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: 153
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!
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.
Open Wing Alliance (OWA)
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.
Animal Policy Alliance
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!