What is the role of risk aversion in your recommendations? You recommended Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira (SVB), but not Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC). However, your estimate for the future cost-effectiveness of LIC of 343suffering-adjusted days (SADs) averted per $ is 34.3 (= 343/10) times your estimate for SVB of 10 SADs averted per $. My understanding is that you are more uncertain about LIC's cost-effectiveness. From your review of LIC:
However, consistent with their long-term, high-impact, low-probability strategy, transformative legal victories have not yet materialized. Therefore, while we recognize their significant potential, our recommendations favored organizations with more established track records of large-scale impact.
From your review of SVB:
Our cost-effectiveness estimate for SVB’s Institutional Meat Reduction program has limited explanatory power and should be interpreted with caution, especially because it relies on ACE’s own rough estimates of animals spared and SADs averted per meal replaced. As a result, we gave only limited weight to this cost-effectiveness analysis in our overall assessment of SVB.
However, I wonder if you would still recommend SVB, but not LIC if your best guess accounting for the considerations covered and not covered in their cost-effectiveness analyses was that donating to LIC was 34.3 times as cost-effective in expectation as donating to SVB.
If risk aversion plays a significant role (for example, if you do not value averting suffering proportionally to its probability, intensity, or duration), you may want to clarify which types of risk aversion you endorse.
ACE’s Evaluations program has a higher bar for uncertainty than Movement Grants, given that (i) the financial and non-financial benefits we direct toward recommended charities are greater, (ii) our target audiences have different expectations, and (iii) the downside risks are higher. These aversions include, but are not limited to, a lack of track record/wins/achievements, variance in possible outcomes, low probability of very high impact, and unknown probabilities.
We thought that LIC’s cost-effectiveness analysis was very promising, but it was ultimately based on hypothetical future scenarios. Unfortunately, we can’t go into further detail because it involves confidential information that, if public, could undermine their impact.
We also want to note that our understanding of a charity’s impact includes their theory of change. In LIC’s case, we considered their current track record of legal wins to be only moderate evidence that their theory of change would play out as intended, compared to SVB, where we were more convinced.
Thanks for clarifying! Should your aversion to variance in possible outcomes be a reason for not recommending the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP)? The probability of shrimps being sentient presented in Bob Fischer's book about comparing welfare across species is 40 %. For a 75 % chance that SWP benefits shrimps conditional on their sentience, the probability of SWP benefiting shrimps is 30 % (= 0.40*0.75). However, the benefits to shrimp could be negligible even if they are sentient. Ambitious Impact’s (AIM’s) estimates of suffering-adjusted days (SADs), which you used to estimate the benefits of SWP, are proportional to the (expected) welfare range, the difference between the maximum and minimum welfare per unit time, and their welfare range of shrimps is 19.9 % (= 0.433*0.460) of that of humans for a probability of sentience of 43.3 %, and welfare range conditional on sentience of 46.0 % of that of humans (you can ask Vicky Cox for the sheet). However, I would say a much better best guess could be10^-6 of that of humans, the ratio between the number of neurons of shrimps and humans. For a probability of significant benefits conditional on their sentience lower than 1/3, the probability of SWP significantly benefiting shrimps would be lower than 10 % (= 0.3*1/3). I would also say the probability of SWP significantly benefiting shrimps is very uncertain, and you mentioned an aversion to unknown probabilities.
The post The shrimp bet by Rob Velzeboer illustrates why there is a far from strong case for the sentience of Litopenaeus vannamei (whiteleg shrimp), which is the species accounting for the most production of farmed shrimp.
Agreed, Ben. I encouraged Rob to crosspost it on the EA Forum. Thanks to your comment, I just set up a reminder to ping him again in 7 days in case he has not replied by then.
Thanks for all the work going into the evaluations! I especially like that you continue to run cost-effectiveness analyses.
I think it would be helpful to include the annual spending of the charities in this or similar future posts. This would give a better picture of their cost-effectiveness than their recent achievements alone.
I believe you underestimated the value of decreasing very intense pain. As last year, you relied on Ambitious Impact's (AIM's) suffering-adjusted days (SADs) to quantify the benefits to animals. So you put 45 % weight on excruciating pain being 7.06 (= 21.9/3.1) times as intense as hurtful pain (readers can ask Vicky Cox for the sheet). This implies 7.06 h of "awareness of Pain is likely to be present most of the time" (hurtful pain) is as painful as 1 h of "severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture" (excruciating pain). I do not see how one would be indifferent between these.
Thanks, Vasco! We appreciate the feedback. For a complete view of each charity’s spending and cost-effectiveness, we encourage looking into their respective reviews, particularly the Cost-Effectiveness and Financials and Future Plans spreadsheets.
It’s correct that we maintained a 45% weight for the six academic estimates of disutility across different pain levels, and that these estimates are orders of magnitude lower than those reported in the EA and animal advocacy community surveys (which we weighted slightly higher at 55%). As you know, we’re testing alternative approaches intended to address these types of methodological concerns, including the issue that applying human trade-offs to animals may not be entirely accurate because it doesn’t fully account for their smaller welfare ranges. However, for this year, we chose to maintain the same moral weights framework to avoid large and potentially unwarranted shifts in our methods and values from one year to the next.
We also briefly looked at how these kinds of adjustments might affect our decisions. While they tend to shift prioritization toward animal groups that experience more intense forms of suffering (e.g., pigs and salmon over layer hens), we don’t think they would have changed our recommendation decisions this year. This is partly because we don’t rely solely on SADs averted per dollar when interpreting our CEAs, but also consider metrics like animals helped per dollar. We remain cautious about how precisely SADs reflect actual welfare differences, especially since results can vary substantially with small methodological changes or alternative pain classifications.
This is partly because we don’t rely solely on SADs averted per dollar when interpreting our CEAs, but also consider metrics like animals helped per dollar.
Could you elaborate on why you use the number of animals helped per $? In the context of interventions targeting humans, that is analogous to using people helped per $ in addition to QALYs per $. I wonder whether you could change the estimates for SADs such that they account for the reasons which make you independently value the number of animals helped. Using animals helped per $ favours interventions targeting smaller animals with a lower capacity for welfare, so you may want to use a higher welfare range for these.
Ideally, we would be fully reliant on SADs, which take into account the species' capacity to suffer as well as the intensity and duration of their suffering. However, SADs are still a new method with some speculative inputs and ongoing updates. To account for this methodological uncertainty, our CEAs show results in both SADs averted per dollar and animals helped per dollar. In our decision-making, we look at both of these metrics and more, and interpret them alongside the broader context of the intervention.
Hi Vasco. Firstly, it should be noted that the overall ratio used for the 2025 SADs was 1000x not 7x. The updated 2026 ratio based on more extensive research is 50x.
Secondly on "I do not see how one would be indifferent between these". You might be surprised if it does not match your personal experience, but many people are indifferent between relatively extreme levels of pain, including people who have been through quite extreme pain. Just as an example this study on 37 women who have just gone through labour, roughly one third of them would prefer a 9/10 pain for 2 hours than a 1/10 pain for 18 hours!
