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ACE Highlight: Our Use of Cost-Effectiveness Estimates

by - 4 minute read

Introduction
ACE employs both qualitative and quantitative strategies in our work to identify highly effective ways to help animals. One way that we evaluate interventions or charities quantitatively is by assigning numerical values to their immediate costs and benefits. We then use those values to calculate a cost-effectiveness estimate (CEE) in terms of “lives spared per dollar” or “years of suffering averted per dollar.”1 These estimates allow us to directly compare different interventions and charities, … Read more

ACE Highlight: When Will There Be Cost-Competitive Cultured Animal Products?

by - 6 minute read

The availability of cost-competitive cultured animal products has the potential to cause a massive decrease in the demand for non-cultured animal products. For this reason, estimates of when cultured alternatives1 will be available at similar prices to farmed animal products meaningfully affect the prioritization of animal advocacy interventions. … Read more

“Clean” Meat or “Cultured” Meat: A Randomized Trial Evaluating the Impact on Self-Reported Purchasing Preferences

by - 16 minute read

Farmed animal products grown via a cell culture are often referred to as “cultured” or “clean.” For instance, a cell cultured meatball is often called a “cultured meatball” or a “clean meatball.” It is possible that one of these two terms may lead to greater consumer acceptance than the other one. … Read more

Effects of Farmed Animal Advocacy Messaging on Attitudes Towards Policies and Decisions Affecting Wild Animal Suffering

by - 12 minute read

In evaluating the effectiveness of farmed animal advocacy messaging, it’s important to take into account the potential impact on attitudes relevant to wild animals. As an example, consider the ways in which typical farmed animal advocacy messages might influence opinions about the provision of pain-relieving medication to elephants who are in the final stages of giving birth. … Read more

Our Thoughts on the Cost-Effectiveness of Retention Programs

by - 8 minute read

Introduction

By reducing their meat consumption, individuals can spare a significant number of animals and prevent years of suffering on factory farms. All of our current top charities have programs designed to encourage people to eat fewer animal products. Some of them also have retention programs that are designed to help current vegetarians and vegans maintain their diets. … Read more

What Is the Value of Research?

by - 6 minute read

This is the seventh post of our Foundational Questions series. You can read more about this project and see the initial post here.
Summary

We think research should be a high priority of the animal advocacy movement, partly because of the large impact it has in other cause areas such as aid to the global poor. … Read more

How Effective Are Online Ads?

by - 1 minute read

We recently released an evaluation of online ads, the third evaluation to use our intervention evaluation form, a standardized template that provides a consistent, rigorous process for evaluating different ways of helping animals.
Our report includes a short write-up that covers the intervention’s strengths, … Read more

Some Thoughts About Vegan Outreach’s Leaflet Study

by - 10 minute read

Introduction

We’re always excited to see new research on effective animal advocacy, so of course the recent Vegan Outreach leaflet study has caught our attention. The study has many merits. For example, it investigates participants’ self-reported dietary choices, which might contribute to our understanding of how to best help farmed animals. … Read more

Which Key Ideas Should We Be Spreading with Marginal Resources?

by - 8 minute read

What is the difference in impact between spreading different animal advocacy ideas, e.g. the cruelty of animal agriculture, dietary change, antispeciesism, and wild animal suffering?
This year, we evaluated Animal Ethics, an organization with a core aim of filling perceived gaps in the animal advocacy community. … Read more

Some Thoughts on Our Cost-effectiveness Estimates

by - 14 minute read

Summary
In this post, we elaborate on our thinking about quantitative cost-effectiveness estimates (CEEs). They’ve been a part of our review process since we began reviewing charities, and they are particularly controversial and challenging. First, we summarize the benefits and challenges of CEEs in effective animal advocacy. … Read more

Undercover Investigations Evaluation

by - 1 minute read

We recently released an evaluation of undercover investigations, the second evaluation to use our intervention evaluation form, a standardized template that provides a consistent, rigorous process for evaluating different ways of helping animals.
Our report includes a short write-up that covers the intervention’s strengths, … Read more

Foundational Questions In Effective Animal Advocacy

by - 9 minute read

When we decide on our recommendations and standout charities, we spend most of our time investigating the specifics of each charity using our seven organization evaluation criteria. We also tackle difficult foundational questions that apply to multiple animal charities rather than a specific organization. … Read more

Introducing the Effective Animal Advocacy Research Library

by - 5 minute read

While there is no single academic field of study that might be called “effective altruism studies” or “effective animal advocacy studies,” this certainly does not mean there is no published research relevant to the work of animal advocates. ACE pays close attention to new publications that have a bearing on animal welfare issues, … Read more

Top Charity Donor Survey 2015

by - 7 minute read

Early in 2015, we surveyed our own donors about their use of our recommendations and their sense of what our greatest contributions are. Unfortunately, we knew that donor survey missed many people we seek to serve, because our goal is to provide advice and assistance to a wide variety of animal advocates. … Read more

Social Movements Case Study: Fat Activism

by - 2 minute read

ACE has been working for several months on a project that will supplement our other research by compiling information from other social movements that is relevant to animal advocates. In the first phase of this social movements project, we’ll gradually release case studies of several social movements. … Read more

2015 ACE Donor Survey Results

by - 5 minute read

To learn more about our supporters, ACE sent a survey in March 2015 to people who had donated to ACE during 2014. We didn’t survey people who had used ACE’s top charity recommendations but hadn’t donated directly to ACE. These people also support ACE’s work in a meaningful sense; … Read more

What elements of a leaflet matter?

by - 8 minute read

The Humane League’s strong commitment to using evidence to maximize the effectiveness of their outreach efforts is one reason why ACE considers them one of the two most effective animal charities we’ve evaluated. We’re closely following the Humane League Labs as they release the results of several studies they’ve conducted over the past year. Their most recent report, What Elements Make A Vegetarian Leaflet More Effective?, covers the result of a study that intended to address whether the effectiveness of leafleting depended on the content of the leaflet used.  … Read more