Executive Director at Animal Charity Evaluators
Leah_E
Karma: 119
My intuition on this is that our movement spends an appropriate percentage of our resources on research, but I’m sure others have different opinions on this question. I’d like to see the total budget of EAA increase dramatically though—both the amounts spent on direct work and the amounts spent on research.
Rescinding charity recommendations is not something that we take lightly. We have only done this in the case of serious issues that were brought to our attention, and because of this reason, I find it hard to recommend one universal course of action. In some cases, we have recommended that previous donors continue supporting a charity at a lower level in order to prevent the issue you described. In other cases, we have not done so.
In general, we feel that supporting our Top or Standout Charities, Recommended Charity Fund, and Effective Animal Advocacy Fund offer the greatest amount of impact, and that is the advice that I would give to donors who ask.
Hey Peter! Thanks for your question! Historically we’ve not engaged too much with longtermism, and so we are yet to make any changes to our programming as a result. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is a cause area that deserves more of our time than we have given it. Recently we have started two projects that we hope will result in blog posts exploring how EAA overlaps with longtermism, hopefully with useful takeaways for those working in each cause area, so keep an eye out!
Thanks for the questions.
Regarding animal advocacy, some EAG attendees might assume that animal advocacy is all about direct care of injured animals, especially companion animals, and about changing the attitudes and opinions of the general public towards them. However, animal advocacy is a broad and diverse movement, where people carry out varied interventions targeting different animal issues, ranging from lobbying politicians to advocate for farmed animal welfare laws, implementing alternatives to animal products, developing research on how to help wild animals, and building alliances with other social movements.
Regarding effective animal advocacy (EAA), some might think that EAA is all about considering the quantitative short-term impacts of interventions, overlooking the importance of good management practices, and other factors that can indirectly affect the effectiveness of interventions. However, we believe that effective animal advocacy goes beyond a quantitative analysis of effects; it also consists of following good management practices and creating a healthy culture.
We published a blog post a few years ago where we outline some common misconceptions about effective animal advocacy, here is the link if you are interested in reading it.
AMA: Leah Edgerton, Executive Director of Animal Charity Evaluators
Animal Charity Evaluators also has a post of Charities We’d Like To See.
Hi David, here’s a relevant quote from our latest interview with Paul Shapiro on effective volunteering:
“JB: Could you talk about how you feel grassroots efforts such as leafleting and pay-per-view contribute to the success of the movement?
PS: I’m respectful of it and I’ve done a lot of it myself. I think that can be a good use of volunteers’ time, but generally speaking it’s less efficient than policy and institutional reforms are. I would recommend to animal groups they try to think about ways they can engage their volunteers to be part of broader campaigns, whether that’s a campaign to get a major company to remove eggs from certain products or get them to offer plant-based options, or to be a part of a ballot initiative. I think this motivates people in a way other things don’t, because there’s a tangible end; you can actually win, as opposed to something that feels Sisyphean, as though there’s never an end in sight. That’s why so many people get involved in ballot measures. They form these amazing communities. It’s sad because they’re often not sustained once there’s no overarching campaign left. But while it happens, it’s truly amazing to see. I think groups ought to try to provide that for their volunteers. Or even encourage volunteers to try something like getting a local school to go adopt a Meatless Monday policy.”
Thanks for your question. We do have a Volunteer Advice page on our website that gives some ideas as well as links to in-person opportunities. We also will be publishing an interview on Thursday that touches on the topic.
Easy Ways to Volunteer Effectively for Animals
July has been an exciting month so far for ACE!
We updated our Survey Guidelines, providing resources for animal advocacy groups to evaluate the effectiveness of their own programs.
We worked with Huffington Post to get this fantastic article published, by Nico Pitney.
We launched our Animal Advocacy Research Fund, so academics and organizations can now apply for funding on research projects. We hope that this project will provide much-needed evidence to help all animal advocates be more effective in their work.
Thanks for sharing the post on CFAR workshop! It sounds like a valuable experience. Perhaps I will consider attending someday!
Congrats also on the success of your articles!
Thanks Gleb for the heads-up on this thread!
Lots going on at ACE over the past month that we are excited about:
-We’ve opened registration for Symposium on effective animal advocacy, happening at Princeton in November.
-We’ve completed our evaluation of undercover investigations.
-We published two new interviews on our website with David Wolfson and Will Potter, both of which have a lot of useful content for effective animal advocates.
-We created a Bequest Policy, to enable donors to give to effective animal charities in their wills.
-We’ve made new connections with some interesting people and are looking forward to conducting some great interviews and posting some new guest blogs soon on our website.
Thanks Gleb_T for encouraging me to post to this thread!
With some very helpful advice from Gleb, at Animal Charity Evaluators we were able to get a letter to the editor published about a recent bill proposed in Oklahoma.
Hi Louis! Thanks so much for your question. I feel that the movement’s strategy should always be influenced by the holistic context in which we operate and current events. One quick example that comes to mind of a project working directly with farmers is Mercy for Animals’ recently launched “Transfarmation” project, which helps support farmers in transitioning out of animal agriculture and into growing crops for plant-based products.