Finally, I defend putting at least some weight on counter-intuitive results of academic research. I especially defend this in the case where you are analysing and pooling the results of many papers and expect some results to be bias upwards and some results to be bias downwards. The new SAD spreadsheet links to 15 different studies / pieces of evidence on this topic. Of those 15 some of which show counterintuitively low and some counterintuitively high relative preferences for different levels of pain. I think it is better to put weight on all of them based on the quality of the evidence they present not be (overly) guided by an intuitive sense of the results we want to find.
Firstly, it should be noted that the overall ratio used for the 2025 SADs was 1000x not 7x.
Right. There was a weight of 45 % on a ratio of 7.06, and of 55 % on one of 62.8 k (= 3.44*10^6/54.8), 8.90 k (= 62.8*10^3/7.06) times as much. My explanation for the large difference is that very little can be inferred about the intensity of excruciating pain, as defined by the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI), from the academic studies AIM analysed to derive the pain intensities linked to the lower ratio.
Just as an example this study on 37 women who have just gone through labour, roughly one third of them would prefer a 9/10 pain for 2 hours than a 1/10 pain for 18 hours!
The study is not relevant for assessing excruciating pain? Excruciating pain is "not normally tolerated even if only for a few seconds". Here is the clarification of what this means from Cynthia Schuck, WFI's scientific director.
By not tolerated we mean that Excruciating pain can't be sustained for long (e.g., hours, as opposed to minutes) without neurological shutdown. It will tend to overrides an organism's ability to function or respond coherently, with even powerful opioids providing minimal relief, or desperate attempts to escape pain even at the risk of death . Examples would include severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture.
I doubt the women in the study would be indifferent between 2 h of "severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture" and 18 h of a "1/10 pain". I believe excruciating pain is way more intense than their "9/10 pain" assuming they are indifferent between 2 h of "9/10 pain" and 18 h of "1/10 pain".
From the study, "In the questionnaire, the intensity of pain was evaluated using an NRS 0–10, with 0=no pain and 10=worst pain imaginable". However, this does not imply the women's "10/10 pain" was excruciating. I guess their "10/10 pain" was disabling as defined by WFI.
Finally, I defend putting at least some weight on counter-intuitive results of academic research. I especially defend this in the case where you are analysing and pooling the results of many papers and expect some results to be bias upwards and some results to be bias downwards. The new SAD spreadsheet links to 15 different studies / pieces of evidence on this topic. Of those 15 some of which show counterintuitively low and some counterintuitively high relative preferences for different levels of pain.
I think point estimates like AIM's SADs derived from aggregating such different results have very little robustness. The takeaway for me is that we have basically no idea about which results to trust when they differ so much. I believe this calls for a more robust estimation method and input research, not for aggregating more widely different results, although I still expect large uncertainty will remain (just not so large).
@vicky_cox, has AIM has considered commissioning surveys asking random people, people who regularly experience disabling pain, and people who have experienced excruciating pain about how they trade-off WFI's pain and pleasure categories. I believe Rethink Priorities' (RP's) surveys and data analysis team would be a good fit to run such surveys. @Vince Mak 🔸, has ACE considered commissioning such surveys?
I agree AIM 2025 SADS were below ideal robustness and as such I have spent much of the last few weeks doing additional research to improve the pain scaling estimates. If you have time and want to review this then let me know.
I would be interested in Rethink Priorities or others doing additional work on this topic.
AGREE ON THE LIMITS OF CONDENSING TO A SINGLE NUMBER
I have adapted the 2026 SAD model to give outputs at the four different pain levels, as well as a single aggregated number. This should help users of the model make their own informed decisions and not just focus on the one number.
I DISAGREE ON NOT USING THE RESEARCH WE HAVE
Where I disagree is where you say we basically have no idea how to compare different levels of pain, and your suggestion that we should not be doing so.
Every time we make a decision EG to focus on an issue of stocking densities rather than slaughter methods, we are ultimately deciding to focus on less extreme but longer lasting forms of pain. Being as explicit as we can about our numbers and our thinking helps us make those decisions better (as long as we don't overly rely on a single number).
We do have some data and we should use it to inform our decisions and our numbers. This includes academic studies of people in pain, including those with severe conditions, and self-reports from people who experienced extreme pain.
DISAGREE ON NOT BELIEVING PEOPLE
Less important but: I also disagree on your suggestion not to trust the standard academic approach of asking about / people's responses on "worse pain imaginable". Maybe sometimes people overestimate how bad that is sometimes underestimate it. You seem to be claiming these women (or the whole public) are en mass systematically underestimating. That is a strong claim and not one I would put much weight on without good evidence.
Yes that are (often known) systematic over and underestimation effects. This can be addressed by asking similar questions in different ways that aim to elicit different biases, or by having a back and forth between questioner and respondent to seek consistency.
If research does not match our intuitions we need to be objective in judging the value of that research and not claim systematic bias without evidence.
The updated 2026 ratio based on more extensive research is 50x.
This implies 10 h of "awareness of Pain is likely to be present most of the time" (hurtful pain) is as bad as 12 min (= 10/50*60) of "severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture" (excruciating pain). In contrast, I think practically everyone would prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain under WFI's definitions. Do you disagree?
I have adapted the 2026 SAD model to give outputs at the four different pain levels, as well as a single aggregated number. This should help users of the model make their own informed decisions and not just focus on the one number.
Great addition!
Where I disagree is where you say we basically have no idea how to compare different levels of pain, and your suggestion that we should not be doing so
I was not super clear. I said "The takeaway for me is that we have basically no idea about which pain intensities to use when they differ so much". I meant "basically no idea about which results to trust when they differ so much". I feel like I have a better sense about which pain intensities to use based on my own time trade-offs, and the behaviours of others than suggested by the difference of a factor of 8.90 k between the 2 sets of pain intensities aggregated by AIM in 2025.
Being as explicit as we can about our numbers and our thinking helps us make those decisions better (as long as we don't overly rely on a single number).
I very much agree. It is just worth keeping in mind that improving the estimates is often more cost-effective than using them from the point of view of improving future decisions.
We do have some data and we should use it to inform our decisions and our numbers.
I agree with using all the available evidence in principle. However, I personally put so little weight on evidence suggesting the trade-off between hurtful and excruciating pain I mentioned above that I can neglect it in practice.
Less important but: I also disagree on your suggestion not to trust the standard academic approach of asking about / people's responses on "worse pain imaginable". Maybe sometimes people overestimate how bad that is sometimes underestimate it. You seem to be claiming these [37] women (or the whole public) are en mass systematically underestimating. That is a strong claim and not one I would put much weight on without good evidence.
I am not confident the women (or the whole public) are underestimating the "worst pain imaginable". I said "I guess their "10/10 pain" was disabling as defined by WFI", but I can see it being excruciating. At the same time, "I [still] doubt the women in the study would be indifferent between 2 h of "severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture" and 18 h of a "1/10 pain".
