For nearly a decade, I’ve had the privilege of partnering with hundreds of individuals to create effective change for animals through philanthropy, growing THL’s supporter base and scaling our programs and impact. I was previously part of the EA Philly meetup, and contribute my direct work to high impact nonprofits.
Caroline Mills
Karma: 279
Thanks Elijah! Great summary. To your question “Why did they put in effort if not to get customers to see them more positively? I would guess that follow through is much more about avoiding negative publicity than gaining positive reputation.” This is basically right. Some companies have been more proactive, even fulfilling their pledges early. Some drag their feet and it takes public pressure for them to move. Groups like The Humane League (which I work for, as a disclaimer) have been running the same types of campaigns used to get the original commitments to ensure that companies actually implement those pledges. These have been successful, but avian flu in the US is a major complicating factor.
As for gaining new commitments, this is now focused outside the US, so maybe that’s where your impression came from? For more context, Asia, where the majority of hens live, is focused on getting new commitments. Latin America is a mix of securing new commitments and working on accountability. Parts of Europe are widely cage-free with other parts still advancing this. Africa is securing new commitments, as well as convincing company to stay cage-free as a lot of farming is less industrialized, but companies elsewhere want to export their cages there.
I’m writing this comment as both a fundraiser and someone who has been involved in leading an organization’s participation in an evaluation process. I don’t have the knowledge base to engage on whether ACE or Sinergia’s claims or evaluations are accurate, but reading your posts makes me worry that you lack some essential understanding of how charities work, which would be greatly improved if you discussed your reviews with charities prior to publishing.
I think you’re underestimating how difficult cost-effectiveness estimates are in animal advocacy. The work is highly complex and interdependent, and reliable impact data is not always available. My organization does not currently publish our own cost-effectiveness estimate because we have found it too complex and time consuming to meet the standard of accuracy we anticipate some supporters or potential supporters might hold—essentially out of fear of reviews like yours—and rely on external evaluators like ACE and Rethink Priorities, though their estimates are not really suitable for a general donor audience as they are not widely accessible.
As we have been developing our measurement & evaluation capacity, we are working on creating a cost-effectiveness estimate for our work. Seeing your reviews makes me very hesitant to go through with that process, even though I think overall publishing such an estimate would increase our funding and enable us to spare more animals from suffering. We know that our estimate would be imperfect (different reviewers use different methodologies—there is simply disagreement about what matters and the best methodology) and we would plan to publish our assumptions and work, in line with your expectation that “charities to provide sufficient and publicly stated evidence to justify their publicly stated important claims.”
In fact, I think reviewers reaching out to us makes us more likely to publish evidence for our claims, contrary to your Other Reason #1, as we understand the expectation for this and what kind of evidence we might need to collect and publish. On the other hand, anonymous, scathing reviews make us less likely to publish anything at all. In addition, I disagree with the level of seriousness you assign these types of mistakes and the idea that there needs to be some sort of severe public accountability. There is enormous pressure to produce cost-effectiveness estimates because they are such effective fundraising tools, and too make them broadly legible, contrary to what you or an EA reviewer would expect of them. I would conservatively estimate that I’ve been asked by a potential supporter, meta-charity, or other interested party for a cost-effectiveness estimate at least every month since I started fundraising for an animal advocacy non-profit over 8 years ago. In that time, I’ve seen plenty of cost-effectiveness estimates be revised, or fall in and out of favor. I’m not defending deliberate misinformation, but without talking to charities I think you have no way of knowing whether those mistakes are deliberate, simply mistakes, or valid philosophical disagreements.
Thanks for posting this! I saw the tool and was intrigued, appreciate the opportunity to learn more about it, and about what you all are finding is working.
The Humane League is hiring a Director of Philanthropy
Agree on all counts, Aidan!
