Shrimp Welfare Projects' impact page (which says they have helped 3.3 billion shrimp per year; 

The 3.3 billion shrimp per year estimate reflects the total projected impact if all planned stunners are deployed. As of April 2025, Shrimp Welfare Project has agreed to distribute 17 stunners, but less than 40% have actually been deployed so far (see Section "How it Works"). 

It typically takes 6 to 8 months to distribute a stunner and have it operational once an agreement has been signed (see Citation 6). The remaining stunners should be operational shortly. 

Thank you for your comment, Allison. 

In our evaluations, we prioritize outcomes over processes (assuming the processes are not unethical/illegal). 

If you prefer to donate to organizations whose internal focus more closely aligns with your values, there are legal charities like Legal Impact for Chickens that focus exclusively on farmed animals. However, in terms of impact per dollar for farmed animals, we believe ALDF is  the stronger choice.

Ultimately, it’s your decision as a donor how to weigh those factors, and we fully respect that.

Is their lack of transparency acceptable for a recommended charity? 

Could you explain what you mean by a lack of transparency? From our perspective, ALDF's transparency is well above average for a non-profit:

• Cases are public: ALDF's cases are well-documented and typically accompanied by easy to read summaries. Here are 199 of ALDF's active and past cases.
• ALDF releases numerous press releases describing their work: Here are over 500 press of ALDF's press releases.
• ALDF responds to donor inquiries: In our experience, ALDF has been more than willing to interact with donors. 

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, Vasco—it’s very much appreciated!

To clarify a few things:

1. We looked at a lot of charities, and in our opinion, these three were the best. That said, we don’t want readers to donate just because we called them “top” charities. Our goal is for people to read our reviews, understand what each charity is doing, and make their own decision based on their values and priorities.
2. It’s possible there are large differences in cost-effectiveness between our recommendations, but we don’t know if this is true, and we also don’t have a strong intuition as to what the ranking between the three would be. We also think that trying to rank the three in terms of cost-effectiveness would be somewhat misleading (like trying to say a banana is more cost-effective than a hammer). Each solves a different problem, and which one is “better” depends heavily on what the donor values.
3. We only estimated total cost-effectiveness for SWP. For FWI, we cited their historical cost-effectiveness calculation, but didn’t attempt to calculate their total cost-effectiveness. It’s entirely possible FWI is the most (or least) cost-effective of the three. For example, FWI is currently attempting to use satellites to monitor water quality. If this succeeds, this could make it much cheaper to monitor water quality on fish farms. However, it remains speculative whether or not this will happen. 

Thanks again for engaging with our work—we really value this kind of discussion

Thank you for your comment, Vasco. 

Our goal at Vetted Causes is to provide unbiased, accurate information to help readers make their own donation decisions. While we include cost-effectiveness estimates when feasible, we hope that donors consider other factors, such as: 

• How much the animals are helped: Stunning improves a shrimp’s experience for a few minutes, while improving water quality may help a fish every day of their life. Which matters more, and to what degree?
• Species: How much (if at all) do we prioritize the suffering of larger or more cognitively complex animals—such as pigs, cows, or fish—over that of shrimp?
• Helping future animals vs. current ones: Animals are suffering today, and it's valuable to relieve that suffering. But should we focus on immediate change (which may just be a temporary fix), or prioritize long-term structural improvements?

We see cost-effectiveness analysis as a valuable tool, but in some cases, it requires so many uncertain assumptions that it risks obscuring more than it reveals. In certain cases, two reasonable models can differ so much that one suggests a massive impact, and the other little to no impact.

Our hope is that donors to use cost-effectiveness estimates as one input, rather than treating them as final scores. Our goal isn’t to say which charity is “best,” but to offer high-quality information that empowers donors to make informed decisions. 

Thanks for your opinion.

Hi Yarrow, thank you for your comment.

We posted an article about Sinergia on February 20th indicating that their 354 piglets per dollar claim was wrong. 

On March 21st, Sinergia commented acknowledging that their 354 piglets per dollar claim was wrong. Their comment also included the follow advertisement from their main donation page. 

(image from Sinergia's March 21st comment)

On April 9th (8 days before publication), we sent Sinergia a follow-up article expressing our concern that they were misleading donors with their advertisements.

On April 21st, Sinergia still had not stopped advertising the 354 piglets per dollar claim on their main donation page. 

We then made a post stating Sinergia was committing fraud. Less than 24 hours after we made this post, Sinergia took down the 354 piglets per dollar claim.

Our priority is protecting donors, not upvotes. 

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your comment. 

Here is the relevant quote from Sinergia Post 1 (note: we didn't add the bracketed part in this quote, Sinergia did): ^[1]

the latter [number of piglets affected] was stated incorrectly because they didn't include the same discount. In other words: Sinergia never said the number of piglets was correct. It was an unintentional mistake of Sinergia’s team to leave all piglets, and not only male piglets on the spreadsheet that estimates the number of animals.

To further clarify:

• ACE gave Sinergia credit for helping female piglets through surgical castration commitments — even though female piglets can’t be surgically castrated.
• This issue is what led ACE to reduce Sinergia's impact calculation from 354 piglets per dollar to 285.

As stated in the ACE Post:^[2]

Vetted Causes states that, “ACE gave Sinergia credit for helping over 30 million female piglets through surgical castration commitments that Sinergia allegedly secured.” 

[...]

the impact estimate has been reduced from 354 piglets affected per dollar to 285 piglets affected per dollar.

1. ^{^}

   Sinergia Post 1 - See "Female Piglets Surgical Castration"

2. ^{^}

   ACE Post  - See "Issue 3"

@Jeff Kaufman 🔸, @Jason, @Toby Tremlett🔹,

Thank you for providing your opinions on this situation. Do you think it is reasonable for us to post our response on April 17? If so, we will notify Sinergia by email.

Thanks for the tip! We've implemented it.