I think practically everyone would prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain under WFI's definitions. Do you disagree?
I disagree.
It looks like on average people would be indifferent between 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain. People are diverse and there would be very high variation and very strong views in both directions, but some people (such as a noticeable minority of women in the cited study) would prefer short sharp very painful fix over ongoing pain.
(One possible source of error here is I might have systematically miscalibrated the welfare footprint pain scale. I connected "hurtful" to 4.8 and "excruciating" to 10 on a 0 to 10 scale. It could be good to get estimates on this from others.)
Very interesting. You trust your research more than I expected. Would you be willing to bet on something related to our disagreement? I would. Here is a proposal:
If more than 2/3 of people prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain, you give me 10 k$.
Otherwise, I give you 10 k$.
@David_Moss, do you have a sense of how much RP would need to run a survey about WFI's pain intensities which could shed light on the above? If just a few k$, it may make sense for me and weeatquince to fund it considering the expected value of the bet alone.
I am also open to less rigorous resolution criteria. For example, sharing a survey vetted by WFI on the EA Forum asking about whether people prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain.
In principle up for some sort of cheap bet. However I have mostly stopped working on this now and handed back to Vicky for review and implementation so have very very limited time to and headspace for more work, or defining a bet or, reviewing data collection, etc. Actually mostly trying not to think about this as much as possible for the next 2 months so if there was a bet it would be saying sure I bet $100 and I trust you to work out a fair answer without needing me and let me know in 2 months.
If you did want to work with Rethink to test this:
The aim should be to test the ratio 50:1 not the specific length of time (12 min). If this research was being done well there could be a case for asking about different lengths of time and seeing how that varies responses (FWIW based on Welfare Footprint the periods of times most animals spend in excruciating pain is 10-15 seconds during slaughter so that would be the most useful anchor if a time is needed).
I expect how you ask the question makes all the difference, I think phrased one way I would easily win and another I would easily loose. Similarly words like "torture" have more weight than words like "9.5 out of 10 on the pain scale". I read one paper where they did an iterative approach with face to face interviews to get into what people think rather than trust immediate survey responses and that showed that in the face to face interviews people were more pain averse than in a quick survey but more so at all levels of pain (if anything the ratio between mild and sever was less steep). Here is a fun exercise I wrote for myself.
Actually mostly trying not to think about this as much as possible for the next 2 months so if there was a bet it would be saying sure I bet $100 and I trust you to work out a fair answer without needing me and let me know in 2 months.
I see. 100 $ does not feel enough to set up a bet. @vicky_cox and @Vince Mak 🔸, you are welcome to reach out to me if you know about people at AIM, ACE, or elsewhere using SADs who may be interested in a similar bet, and willing to bet at least 300 $.
weeatquince, best wishes for your future projects.
Similarly words like "torture" have more weight than words like "9.5 out of 10 on the pain scale".
I think surveys assessing WFI's pain intensities should rely on their definitions, and give concrete examples of pain, like Cynthia's "severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture" for the case of excruciating pain. I would say asking people to compare "2/10 pain" with "9/10 pain" tells us very little about WFI's pain intensities unless there is separate evidence about what people are imagining for each number on the that scale, and that results are comparable across people. Having WFI's definitions, and concrete examples would decrease ambiguity a lot.
I agree this is an important and interesting topic. I will look into the prior studies to assess what I think would be needed to shed light on the above (e.g. required sample size, required measures) and get back to you.
I think it would be helpful to include the annual spending of the charities in this or similar future posts. This would give a better picture of their cost-effectiveness than their recent achievements alone.
Relatedly, in your post about influenced giving reports, you mention how much funding you counterfactuall influenced, but I believe it would also be good to mention your estimates for the giving multiplier (the funding your counterfactually influenced as a fraction of your spending).
Thanks so much for all the research and effort that went into this! This is a really exciting group of organizations.
I was, however, curious about one aspect the numeric cost-effectiveness estimates. It's great to see these as part of ACE's process, and I definitely learned a lot from them! But I was surprised to see how narrow the estimates were for the two Shrimp Welfare Project programs, given how radically uncertain I think basically everyone is about some of the key parameters influencing the results. Am I right in understanding that this disconnect is largely coming from ACE using AIM's suffering-adjusted day estimates per animal impacted, and those estimates not including uncertainty ranges? If so, would ACE consider trying to add uncertainty estimates on those numbers in future years?
Shrimp Welfare Project’s ranges are narrower for a few reasons. Because SWP works directly with farmers, they can track and estimate the number of shrimp on partner farms, reducing uncertainty about the animals affected. We also either used point estimates or narrow ranges for other parameters, such as the duration of impact (based on the lifespan of electrical stunners) and the duration of improved water quality. This means the main source of uncertainty in SWP’s CEA lies in the SADs estimates, whereas other charities’ CEAs combine multiple uncertain parameters that multiply into wider ranges.
Adding uncertainty ranges to SADs would be complex, since it would involve modeling variation in welfare ranges, sentience, pain severity, and/or moral weights between pain types. We’ve chosen not to include ranges so far because of time constraints and because the final estimates are already quite broad. If we do so in the future, we’d collaborate with the organizations that produced the original SADs estimates to make sure that uncertainty is modeled appropriately.
I wonder how is ACE selecting charities?
I wonder in particular because the Good Food Institute used to be considered a high-impact charity, but I have not seen any updates on that since 2022, when the assessment was broadly positive reference here. Not only that, but it seems GFI was probably one of the largest charities.
You can find more information about our selection process here. In 2024, GFI decided to postpone re-evaluation to a future year to allow their teams more time to focus on opportunities and challenges in the alternative proteins sector. They decided not to apply to be evaluated in 2025.
While we have high confidence in the quality of their fellowship program (with fellows reporting high rates of improved leadership skills, increased confidence, and motivation to pursue roles to help animals), as well as in the thorough monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) that New Roots Institute conducts for their programs, we’re not sure about the extent to which fellows are significantly stronger advocates because of the fellowship, and whether they fill key talent bottlenecks. Overall, this leads us to not being convinced that their cost effectiveness is comparable to our recommended charities.
Because the outcomes and impacts of the fellowship will span decade-long careers of the fellows, it is possible that a future evaluation, when the fellows are further into their careers, will bring more insight into the cost-effectiveness of the program. Their evaluated charity review has more details and is available on our website.
Hi Vince. Do you have any plans to estimate the marginal cost-effectiveness of charities? I agree withGiving What We Can (GWWC) that this would be a major improvement to ACE's evaluations.
We believe that ACE’s Charity Evaluation Program’s current approach does not sufficiently emphasise marginal cost-effectiveness as the most decision-relevant factor in evaluation decisions. For example, ACE primarily evaluates on the basis of organisations’ existing programs, rather than explicitly focusing their evaluation on those programs that are most likely to be funded on the margin. This is in direct contrast to ACE’s Movement Grants, which explicitly evaluates programs that ACE would be influencing funding to on the margin.