Thanks for writing this, Aidan! As a fundraiser, this take resonates. One of the strategies we use to acquire new donors is encouraging our existing supporters to engage in relational fundraising, whether that’s a peer-to-peer birthday fundraiser as you suggest, or a larger time investments (and potentially $, as hosts will also sometimes offer matching gifts to incentivize their friends) like hosting a fundraising event in your home or leading a giving circle. (I’ve also participated in non-EA giving circles that do political education as part of the gift allocation process, which EAs could emulate, but that’s an aside.) Your network likely shares many of your values, and educating them about effective giving opportunities is super helpful to charities.
That said, it is difficult to convince people who don’t care about a particular cause area to care. For those in the farmed animal advocacy space, consider how difficult it can be to get people to reduce or eliminate their animal product consumption. It’s more about presenting values-aligned people with opportunities to enact those values, rather than changing people’s values altogether, in my experience.
Hi there, writing on behalf of The Humane League!
THL is grateful to GWWC for their support of our corporate campaigns to reduce farmed animal suffering, previously as a recommended program and moving forward as a supported program. GWWC provides an important service to the philanthropic community, and the funds they have directed to THL have driven highly impactful victories to reduce animal suffering, including a recent groundbreaking victory that will spare 700,000 hens from immense suffering annually once implemented and kickstart the cage-free supply in Asia, a neglected yet highly important region for corporate campaigns.
While we are disappointed that our corporate campaigns to reduce farmed animal suffering will no longer be listed as a recommended program, we understand GWWC’s decision to limit the scope of their recommendations in line with their evaluating evaluators project. We hope that donors will continue to support our corporate campaigns and the Open Wing Alliance as highly impactful giving opportunities to reduce the suffering of millions of sentient beings and build an effective global animal advocacy movement, given the strong marginal impact of our supported regranting programs in neglected regions. We are grateful that GWWC will continue accepting gifts on THL’s behalf; in addition gifts can be made directly to THL, or through our other international charity partners for donors outside the US seeking tax deductions.
If you have any questions about THL’s programs or high-impact funding opportunities, please reach out to Caroline Mills at cmills@thehumaneleague.org.
With gratitude,
The THL team
Answering on behalf of The Humane League (THL)! THL currently has room for funding of $10.5 million to grow our Open Wing Alliance and our Animal Policy Alliance.
We have developed a robust expansion plan for the OWA through 2030, which we would be able to put into place with significant additional funding. The goal is to free one billion hens from cages by 2030 and achieve a critical tipping point in the fight to eradicate the battery cage. .
To achieve this, we aim to strengthen the OWA by recruiting new member organizations in high priority regions around the globe. But to do that, we first need to build internal capacity. Our current model—having a single regional OWA coordinator to support many member groups with differing needs across an entire continent—is no longer sustainable. But we see great interest from groups in the OWA’s offerings, so we know we are poised to build an even more robust global coalition.
To meet the need, we need to create small teams in key regions around the world to support the specific needs of groups in each region, including in Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). We would need to hire more campaigners, corporate negotiators, animal welfare scientists, and regional support team members. We estimate we will need an additional $8 million in 2025 and beyond. In addition, we would also need to scale up our core supporting teams (Operations, Communications, and Development) in order to meet the needs of the expanded OWA and Global Teams—a lesson learned from historical THL growth periods.
In addition, we also aim to provide much-needed grant funding to animal protection groups. Each year, we hope to distribute $2 million to $2.4 million in OWA grants. (In 2024, we provided more than $2 million in grant funding to 38 OWA groups.) These grants are transformative and flexible, covering general operating support, staff expenses, and campaign materials. But as of November, we have no committed funding for OWA grants in 2025 and beyond. Consequently, these grants will come from THL’s final 2025 annual operating budget budget.
Another program primed for expansion is our Animal Policy Alliance, a coalition of organizations across the United States fighting for meaningful change for animals through public policy.
Launched by THL in 2022, the APA organizes, unites, and empowers local and state-level animal advocacy groups focused on issue-based advocacy and legislative change for animals raised for food. The APA has been behind some significant victories for animals, including getting octopus farming banned in Washington and California.
Our current goals for the APA include growing it from 23 to 30 active members, building power, and providing grants that will permit APA groups to carry out meaningful work.
