This is a great question, and the truth is we don’t really know! It can be tough to track the effects of cube-of-truth style activism because it’s hard to follow up with everyone who engages with activists in this capacity to see whether they change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour as a result. What’s more, even if someone does cite this form of activism as a key driver of their shift towards veganism it’s very challenging to verify whether that’s accurate. The movement needs much more high-quality animal advocacy research to be done to help us determine how effective different interventions are, especially vegan outreach efforts. In the absence of high-quality empirical evidence, at ACE we look at the theory of change behind the program and interventions that grant applicants submit to us for funding. If there’s a convincing theory of change that describes how you predict your intervention will cause a change in the people you engage with, we are more likely to consider funding your project. As a concrete example, last year we gave a grant to We The Free to support their street activism because we felt their theory of change was particularly compelling. That said, in general, we tend to favor activities that target institutions over individuals because they can typically engage many more people with the limited funds we have to disburse. 

In terms of the most effective ways to help animals as a private person, probably the most effective thing you can do is donate to effective animal charities or volunteer your time with them.

Thanks so much for this question. 

Many of the projects we fund via Movement Grants are happening at younger, smaller organizations, so there are two “early-stage” elements: early-stage organizations that might be in regions with a nascent animal advocacy movement, and early-stage projects that might be happening at early-stage organizations, or are happening at more established organizations that are expanding their programmatic work. 

Here are some examples of early-stage organizations we funded in 2023 that we think are doing impactful work in their global region. In these cases we’ve tended to give general operating funds rather than funding specific projects (though that’s not always the case):

We funded Samayu and A Just World to continue their systems-based approach to achieving positive animal welfare outcomes in the farming industry. They focus on both the aquaculture and poultry sectors, conducting regional research, advocating for improved policies, conducting outreach to farmers and communities, and running campaigns.

We provided general support for Good Growth to continue work in two areas to accelerate the growth of sustainable and ethical food systems in Asia. The first area is open-access market research to understand local stakeholders, farming systems, and consumer attitudes and identify locally relevant interventions. They launched a website that makes public datasets more accessible for advocates and funders, and this grant allowed them to scope out the demand for and potential impact of this project. The second area was community engagement and capacity-building to facilitate knowledge-sharing and build advocates’ research skills. This included conducting outreach by delivering workshops at animal advocacy events and producing content for their website.

We funded Animal Empathy Philippines to implement a capacity-building program for Filipino youth leaders. They work with rural youth, particularly those in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, to co-create localized projects helping farmed animals in the country. They also plan to develop a program implementation toolkit and training for other organizations to roll out the same program in the future.

Here are some examples of early-stage projects we funded in 2023 at more established organizations:

We funded a project by Education for African Animal Welfare that aimed to influence the discourse on egg-laying hen welfare in Tanzania, promote cage-free farming, and consolidate and share information on welfare considerations in chicken farming. They worked with farmers and key stakeholders to assess the status and compile a report on battery cage farming in Tanzania through a nationwide survey, literature review, and stakeholder consultative meetings. They aimed to use this research to slow the intensification of poultry farming in the region.

We funded ARAF Plateau Dogon fora project that focused on raising awareness about the risks of battery cage farming of chickens in the Ségou region of Mali. They planned to mobilize youth and target the public at local events and schools across several municipalities. They also aimed to educate people on welfare issues and encourage people to not buy animals that have been raised in cages.

We gave a grant to AnimaNaturalis to take legal action against the federal government for failing to comply with its legal obligations on animal welfare in slaughterhouses. Their objective was to force authorities to comply with the provisions on animal welfare. They planned to focus on the federal government first and later move against state governments.

I hope these examples help you better understand the grant decisions we make in our Movement Grants program. If you have any additional questions or I haven’t answered you sufficiently please let me know!

Elisabeth

Thanks for this question and for carefully considering staff salaries in your project budgets. 

We do take a look at staff salaries to get a sense of what we think is fair and realistic to achieve the goals of a project. However, we tend to err on the side of trusting charities to set salaries that are in line with their particular region. We are not experts in global nonprofit salaries and tend to do more of a high-level red flag check than a deep dive into proposed salary budgets. Some examples of past red flags that we’ve raised are if we see a salary that we think is unjustifiably low for the role and aims of a project, or if we see a salary line item that we are unsure is necessary or should perhaps be paid by an institution rather than ACE (e.g. we have sometimes questioned salary line items for university teaching staff, and whether such salary should be paid by the university rather than ACE). We rarely (if ever) receive applications that include salaries that seem unjustifiably high. In cases of red flags, we tend to ask direct follow-up questions to the applicant rather than making assumptions with no additional information. A salary line item would very rarely be the reason we reject a proposal.

Elisabeth
 

Thanks for your question and for your hard work for animals!

For more information about what we are most interested in funding this round, please check out our Application Guidelines and read through the questions. We’d recommend using these guidelines to choose which project to focus on for an application.

We will not typically consider funding direct animal care, including the provision of funds to sustain animal care for farmed animal sanctuaries. It is highly unlikely that we’d fund project 3.  

For the first two legal projects, you’d need to be clear in your application about how your efforts serve to help animals. We’re interested in the theory of change of specific projects, and our aim is to prioritize those projects that have the highest chance of reducing the greatest amount of suffering for the most animals. We will prioritize efforts that work towards institutional or systemic change rather than individual change, such as institutional, legal, or corporate outreach.

Elisabeth

Thanks for reaching out - these projects all sound interesting! Unfortunately, we can’t give guidance on which specific project to focus your application on via this AMA. But we can offer guidance on what areas we prioritize.

For Movement Grants we prioritize funding efforts that work towards institutional or systemic change rather than individual change, such as institutional, legal, or corporate outreach. Some of your projects look quite promising in that regard. For more information about what we are most interested in funding this round, check out our Application Guidelines and read through the questions. We’d recommend using these guidelines to choose which project to focus on for an application.

We do hope to see an application from you. Thanks for all your work for animals!

Elisabeth