ACE has been putting more emphasis on selecting programs for cost-effectiveness (and theory of change) analysis based on marginal plans and how likely we are fund them to, so we are estimating marginal cost-effectiveness.
That being said, I don't think our methods in 2025 were far off from where they are now. We continue to think that current cost-effectiveness can be the best proxy for marginal future cost-effectiveness in many cases, and that focusing narrowly on where we predict our funding will be going would a mistake.
For example, The Humane League's future plans are a prioritized list of 24 ways that they would expand with additional funding. Not only is it not feasible for us to construct so many forward-looking CEAs, but the resulting estimates would also carry higher uncertainty. Additionally, many plans are expansions of existing programs or are general operational investments, which depend on current cost-effectiveness.
Funding is also fungible; dollars we direct to THL won't cleanly fund items 1-3 versus 4-6 on the list. Actual deployment depends on what other funders do, internal decisions, and new opportunities that emerge. Trying to predict which specific items our marginal dollar pays for is false precision, and we've seen charities greatly change their marginal plans within the two-year span of their recommendation.
Instead, we use a mix of current cost-effectiveness, our understanding of potential diminishing returns, qualitative judgments about effectiveness and strategic prioritization, and speculative, forward-looking CEAs to make our decisions. Current cost-effectiveness captures an organization's demonstrated ability to convert dollars into outcomes and that is often what is most likely to carry over to the next dollar. Large shifts in marginal productivity is likely low, especially for established orgs running stable programs with strong prioritization, so current cost-effectiveness is usually within a reasonable range of marginal future cost-effectiveness.
For example, The Humane League's (THL's) future plans are a prioritized list of 24 ways that they would expand with additional funding. Not only is it not feasible for us to construct so many forward-looking CEAs
ACE's Recommended Charity Fund granted 399 k$ (= (85.4 + 314)*10^3) to THL in 2024, and the 3 highest priority future plans from THL have a cost of 455 k$. So, assuming that the amount granted to THL covers most of the additional funding it received as a result of your recommendation, you would only need to model the cost-effectiveness of 3 programs, or maybe just 2, as the 2 highest priority projects cost 78.7 % (= 358/455) as much as the 3 highest priority projects? In your last cost-effectiveness analysis of THL, you looked into 4 programs.
Funding is also fungible; dollars we direct to THL won't cleanly fund items 1-3 versus 4-6 on the list. Actual deployment depends on what other funders do, internal decisions, and new opportunities that emerge.
Makes sense. At the same time, I still think assessing the cost-effectiveness of marginal projects is valuable. Imagine THL ends up using ACE's funds to support projects 4 to 6 instead of projects 1 to 3, which had the highest priority at the time of your evaluation, and were the only ones covered by your cost-effectiveness analyses. One should expect the cost-effectiveness of projects 4 to 6 to be closer to what ACE estimated for projects 1 to 3 than to the cost-effectiveness of THL as a whole? I think so. Mostly because projects 4 to 6 were much closer to being marginal at the time of your evaluation than random funds from THL. And partly because THL prioritising projects 4 to 6 would be an update towards projects 1 to 3 having a lower cost-effectiveness than you estimated, and projects 4 to 6 having a higher cost-effectiveness than you estimated.
Trying to predict which specific items our marginal dollar pays for is false precision, and we've seen charities greatly change their marginal plans within the two-year span of their recommendation.
I agree it would not make sense to predict changes in what charities will prioritise. I would just assess the cost-effectiveness of the highest priority projects covering the expected increase in funding resulting from your recommendation.
Current cost-effectiveness captures an organization's demonstrated ability to convert dollars into outcomes and that is often what is most likely to carry over to the next dollar.
I suspect the marginal cost-effectiveness of large organisations may be significantly lower than the cost-effectiveness of the whole spending. My intuition having worked for the last 9 months at Anima International is that our marginal cost-effectiveness is 10 % to 50 % of the cost-effectiveness of our whole spending. Relatedly, @abrahamroweguessed 16 months ago corporate campaigns for chicken welfare not funded by Coefficient Giving (CG), including ones run by organisations funded by CG, were as cost-effective as burning money, despite some of the ones funded by CG being beneficial. Here are some related reflections from Abraham. I was surprised by Abraham's claim at the time, but I have meanwhile come closer to his position, although I think I am still significatly more optimistic than he was at the time.
What you describe is roughly how we decide each Recommended Charity Fund distribution, but unfortunately recommendation decisions have more complexity. Some examples of this complexity include ACE influencing significantly more funding than we distribute directly, this influence varying by charity, and it being especially difficult to estimate for charities we haven't recommended before.
So far, we've estimated cost-effectiveness for specific programs, not a charity's overall cost-effectiveness, so comparisons are relative to those programs. For THL's plans to expand the Open Wing Alliance, for instance, we assessed the cost-effectiveness (and theory of change) of the OWA itself, not THL's overall cost-effectiveness.
Overall, I largely agree, and we already do what you're suggesting in some cases, though not this one. For these reasons and others, I'm not sure investigating the marginal cost-effectiveness of OWA Europe and Africa specifically would have been the best use of limited evaluation time, but we do that kind of analysis when we think it's decision-relevant.
ACE influencing significantly more funding than we distribute directly, this influence varying by charity
You have estimates for the additional funding charities get as a result of your recommendation (accounting for additional grants from ACE, and donations from individual donors)? If so, you could analyse the cost-effectiveness of that additional funding.
it being especially difficult to estimate for charities we haven't recommended before
Have you considered assessing the marginal cost-effectiveness of charities you have recommended in the past, and the overall cost-effectiveness of charities you have never recommended?
[...] For THL's plans to expand the Open Wing Alliance, for instance, we assessed the cost-effectiveness (and theory of change) of the OWA itself, not THL's overall cost-effectiveness.
[...] For these reasons and others, I'm not sure investigating the marginal cost-effectiveness of OWA Europe and Africa specifically would have been the best use of limited evaluation time, but we do that kind of analysis when we think it's decision-relevant.
The programs from THL you assessed had a cost of 7.96 M$ (= (7.65 + 0.311)*10^6), 19.9 (= 7.96*10^6/(399*10^3)) times the amount you granted to THL in 2025. I understand you made more funding go to THL than what you granted, but still significantly less than 19.9 times as much? If so, I think the cost-effectiveness analysis could have focussed on more marginal spending. I believe the marginal cost-effectiveness of large programs could be significantly lower than their overall cost-effectiveness. THL's programs are quite large. So I would have thought that assessing their marginal cost-effectiveness is especially important.
A cross-cutting key assumption behind WAI’s theory of change is that stakeholders, such as wildlife managers and conservation groups, will eventually implement interventions that help wild animals effectively. We are moderately convinced this assumption holds, because the path to implementation faces external hurdles that WAI has limited influence over.
