One of the things I have come to cherish the most during my past year with ACE is the mutually respectful, communicative, and trusting relationship we have with our benefactors. So when we were thinking about what we wanted ACE to accomplish this year—aside from directing $5 million in donations to our recommended charities—it was obvious. We want your certitude that ACE is an organization you can trust. I know that ACE’s charity evaluations provide many of you with the reassurance you need in order to feel confident that you are making the biggest possible impact with your donations. But we would like to provide you with even more reassurance that your donations to ACE will be used as effectively as possible.
To that end, we are going to test two strategies this year that we hope will help us to direct more philanthropic dollars to effective animal charities, as well as to further strengthen your trust in ACE.
First, we will only run one public fundraising campaign for ACE this year, which we hope will again be a true matching challenge. This will happen in November and December of 2017, because we know that this is when most people make their philanthropic gifts for the year. We want you to look forward to opening our emails throughout the rest of the year, because we will be providing you with information to help you maximize your impact as an advocate and donor. Our hope is that you will use those ten months to decide if you found ACE to be a valuable resource. Come November, if you find that you appreciated the advice and free resources we have provided throughout the year, then we hope you will support our work for the year ahead. If you did not value them, then you should not donate to ACE (but you should let us know what we could be doing better!).
Second, we have set a donation cap of $1 million. This means that every penny over $1 million in unrestricted donations1 that we raise to support ACE’s work this year will be allocated to our Recommended Charities Fund and regranted to our recommended charities. We want you to trust that we will use your money effectively to achieve our current goals.2 If we happen to reach that $1 million cap before November this year, then we will not run a fundraising campaign for ACE at the end of the year. Instead, we will continue to work on directing donations to our recommended charities.
We are always considering how we can make philanthropy more fulfilling and effective. One of the ways that we can be more constructive in our role is by collaborating with you. For this reason, we would truly love to hear your feedback. If you have any other ideas for ACE’s fundraising strategies that will strengthen your confidence in our work, please feel free to leave them in the comments below!
Jessica W says
Well this certainly runs counterintuitive to (so-called) fundraising best practices, but as a fundraiser, vegan and ACE donor, I sincerely hope it helps you raise more money for farm animals. Six to 12 months from now, it would be great to hear whether these strategies were effective.
Kalista Barter says
Thank you Jessica! Yes, we will definitely be evaluating these strategies at the beginning of next year and sharing our perspective on their effectiveness with you. If these prove to be effective in helping us direct more money to our recommended charities, while still continuing to develop ACE’s programs, then we’ll most likely continue these strategies next year. If not, then we’ll pivot and let you know why we think they didn’t work, and what we could do better.