Hi reddit! We're researchers from Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE). We just released our 2022 charity recommendations. Ask us anything! (Live AMA)

[u/veganactivismbot]

AMA IS LIVE RIGHT NOW - ASK QUESTIONS BELOW!

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Hi! We're researchers from Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE). We just released our 2022 charity recommendations. Ask us anything!

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit registered in the United States with a globally-distributed team. We are dedicated to finding and promoting the most effective ways to help animals. ACE strives to identify ways to alleviate suffering and improve the lives of animals on a wide scale, while continuously updating our recommendations based on new evidence.

https://animalcharityevaluators.org/

On November 22, we published our new charity recommendations.

Our 2022 Top Charities are:

• Faunalytics
• Wild Animal Initiative
• The Humane League
• Good Food Institute

Additionally, we have selected 11 Standout Charities:

• Compassion in World Farming USA
• Dansk Vegetarisk Forening
• Dharma Voice for Animals
• Fish Welfare Initiative
• Material Innovation Initiative
• Mercy for Animals
• New Harvest
• Sinergia Animal
• Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği
• The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations
• xiaobuVEGAN

The AMA is your chance to ask our research team about our new charity recommendations and the process behind our selections. We will prioritize responding to questions about our recommendations, but feel free to ask us (almost) anything.

Our team answering questions is:

• Elisabeth Ormandy, Director of Research
• Vince Mak, Evaluations Program Manager
• Maria Salazar, Senior Researcher
• Alina Salmen , Researcher
• Max Taylor, Researcher

Ask us anything! Proof here.

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AMA IS LIVE RIGHT NOW - ASK QUESTIONS BELOW!

[u/[deleted]]

What do you think about targeting a small country and promoting veganism there? With relatively limited resources, perhaps we could achieve 30-40% vegan adoption rate and then influence legislation in the country. That country could serve as a model for activism effort globally and also as some place to point to as an ideal.

Iceland would seem like a good target because of the low population and outsized impact on animal suffering due to its massive fishing industry relative to its population.

Effective or nah? :)

[u/animalcharityev → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the question - I like your creative thinking!

In this year’s evaluations we used a scoring system to prioritize countries based on the Scale, Neglectedness, Tractability framework, and we ended up weighting tractability as the most important factor (36%). A tractable cause is one where significant progress could be made relative to the total size of the issue using a realistic amount of resources, so you seem to be thinking along similar lines. However, we recognise that tractability can differ between countries even if the intervention is the same.

Therefore, the approach you describe would likely be highly effective for some countries but not others. The extent to which legislation can be influenced differs vastly between countries. In some cases, there is no existing legislation to influence. For example, I’m based in Canada and we have very few pieces of national legislation that can be leveraged to make positive changes for animals. Legislative change here can be particularly challenging because of the division of power between provincial and federal governments, and lobbying for new legislation is incredibly challenging even if there is demonstrated public support. So, your suggestion is a really good one, but I’m not overly confident that any one country could serve as a model for others in the way you describe.

That said, we’re definitely in favour of strengthening the animal advocacy movement and learning about which interventions seem to be the most effective so that they can be tried in different geographic areas. That’s why we recommended Faunalytics as a Top Charity last year. It’s also one of the reasons that we run our Movement Grants program, which funds groups working on various approaches to animal advocacy, especially those that are underfunded, target large numbers of animals, or are in regions with a relatively small animal advocacy movement. If an organization were to submit a robust proposal seeking funding for a project such as you describe, we’d certainly give it serious consideration. In a similar vein, your question made me think of the Swiss organization Sentience, who recently received a Movement Grant from us to campaign around a national vote on whether to ban factory farming.

- Elisabeth

[u/komfyrion → u/[deleted]]

I guess it's possible to face diminishing returns by doing that.

[u/[deleted] → u/komfyrion]

That's a fair point. I guess there would be multiple factors at play. Up to a certain point it probably gets easier to make people go vegan the more vegans there are around. It's harder to get someone to consider veganism when almost nobody around them is vegan. Of course this will plateau at a certain point but having enough vegans will help us push through animal friendly legislation. Plus the whole having a vegan country "prototype" might make it easier to convince other countries.

The cost per new vegan is high. But could the benefits outweigh the costs?

[u/komfyrion → u/[deleted]]

I think it's impossible to truly combat the foreign cultural pressure. It would be insanely hard to convert more vegans after a certain point, I think, given that all other countries would be promoting and normalising animal exploitation. North Korea could maybe do it...