The implementation facing external hurdles that WAI has limited influence over is an argument against the key assumption holding? This seemingly contrasts with the above.
In any case, even today, I think it is safe to say there are stakeholders supporting interventions which change (increase or decrease) the welfare of wild animals much more per $ than the interventions you recommend targeting farmed animals. I estimate funding the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research’s (CEARCH’s) High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF), which supports public health interventions in low and middle income countries (LMICs), changes the welfare of soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes 101 k (= 70.6*10^3/0.701) times as cost-effectively as cage-free corporate campaigns for my preferred way of comparing welfare across species, where welfare per animal-year is proportional to "number of neurons"^0.5. I estimate funding HIPF changes welfare a lot per $ due to changing the living time of soil animals by 5.07 billion animal-years per $ due to increasing agricultural land (saving lives increases food production). However, I have little idea about whether funding HIPF increases or decreases welfare. I am very uncertain about whether it increases or decreases soil-animal-years, and whether soil animals have positive or negative lives.
I mostly worry about WAI's apparent lack of focus on the most abundant animals. I got no results for “springtail”, “mite ”, and “nematode” on their grantees page. WAI has funded many projects on invertebrates, but my impression is that most of its spending targets vertebrates. I would find it helpful to know which fraction of their marginal funding supports projects on invertebrates. I estimate the absolute value of the total welfare of soil springtails, mites, and nematodes is 5.56 M (= 6.95*10^15/(1.25*10^9)) times that of wild birds, 1.37 M (= 6.95*10^15/(5.08*10^9)) times that of wild mammals, and 2.57 k (= 6.95*10^15/(2.70*10^12)) times that of wild finfishes for my preferred way of comparing welfare across species.
I am sceptical that spending a significant fraction of funding targeting (optimising for increasing the welfare of) vertebrates is optimal for increasing the welfare of soil animals. I would target:
Shrimps instead of chickens to increase the welfare of shrimps.
Chickens instead of shrimps to increase the welfare of chickens.
Humans in low income countries (LICs) instead of humans in high income countries (HICs) to increase the welfare of humans in LICs.
Humans in HICs instead of humans in LICs to increase the welfare of humans in HICs.
Chickens instead of dogs to increase the welfare of chickens.
Dogs instead of chickens to increase the welfare of dogs.
AI systems instead of shrimps to increase the welfare of AI systems.
Shrimps instead of AI systems to increase the welfare of shrimps.
All this said, I feel like WAI is still the organisation you recommend I am the most enthusiastic about.
WAI has funded many projects on invertebrates, but my impression is that most of its spending targets vertebrates. I would find it helpful to know which fraction of their marginal funding supports projects on invertebrates.
Below is very helpful context from @Casey Darnley. Historically, 9.39 % (= 0.46/4.9) of the granted funds have supported projects on vertebrates, but there is nuance.
If you're hoping for a precise breakdown, such as "X% to vertebrates, Y% to invertebrates," our grants program history shows $4.9M allocated to vertebrates (including fish/rodents) and $0.46M allocated to invertebrates. That said, over the past two years, our support for invertebrate projects has nearly doubled compared to our first two years (1.85x). We've started seeing more strong proposals focused on invertebrates and fish, with researchers telling us they heard about us as a group keen on invertebrate welfare, which is a genuinely encouraging sign that our field-building efforts are working.
However, those numbers don't fully capture what we're actually trying to achieve. Many of our grants and internal research projects develop methods, data, and tools that serve wild animals broadly, rather than focusing on a single specific taxon. Many projects start with a particular species but have much broader applications as the science develops. Many of our grants are meta-projects (e.g., modeling frameworks or welfare measurement tools) with potential that extends beyond vertebrates alone.
Our goal is to establish a research ecosystem that benefits all wild animals, including invertebrates, while striking a balance between pushing new research areas and keeping people excited to contribute. Species-type tracking misses how resources multiply and ripple through the field.
We want to be mindful of how we spend our time, so unless there are significant updates or developments, we won't be posting more on this thread. We are always happy to reconnect down the line if there's something meaningful to add.
Thanks for your comments and your interest in WAI’s work!
While we agree that an established field should focus on helping the most abundant animals, we also agree with WAI’s reasoning that while building the field, having a singular focus on optimizing for the number of animals would come at the expense of other strategic field-building goals.
We address this in WAI’s review, e.g., here: “Though not all grants funded have a very high scope, this aligns with WAI’s long-term strategy that balances maximizing immediate impact with building a diverse and engaged scientific field. This dual strategy is based on sound reasoning and endorsed by several experts we spoke to.”
Thanks! To clarify, I agree WAI should be supporting projects which do not target soil sprintails, mites, and nematodes (the most abundant land animals). I just think WAI should have supported projects targeting invertebrates with more than 9.39 % of the granted funds, and supported ones targeting sprintails, mites, and nematodes with more than 0 % of the granted funds. What do you think is the strongest empirical evidence for these fractions being close to optimal besides expert views per se (the empirical evidence could still have been provided by experts)?
We think WAI’s grantmaking criteria—such as Neglectedness, Scope, and Impact—are explicitly designed to prioritize cost-effectiveness and maximize counterfactual impact for large numbers of animals. Beyond that, their distribution may be limited by the types of projects they receive suitable applications from.
Beyond that, their distribution may be limited by the types of projects they receive suitable applications from.
It sounds like you are not confident about what is limiting WAI's grantmaking to projects targeting invertebrates, in particular, soil springtails, mites, and nematodes, given you said "may be limited"? Have you investigated how much WAI has tried to get applicants to work on soil springtails, mites, and nematodes?
This year's recommendations have a pretty wide range of methods: institutional meat reduction, policy advocacy, corporate campaigning, producer outreach/support, and academic field building. Was having a wide range of approaches represented among the recommended charities something you were intentionally aiming to have, or just happenstance from the evaluation results?
We don’t intentionally aim to represent a broad range of approaches among our Recommended Charities. While we take steps to invite a pluralistic pool of applicants—especially from underfunded areas—those considerations don’t factor into our selection for evaluation, our assessments, or our decision making. If we thought that funding a marginal charity would have less impact than supporting the others, we wouldn’t recommend them, even if their inclusion could add more diversity of approaches to our list of Recommended Charities.
The animal advocacy movement faces deep uncertainty about which interventions will prove most effective across different regions and contexts. Supporting a mix of institutional, corporate, policy, and movement-building approaches helps generate information value, mitigates risks, and strengthens the movement’s resilience and adaptability. So while plurality isn’t a recommendation criterion, we see it as a welcome byproduct of our data and evidence-driven process.
For more background, you can see ACE’s Position on Plurality. Please note that some parts are outdated and refer to elements, such as synergy scores, that we no longer use.
Executive summary: Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) has announced its 2025 Recommended Charities—ten organizations judged most effective at reducing animal suffering worldwide—highlighting both returning and newly added groups whose evidence-based advocacy and policy work target the welfare of farmed, aquatic, and wild animals; the post invites donors to support them directly or through ACE’s Recommended Charity Fund.