While we distributed $500k in grants to APA members in 2022, we’ve been unable to sustain that level in the years since. But we are confident that in 2025 we could effectively deploy up to $750k in grants to APA members. The need for funding among our member groups is strong, and there are dozens of groups eager to expand their advocacy for farmed animals. But as of November, we have no committed funding for APA grants in 2025 and beyond, and any funds available will depend on THL’s 2025 operating budget. Any regranting funds we receive could allow us to maintain momentum as we build progressively stronger US policy protections for farmed animals.
As we expand the alliance and rebuild our grant program, we would also need to expand the APA team and core teams, which we estimate would cost $1 million in 2024 and $1.5 million in 2025.
For full details of THL’s room for more funding, check out this post!
Expanding Coalitions to Amplify Impact: The Humane League’s Room for Funding
omg, I did! Thank you for the correction :)
Thanks for the question and feedback Jason, that’s a point well taken! I think my main response is that this is less of a dispute, and more of simply a strategy that, from my perspective, lacks awareness and understanding across the effective animal advocacy movements, and I imagine across other movements as well though I’d love to hear from folks in EA but non-EAA movements.
We do see a mix of behaviors from grantmakers—some who solely fund grants, and some who fund both grants and the associated program support. For those who only fund grants, I think it’s a mix of rationale. Some grantmakers have specific grantmaking priorities to, say, direct funding to a particular region of the world, and they find our grants to be an efficient way to do that. We’re definitely still grateful for that support, and it is highly impactful. Some grantmakers who solely fund grants I think are simply not aware of all that goes into making those grants successful, and those are conversations we try to have with funders when we’re able. But your comment is a good reminder to me as a fundraiser to gain a deeper understanding of that behavior.
I think this post was aimed less at our existing funders who may or may not be funding grant program support, and more at other funders who might be looking for ways to create efficiencies in their funding strategy and maximize impact. But that may not have totally come across, so again thanks for the points here!
It looks like you don’t fund in the animal welfare space, but I wanted to let you know that your post sparked some thinking from my colleague and I here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/srZEX2r9upbwfnRKw/giving-season-2024-announcement
Perhaps things like this exist within your funding priorities?
Impact Maximisation through Supported Regranting: a Funding Strategy Hack
Thanks for this work, it’s great to see! I’m curious how much room for funding you believe this fund / field has?
Thanks for this question! And hi Klara, thanks for your answer on behalf of THL UK! I also wanted to chime in from the perspective of THL.
If THL were to receive more significant additional funding, we have developed a robust expansion plan for the OWA through 2030. The goal of this expansion is to free one billion hens from cages by 2030 and achieve a critical tipping point in the OWA’s mission to eliminate battery cages from the planet. Campaigns against global companies have worked well, but to phase out battery cages across the globe, we must have a robust and high-functioning alliance in every major country.
Our success in building an effective global alliance is outpacing the operational support THL is able to provide, given our own resource constraints. Our current model of having a single regional OWA coordinator to support upwards of 20 member groups with differing needs across an entire continent is no longer sustainable. As the OWA is one of the only international movement building resources available, our constraints mean that groups are unable to get the training and support that they need, alongside the strategic guidance and leadership development. We also see a huge appetite from groups to expand what the OWA is offering so that we can be an even more effective global coalition.
To achieve the current need and anticipated growth, we need to create small teams in key regions around the world that can then support the differing needs of groups in their respective regions. To scale this up, we estimate this will cost a minimum of $2.5M in 2024, with capacity to increase our OWA grants by an additional $1M, and closer to $8.5M in 2025.
Another program that is primed for expansion is the Animal Policy Alliance—already 14 member groups strong, and we have a goal to reach at least 30 active alliance members by 2025. THL launched the APA in 2022 to organize, unite, and empower local and state-level animal advocacy groups that are involved in issue-based advocacy and implementing legislative strategies for animals with policy agendas that include animals raised for food. These groups harness and channel the grassroots power of a significant base of animal protection advocates in the United States that they then use to create relationships with legislators at the city, state and federal level, and advocate for policies that benefit animals. Over time, through its leadership role in this alliance and through its grant-making capacity, THL will also influence local groups to focus more on farmed animal and food system issues.
