducted with IFAW support resulted in 376 arrests, the seizure of 4.5 tonnes of ivory and rhino horn and the investigation of 25 criminal groups involved in illegal wildlife trade.

Community Animals
IFAW has helped thousands of cats and dogs suffering from cruelty and neglect by helping families change their perceptions of pet ownership, providing spay and neuter clinics, and develop plans for long-term humane treatment of roaming dogs.