Key points:
2025 recommendations: ACE newly recommends Animal Welfare Observatory (Spain) and reinstates Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira (Brazil), alongside continuing recognition of The Humane League, Shrimp Welfare Project, and Wild Animal Initiative; five charities retain their 2024 status—Aquatic Life Institute, Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği, Dansk Vegetarisk Forening, Good Food Fund, and Sinergia Animal.
Evaluation process: ACE conducts annual, multi-month assessments to identify charities that can do the most good per dollar for farmed and wild animals, focusing on organizational effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and room for more funding.
Highlighted achievements: Featured successes include Lidl’s welfare commitments (Animal Welfare Observatory), billions of shrimps covered by humane stunning (Shrimp Welfare Project), millions of plant-based meals served in Brazilian schools (SVB), and significant corporate and legislative wins for cage-free hens (The Humane League).
Global reach: The recommended organizations operate across more than a dozen countries, addressing both systemic reforms (corporate campaigns, legislation) and cultural change (diet shifts, research on wild animal welfare).
Donor opportunities: ACE promotes its Recommended Charity Fund, which allocates pooled donations biannually based on each charity’s current funding needs, and announces an upcoming matching challenge to amplify donor impact.
Underlying message: Even small contributions, when directed toward highly effective animal charities, can significantly reduce global animal suffering—offering donors a strategic, evidence-guided way to help animals.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.
Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:
* Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
* NEST is an opinionated ideas-fi...
TLDR; To help the effective animal advocacy movement cost-effectively absorb greater amounts of funding in the near future, we are seeking expressions of interest from people who could found a new organization focused on:
* Highly neglected animals: insects, wild animals, shrimp, fish, etc, or
* AI and animals: AI alignment and governance for animal welfare, strategic actions considering transformative AI, AI for wild animals, etc.
* ...
We update our list of Recommended Charities annually. This year, we announced recommendations on November 4.
Each year, hundreds of billions of animals are trapped in the food industry and killed for food—that is more than all the humans who have ever walked on the face of the Earth.1
When faced with such a magnitude of suffering, it can feel overwhelming and hard to know how to help. One of the most impactful things you can do to help animals is to donate to effective animal charities—even a small donation can have a big impact. Our goal is to help you do the most good for animals by providing you with effective giving opportunities that greatly reduce their suffering. Following our comprehensive charity evaluations, we are pleased to announce our Recommended Charities!
Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) spends several months each year evaluating animal advocacy organizations to identify those that can do the most good with additional donations. While all work to help animals is important, we believe that the 10 charities we selected to evaluate in 20252 are doing some of the most meaningful work to reduce the suffering of farmed and wild animals. We are grateful to each charity that applied and agreed to participate in this year’s charity evaluations.
If you would like to support our Recommended Charities, we invite you to join as a monthly donor to our Recommended Charity Fund. Our team of experts regularly assess each charity’s funding needs to make sure that your money goes where it can have the most impact. Thanks to a generous legacy donor, we will launch a Matching Challenge for our Recommended Charities next week to increase the impact of your donations! Join us for a live event in early December as we celebrate the achievements and progress of these exceptional charities.
Below, you will find a brief overview of why we are convinced that ACE’s 10 Recommended Charities will do the most good for animals with your support.
Charities Recommended in 2025
Animal Welfare Observatory
Animal Welfare Observatory (AWO) drives progress for farmed animals in Spain by persuading companies to adopt the stronger welfare standards specified in the European Chicken Commitment for chickens used for meat, transitioning egg-laying hens to cage-free systems, and advancing aquatic animal welfare. They also advocate for legislative change in Spain and the European Union to secure lasting protections for animals.
AWO’s recent achievements include:
launching a multinational campaign targeting Lidl, combining investigations, outreach, and public pressure, and helping persuade Lidl Germany to commit to the European Chicken Commitment;
engaging extensively with policymakers in Spain and Brussels (holding 10 meetings, submitting parliamentary questions, and contributing to workshops and consultations) to advance stronger animal welfare policy at national and E.U. levels; and
working with 25 companies to hold them accountable to cage-free commitments (eggs), and five companies to hold them accountable to welfare commitments for chickens raised for meat.
With your support, AWO will be able to strengthen their accountability work for aquatic animals, chickens raised for meat, and egg-laying hens through investigations and public progress tracking. They will also be able to launch a shrimp welfare campaign, combining corporate outreach, investigations, and public awareness.
ACE proudly recommends Animal Welfare Observatory as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2025 comprehensive review of Animal Welfare Observatory. If you would like to support Animal Welfare Observatory’s work, you can donate here.
Shrimp Welfare Project
Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) is the first organization dedicated exclusively to improving the welfare of farmed shrimps, who are farmed in the trillions. They secure commitments for electrical stunning, which minimizes suffering during slaughter, through two key approaches: targeting retailers through campaigns and providing stunning equipment directly to farms. SWP also works to improve water quality on shrimp farms and researches shrimp welfare. In recent years, shrimp welfare advocacy has gained more traction and found opportunities to make meaningful change. SWP’s long-term goal is to transform industry standards toward higher welfare.
SWP’s recent achievements include:
ensuring that 1.74 billion shrimps per year are covered by electrical stunning commitments secured in 2024, with nine stunners to be deployed in the next year;
signing agreements to provide 17 stunners to producers, impacting approximately 3.3 billion shrimps per year;
improving the welfare conditions of 88 million shrimps through sludge removal and stocking density improvements via their new pilot program, Sustainable Shrimp Farmers of India; and
contributing to three electrical stunning commitments signed in 2024 with major U.K. retailers.
With your support, SWP will be able to continue deploying stunners to accelerate industry-wide change, develop a cheaper model of the electrical stunner, and bring in third-party verification for electrical stunning to ensure compliance.
ACE proudly recommends Shrimp Welfare Project as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2025 comprehensive review of Shrimp Welfare Project. If you would like to support Shrimp Welfare Project’s work, you can donate here.
Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira
Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira (SVB) is a nonprofit in Brazil that promotes plant-based eating as ethical, healthy, sustainable, and accessible. The high dependence on animal products in Brazil, which fuels large-scale animal suffering, contributes significantly to climate change and environmental destruction, and threatens public health. Their mission is to replace animal proteins with plant-based proteins, expand access to vegan products and services, and provide information on the feasibility and benefits of vegan diets. Their movement-building work also ensures grassroots support and public visibility, reinforcing their institutional and policy gains.
SVB’s recent achievements include:
implementing their Institutional Meat Reduction program in 111 municipal schools of Mogi das Cruzes, five municipal schools in Novo Triunfo, and 65 community kitchens in São Paulo city;
serving over 16 million plant-based meals at the institutions (schools, hospitals, and community kitchens) that have implemented SVB’s meat reduction program;
achieving a seat at the National Council for Food Security (CONSEA); and
helping veto a bill in São Paulo that aimed to prohibit the use of the word “meat” on plant-based products.