THL could effectively use up to $2M to expand the APA team and provide grants to member organizations in 2024. We distributed $500K in grants in 2022 and were unable to continue the grants program in 2023 due to funding constraints. But through this process, we know the need for funding policy work in the US is strong, and that there are dozens of groups eager to expand their advocacy for farmed animals.
Both of these alliances have significant room to scale. We have detailed plans to use 2-3x funding for these programs, but we could scale even further and achieve our desired impact more quickly with additional funding.
For full details of THL’s room for more funding, check out this post!
In THL’s 2023 review, ACE estimated that THL had a 2024-2025 funding gap of $10.5M. Additional marginal funding will be used to support our 2024 − 2026 strategic plan, including continuing our work to secure new cage-free commitments in key areas of the world, as well as holding US and global companies accountable for their cage-free commitments. In particular, more funding is needed for travel to effectively conduct our global work, as well as digital advertising to pressure companies and recruit new supporters to power our campaign. In 2023, both these areas were significantly resource-constrained, and created bottlenecks that prevented us from achieving additional impact. THL could use up to $400k in marginal funding.
If THL were to receive more significant additional funding, we have developed a robust expansion plan for the OWA through 2030. The goal of this expansion is to free one billion hens from cages by 2030 and achieve a critical tipping point in the OWA’s mission to eliminate battery cages from the planet. Campaigns against global companies have worked well, but to phase out battery cages across the globe, we must have a robust and high-functioning alliance in every major country.
Our success in building an effective global alliance is outpacing the operational support THL is able to provide, given our own resource constraints. Our current model of having a single regional OWA coordinator to support upwards of 20 member groups with differing needs across an entire continent is no longer sustainable. As the OWA is one of the only international movement building resources available, our constraints mean that groups are unable to get the training and support that they need, alongside the strategic guidance and leadership development. We also see a huge appetite from groups to expand what the OWA is offering so that we can be an even more effective global coalition.
To achieve the current need and anticipated growth, we need to create small teams in key regions around the world that can then support the differing needs of groups in their respective regions. To scale this up, we estimate this will cost an additional $2.5M in 2024, with capacity to increase our OWA grants by an additional $1M.
Another program that is primed for expansion is the Animal Policy Alliance—already 14 member groups strong, and we have a goal to reach at least 30 active alliance members by 2025. THL launched the APA in 2022 to organize, unite, and empower local and state-level animal advocacy groups that are involved in issue-based advocacy and implementing legislative strategies for animals with policy agendas that include animals raised for food. These groups harness and channel the grassroots power of a significant base of animal protection advocates in the United States that they then use to create relationships with legislators at the city, state and federal level, and advocate for policies that benefit animals. Over time, through its leadership role in this alliance and through its grant-making capacity, THL will also influence local groups to focus more on farmed animal and food system issues.
THL could effectively use up to $2M to expand the APA team and provide grants to member organizations in 2024. We distributed $500K in grants in 2022 and were unable to continue the grants program in 2023 due to funding constraints. But through this process, we know the need for funding policy work in the US is strong, and that there are dozens of groups eager to expand their advocacy for farmed animals.
For full details of THL’s room for more funding, check out this post!
I’m glad it was helpful! No, the follow-up would not necessarily be online, unfortunately. It’s something we track internally for our own strategic purposes and impact assessment. But a lot of progress is made through behind-the-scenes negotiations—we only launch public campaigns if companies don’t make progress during the negotiation phase. And if there is a public campaign, sometimes part of the final negotiation is that we agree to take all our public materials down in exchange for the company publicly reporting its progress.
Trader Joe’s is a bit of a weird example—it seems like they are making progress (they have lots of in-store signage, for example) but they haven’t publicly reported their cage-free progress. But since we suspect they’re already making progress, they wouldn’t be a particularly meaningful campaign target. So your suspicion about Trader Joe’s is right, there haven’t been follow-up campaigns, but you couldn’t generalize that to other companies.