#SaveVeganRestaurants

Earlier this year, one of our favorite local vegan restaurants, Counterpart Vegan Deli, shut their doors, joining the dozens of vegan and veg-friendly restaurants nationwide that have closed in the past year. 

The loss of so many amazing vegan restaurants is a national crisis, one more blow in a pandemic that has been overflowing with challenges and tragedy. And these closings might just be the tip of the iceberg. 

In a recent survey conducted by abillion, one-third of vegan restaurants in the United States said that they are in danger of going out of business. We can’t let this happen.

Vegan restaurants (and juice bars and markets and coffee shops) are cultural institutions. Their groundbreaking chefs pioneered delicious plant-based food long before mainstream fast-food chains discovered the trend. Vegan restaurants are community hubs and small businesses and every meal that they serve is an opportunity to save animals, heal people, and protect our planet.

Vegan restaurants have done so much for us; it’s our turn to take action on their behalf. Let’s join together to make an impact and #SaveVeganRestaurants.

To start, our food choices matter. By ordering from vegan restaurants, we can use our purchasing power to support businesses we believe in (and we can make those dollars go further by ordering directly, bypassing the fees taken by delivery apps).  

Just as importantly, we can use our phones to mobilize on behalf of our favorite eateries.  95% of vegan restaurants say that Instagram is an important driver of sales (according to the aforementioned abillion survey).  To make it through this storm, restaurants need to boost their marketing and reach new customers. But the last thing that they have bandwidth for right now is social media outreach. 

So we’ve organized a campaign to give our favorite restaurants a helping push.

The We Are Impactors community is mobilizing to #SaveVeganRestaurants.  We’re using our platform to drive new audiences and customers to restaurants’ Instagrams, with every new share and follow presenting an opportunity for restaurants to deliver their messages and increase their sales. We’re also asking everyone to post reviews of their favorite vegan dishes on the abillion app to raise money for vegan restaurants directly (more on that in a second). 

Here’s how it works: for the month of April, we’re flooding Instagram with the #SaveVeganRestaurants hashtag, acting collectively to follow, like, and amplify as many vegan restaurants as we can. Thank you to Mayim Bialik, Daniella Monet, Sophia Esperanza, Mýa, Nimai Delgado, Genesis Butler, Marco Antonio Regil, Amanda Le, Eddie Garza, David Carter, Anais Zanotti, Nzinga Young and all of the impactors from across the world who are joining the campaign, along with our nonprofit partner Million Dollar Vegan, to create social content on behalf of their favorite vegan restaurants. In an effort to provide additional support, We Are Impactors will donate production of a 30s video commercial ($5k value) to the US based vegan restaurant that gains the most Instagram followers in the month of April, and Million Dollar Vegan will buy $1,000 worth of meals for communities in need from each of the two runners up (more details on their feeds). 

We Are Impactors is also partnering with abillion to create a Save Vegan Restaurants fund to directly raise money for vegan restaurants - up to $1 million in 2021. abillion is the premier user-generated content platform for vegan dishes, sustainable, and cruelty-free products. For each review a member posts through the app, abillion gives that member $1 to donate to an impactful cause.

abillion has established a Save Vegan Restaurants fund that members can choose when selecting a cause. This fund is open to all US-based vegan restaurants that are claimed on the app. To participate, members needs to review a dish from a veg friendly restaurant and include the tag #SaveVeganRestaurants. abillion is free to join, and with each review members generate a $1 donation, with no limit on how many reviews they can post.  abillion will keep the campaign active for 12 months, starting 1 April. At the end of each month, collected donations will be disbursed to all participating US (only) vegan restaurants in proportion to the reviews posted about their dishes.

This campaign is part of abillion’s larger commitment to using social media for social good. Through their donation platform, they have already donated over $500,000 to impactful causes worldwide, and will only be increasing its philanthropic contribution in 2021 and beyond.

Thank you to everyone joining the fight to #SaveVeganRestaurants! Please follow and help save as many vegan restaurants as you can!

For restaurant resources, and to learn more about the #SaveVeganRestaurants fund, visit abillion and download their app.

For more campaign updates, follow us @weareimpactors