With your support, SVB will be able to expand government engagement and policy influence, grow their campaigns and training capacity, and expand their nutrition outreach through university courses and lectures. Funding will also support international climate event participation and strategic fiscal policy engagement by hiring a specialized consultant.
ACE proudly recommends Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2025 comprehensive review of Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira. If you would like to support Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira, you can donate here.
The Humane League
The Humane League (THL) drives corporate and legislative change for farmed chickens worldwide. Billions of chickens raised for eggs and meat suffer in intensive farming systems designed to maximize output at the expense of welfare. THL accelerates the adoption of cage-free and other welfare commitments, backed by their international Open Wing Alliance (OWA) network. Their tactics include direct company engagement and public pressure campaigns. They also establish lasting welfare reforms through their Animal Policy Alliance and direct political outreach.
THL’s recent achievements include:
working with 129 U.S. companies to hold them accountable to cage-free commitments for egg-laying hens;
engaging 123 global companies on cage-free accountability, with most entering dialogue and reporting progress on their compliance;
securing 140 new cage-free egg commitments (achieved by OWA members); and
supporting 90+ Open Wing Alliance member organizations on an ongoing basis.
With your support, THL will be able to expand their Open Wing Alliance regional teams and grants, expand their U.S. cage-free accountability team, strengthen global corporate engagement, and support policy alignment to convert corporate norms into durable legislation.
ACE proudly recommends The Humane League as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2025 comprehensive review of The Humane League. If you would like to support The Humane League’s work, you can donate here.
Wild Animal Initiative
Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) is a U.S.-based organization working to improve our understanding of wild animals’ lives by advancing the field of wild animal welfare science. The vast majority of animals live in the wild, many of which live very short lives and experience painful deaths. However, we know very little about most wild animals’ quality of life or how to improve it. WAI conducts their own research and supports other wild animal researchers to expand academic interest in wild animal welfare. Together, these efforts help uncover evidence-based solutions to improve the wellbeing of wild animals.
WAI’s recent achievements include:
awarding $4.7M in research funding to 72 projects focusing, for example, on fish welfare, near-term interventions, affective valence indicators, and impacts of parasites/pathogens on wild animals’ wellbeing;
getting wild animal welfare science research featured for the first time at the Animal Welfare Research Network annual meeting, and getting a Newcastle University Animal Welfare postgraduate course to include a mandatory lecture on wild animal welfare science; and
contributing to 16 conferences, presenting interactive workshops, posters, and talks.
With your support, WAI will be able to partner with Conservation X Labs to accelerate research and development for rodent contraception. They will also be able to invest in their fundraising capacity and services program staff.
ACE proudly recommends Wild Animal Initiative as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2025 comprehensive review of Wild Animal Initiative. If you would like to support Wild Animal Initiative’s work, you can donate here.
Charities Recommended in 2024
Aquatic Life Institute
Aquatic Life Institute (ALI) works to reduce the immense suffering of farmed and wild-caught fishes and other aquatic animals. Despite outnumbering all farmed land animals combined, aquatic animals remain neglected in animal advocacy. Through strategic campaigns and partnerships with policymakers, retailers, and certifiers, ALI drives meaningful welfare improvements across the supply chain. ALI has a strong track record of success and has been able to help many animals at relatively little cost. For example, through their corporate outreach program, we estimate them to have reduced the suffering of thousands of shrimps per dollar spent. With ambitious 2026 plans, ALI is poised to create lasting change for aquatic life.
ALI’s recent achievements include:
proposing indicators to help set global standards for interoperable, full-chain, and digital seafood traceability;
publishing a landmark research article that links welfare innovation directly to environmental performance, biosecurity, product quality, and public health;
being cited in the new Aquatic Stewardship Council Farm Standard Interpretation Manual;
building momentum on the global octopus farming ban campaign; and
expanding the U.N.’s definition of “sustainable development” to include the critical role of aquatic animal welfare in achieving global sustainability goals.
With your support, ALI can improve global aquatic animal welfare by encouraging seafood certifiers to adopt stronger welfare standards. They will continue to influence international and local policy, shape corporate commitments for large-scale impact, build unified global coalitions, and fight against the developing octopus farming industry.
ACE proudly recommends Aquatic Life Institute as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2024 comprehensive review of Aquatic Life Institute. If you would like to support Aquatic Life Institute’s work, you can donate here.
Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği
Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği (ÇHKD) is the only organization working to improve the lives of the more than 109 million egg-laying hens and 680 million farmed fishes that suffer at any given time in food production systems in Türkiye. Through corporate outreach, pressure campaigns, and producer engagement, ÇHKD secures cage-free commitments and drives better welfare standards for egg-laying hens and fishes. Their programs have been able to help many animals at little cost; we estimate their work improves conditions for around three hens per dollar and has the potential to be even more cost effective in the future.
ÇHKD’s recent achievements include:
securing new cage-free egg commitments in 377 locations;
convincing major hotel chain Marmara Hotels and Keyveni Catering to fulfill their cage-free egg commitments;
Persuading major retailers CarrefourSA, Migros, Şok, and File to launch new price-competitive cage-free egg products;
helping major retailer Migros achieve 45% cage-free egg sales; and
conducting new research on the effectiveness of pre-slaughter electrical stunning for sea bass and sea bream.
With your support, ÇHKD will be able to secure more cage-free egg commitments, strengthen their campaigns, and mobilize greater public support to drive Türkiye toward a cage-free future. Your contribution is crucial in amplifying their reach, empowering them to influence more corporations, and build widespread backing for animal welfare. By expanding media outreach, enhancing staff capabilities, and ensuring financial stability, your support will sustain and grow the movement in Türkiye for lasting change.
ACE proudly recommends Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği (ÇHKD) as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2024 comprehensive review of Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği. If you would like to support the work of Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği, you can donate here.
Dansk Vegetarisk Forening
Dansk Vegetarisk Forening (DVF) is transforming Denmark’s food system to reduce animal suffering and promote plant-based alternatives. Their work helps reduce the immense suffering endured by the 47 million farmed animals (including 11 million farmed fishes) and 32 billion wild-caught fishes who are exploited for food production each year in Denmark. With a clear strategy for long-term systemic change, DVF drives progress through policy and funding advocacy at both the national and E.U. levels. Their efforts deliver exceptional impact for minimal cost, influencing millions of dollars of investment from the Danish government in the plant-based industry. Their 2026 plans will bring about even greater positive changes.
DVF’s recent achievements include:
influencing the equivalent of $65 million (USD) in Danish government funding to support the development and promotion of plant-based foods;
stewarding a partnership between the Danish Government and the E.U. Presidency for the Plant Food Summit; and
launching the Danish Plant-Based Diplomacy initiative, supported by several farmers’ associations and other mainstream stakeholders.
With your support, DVF will be able to keep influencing the Danish government to prioritize plant-based ambitions while simultaneously using the case of Denmark to inspire other governments within the E.U. and globally.
ACE proudly recommends Dansk Vegetarisk Forening as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2024 comprehensive review of Dansk Vegetarisk Forening. If you would like to support the work of Dansk Vegetarisk Forening, you can donate here.
The Good Food Fund
The Good Food Fund (GFF) is transforming China’s food system to reduce animal suffering and promote plant-based eating. With 56 billion farmed animals and 190 billion wild-caught fish affected each year, China’s potential for impact is enormous. GFF drives change through chef training, diet change workshops, youth programs, and its annual Good Food Summit—all designed to reduce meat consumption and improve animal welfare. Their work aligns with government priorities and partners with top institutions to ensure lasting influence. Strategic and cost-effective, GFF’s programs are well-suited to China’s context and have strong potential to spare vast numbers of animals from suffering. Their plans for how they’d spend additional funding in 2026 give us confidence that they will use donations in ways that likely create the most positive change for farmed animals.
GFF’s recent achievements include:
building momentum and social capital for plant-based transition in China through their annual Good Food Summit, Mama’s Kitchen, and other initiatives;
collaborating with the Culinary Institute of America and Harvard to develop a plant-forward reference diet in the Hangzhou region; and
kicking off a Global Food Systems Accelerator at Peking University in March 2025.
With your support, GFF will be able to continue as the most powerful voice for plant-based transition and animal welfare in China’s food systems space, where they have already established themselves as a first-mover, a widely-recognized innovative leader, and a trusted hub for all changemakers. Your help will enable GFF to continue building social capital and break new ground on policies for animals.
ACE proudly recommends the Good Food Fund as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2024 comprehensive review of the Good Food Fund. If you would like to support the work of the Good Food Fund, you can donate here.
Sinergia Animal
Sinergia Animal works across Latin America and Southeast Asia to reduce the suffering of farmed animals in countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru, and Thailand. In these regions, more than 800 million hens and 40 million pigs endure intensive farming conditions. Sinergia drives meaningful welfare improvements through corporate outreach, institutional meat reduction, and programs for pigs’ welfare. Their campaigns are both locally tailored and globally strategic, helping hundreds of animals for every dollar spent. With a strong track record and impressive plans for 2026, Sinergia is well positioned to create lasting change for farmed animals worldwide.
Sinergia’s recent achievements include:
securing 34 new corporate commitments to eliminate cages for egg-laying hens and gestation crates for sows, including a cage-free egg commitment from Subway in Indonesia and a global policy from Belmond Hotels, affecting 46 properties;
helping implement cage-free egg labeling in Argentina;
helping establish Colombia’s national farmed animal welfare transport committee; and
expanding their Nourishing Tomorrow program, which promotes plant-based eating at educational institutions, to include 37 new commitments, bringing the total to 264 locations.
With your support, Sinergia Animal will be able to enhance their capacity to help farmed animals in relatively-neglected Latin American and Asian countries. Future plans include strengthening influence over public policy, movement building, and high-impact campaigns.
ACE proudly recommends Sinergia Animal as an excellent giving opportunity. To learn more, read our 2024 comprehensive review of Sinergia Animal. If you would like to support Sinergia Animal’s work, you can donate here.
Support our Recommended Charities
Each one of these exceptional charities depends on the generosity of people like you to carry out their mission. The animals they help around the globe will have measurably better lives with your support. By making a single donation to ACE’s Recommended Charity Fund, you support all 10 of our Recommended Charities and their efforts to reduce animal suffering worldwide. These different charities each represent different approaches and ways of working that are necessary to meet the complex challenge of reducing animal suffering. This fund is distributed twice per year among our Recommended Charities, according to up-to-date data on the greatest need at that time.
What is the role of risk aversion in your recommendations? You recommended Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira (SVB), but not Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC). However, your estimate for the future cost-effectiveness of LIC of 343 suffering-adjusted days (SADs) averted per $ is 34.3 (= 343/10) times your estimate for SVB of 10 SADs averted per $. My understanding is that you are more uncertain about LIC's cost-effectiveness. From your review of LIC:
From your review of SVB:
However, I wonder if you would still recommend SVB, but not LIC if your best guess accounting for the considerations covered and not covered in their cost-effectiveness analyses was that donating to LIC was 34.3 times as cost-effective in expectation as donating to SVB.
If risk aversion plays a significant role (for example, if you do not value averting suffering proportionally to its probability, intensity, or duration), you may want to clarify which types of risk aversion you endorse.
ACE’s Evaluations program has a higher bar for uncertainty than Movement Grants, given that (i) the financial and non-financial benefits we direct toward recommended charities are greater, (ii) our target audiences have different expectations, and (iii) the downside risks are higher. These aversions include, but are not limited to, a lack of track record/wins/achievements, variance in possible outcomes, low probability of very high impact, and unknown probabilities.
We thought that LIC’s cost-effectiveness analysis was very promising, but it was ultimately based on hypothetical future scenarios. Unfortunately, we can’t go into further detail because it involves confidential information that, if public, could undermine their impact.
We also want to note that our understanding of a charity’s impact includes their theory of change. In LIC’s case, we considered their current track record of legal wins to be only moderate evidence that their theory of change would play out as intended, compared to SVB, where we were more convinced.
Thanks for clarifying! Should your aversion to variance in possible outcomes be a reason for not recommending the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP)? The probability of shrimps being sentient presented in Bob Fischer's book about comparing welfare across species is 40 %. For a 75 % chance that SWP benefits shrimps conditional on their sentience, the probability of SWP benefiting shrimps is 30 % (= 0.40*0.75). However, the benefits to shrimp could be negligible even if they are sentient. Ambitious Impact’s (AIM’s) estimates of suffering-adjusted days (SADs), which you used to estimate the benefits of SWP, are proportional to the (expected) welfare range, the difference between the maximum and minimum welfare per unit time, and their welfare range of shrimps is 19.9 % (= 0.433*0.460) of that of humans for a probability of sentience of 43.3 %, and welfare range conditional on sentience of 46.0 % of that of humans (you can ask Vicky Cox for the sheet). However, I would say a much better best guess could be 10^-6 of that of humans, the ratio between the number of neurons of shrimps and humans. For a probability of significant benefits conditional on their sentience lower than 1/3, the probability of SWP significantly benefiting shrimps would be lower than 10 % (= 0.3*1/3). I would also say the probability of SWP significantly benefiting shrimps is very uncertain, and you mentioned an aversion to unknown probabilities.
The post The shrimp bet by Rob Velzeboer illustrates why there is a far from strong case for the sentience of Litopenaeus vannamei (whiteleg shrimp), which is the species accounting for the most production of farmed shrimp.
That's a really interesting blog, Vasco. Worth its own post.
Agreed, Ben. I encouraged Rob to crosspost it on the EA Forum. Thanks to your comment, I just set up a reminder to ping him again in 7 days in case he has not replied by then.
Here is the crosspost on the EA Forum. Rob preferred I shared it myself.