Updates from the Movement Grants Program

15 minute read

Welcome to our latest Movement Grants update! We’re excited to share some recent program updates and look ahead to what’s coming next.

This month we’re announcing five new grants that have been disbursed to organizations driving meaningful change for animals.

We’re also taking a moment to celebrate and learn from our 2024 grant recipients, who have been hard at work over the past year.

Finally, for those looking ahead, we’ll outline key dates and opportunities for the remainder of 2025.

Whether you’re a current recipient, prospective applicant, or simply someone who believes in the power of movement building, let’s dive in.

Grants Disbursed August 2025

Asia

Anonymous Grantee

Amount awarded: $30,000
Grant activities: General support grant to a South Asia-based organization working to advance farmed animal welfare through research and collaboration with policymakers.

Europe

Animal Enterprise Transparency Project (AETP)

Amount awarded: $38,160
Grant activities: This grant will support the Slovenia Against Cages project by Društvo projekt transparentnosti živalskih obratov (AETP), a Slovenian animal welfare organization founded in 2020. As this grant was being processed, AETP achieved a significant success: The Slovenian Government announced a legislative ban on cages for hens to be implemented by the end of 2028. The grant funds will now be used to ensure the ban is implemented, and to campaign to extend similar protections to other farmed animal species through public advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and legislative work.

Farmállatvédelem

Amount awarded: $10,000
Grant Activities: This grant provides support for Farmállatvédelem’s project facilitating the transition to cage-free eggs in Hungary through corporate outreach and public awareness campaigns.

Uncover

Amount awarded: $40,000
Grant activities: The grant will support Uncover’s new project Investigating Animal Welfare Violations in Aquaculture Farms in Germany. The work involves investigative research, fieldwork, media outreach, and the production and release of footage of farmed fish suffering and welfare violations to mainstream media.

Latin America

Plant Futures Initiative

Amount awarded: $45,000
Grant activities: Plant Futures Initiative is a student-powered group building a just, sustainable, plant-forward food system, by equipping emerging leaders through education, community, and career pathways. The grant will support the Mexico and Latin America Expansion project, which will develop and launch a leadership course on plant-centered food systems and animal rights in Mexico. The grant will support staff members to oversee curriculum development and expansion.

Updates From Our 2024 Grant Recipients

Undercover Fish Collective (formerly $camon $cotland)

Grant amount: $38,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 23%
Updates:

• Conducted undercover investigations documenting animal welfare violations at fish farms, leading to multiple farms being suspended from RSPCA Assured schemes.
• Exposed illegal practices including salmon burial and banned chemical use at organic farms, resulting in national ITV coverage and regulatory prosecution.
• Revealed the largest unreported salmon escape in a decade (80,000 fish) and death of over 1 million farmed salmon at major U.K. retailer suppliers.
• Generated extensive media coverage across The Guardian, BBC, The Times, ITV News and other major outlets, creating significant reputational and economic impact on non-compliant operators.
• Improved industry transparency by making over 140 government inspection reports publicly accessible and creating salmonmediahub.org, a repository of free advocacy footage.
• Provided expert testimony to the Members of Scottish Parliament during inquiry sessions.
• Received formal recognition from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency thanking the organization for serving as “eyes and ears” of environmental protection.

Many of Undercover Fish Collective’s achievements were in collaboration with other organizations, including Animal Equality, Animal Rising, Green Britain Foundation, Coastal Communities Network, and WildFish.

Alianza Alimentaria y Acción Climática

Project: Institutional and corporate outreach to decrease the availability of animal products and increase the availability of animal-free products on menus across Mexico
Grant amount: $21,800
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 45%
Location: Mexico
Updates:

• Secured partnership with Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City to reduce animal ingredients in the cafeteria by 30% by 2026, impacting an estimated 1,200 daily meals.
• Organized plant-based cooking workshops in collaboration with Love Veg for university chefs and conducted campus education sessions to support the cafeteria transition.
• Spoke at nine events for universities, corporations, and government institutions including Jalisco State Health Department, the University of Guadalajara, and public research centers like CIATEJ.
• Expanded digital reach with free online resources including their two-week online challenge, sustainable eating guide, and recipe books.

Animal Advocacy Africa

Project: Fundamentals and advanced training programs for animal advocates in Africa
Grant amount: $50,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 44%
Location: Across Africa
Updates:

• Launched second Fundamentals Programme cohort in November 2024 with 19 participants selected from over 400 applicants.
• Completed the Fundamentals Programme, which ran through January 2025, with participants rating all components as “very valuable” to “extremely valuable” and reporting significant improvements in knowledge, skills, and motivation for farmed animal advocacy.
• Supported 10 participants through the Advanced Programme developing detailed project plans across seven African countries, including tilapia farm water quality improvements in Ghana, factory farm expansion opposition in Nigeria, and cage-free initiatives in Zimbabwe.
• Awarded two grants totaling $21,000 to incubated projects from the first cohort: SHARED and Lumera.
• Helped plan the first AVA Africa Summit in July 2025.
• Published research on interventions to mitigate industrial animal agriculture in Nigeria to inform participants in their project planning.

Animal Alliance Asia

Project: New Waves Asia (formerly called Fellowship)
Grant amount: $50,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 50%
Location: Japan and the Philippines
Updates:

• Trained over 80 local fellows in institutional outreach in Japan, equipping them to engage school districts and policymakers for systemic change in school meal policies.
• Achieved policy changes in two Japanese cities making dairy milk optional for 17,200 students.
• Collaborated with eatery owners, chefs, and local farmers in the Philippines to expand affordable plant-based menu options.
• Supported six food establishments in introducing new plant-based menus.
• Facilitated 12 strategic partnerships between eateries and local farmers, fostering a more sustainable and localized plant-based food system.
• Replaced an estimated 2,000 animal-based meals to date with plant-based alternatives in the Philippines.
• Generated significant media coverage in the Philippines reaching 30 million people.

Animal Welfare League

Grant amount: $30,100
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: Cage-free commitments: 25%, Producer engagement: 10%, and Consumer awareness: 100%
Location: Ghana
Updates:

• Secured cage free commitments from Accra City Hotel, Sannak Hotel, and Sky Plus Hotel & Resort. They estimate these commitments will improve the lives of nearly 7,000 egg-laying hens annually.
• Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Agro Innova Company Limited, a prominent African Agri-Tech firm, stating that Agro Innova will exclusively source from egg producers who are 100% cage-free. As a major distributor of eggs in Ghana, they estimate this could impact the lives of nearly 0.8 million hens per year.
• Conducted three egg producer workshops in the Bono and Volta regions of Ghana. Sixty-one of the 76 egg producers that participated signed up to join AWL’s national cage-free network.
• AWL partnered with User-Friendly to create and publish awareness videos across multiple media outlets to raise public awareness of animal welfare issues.
• Their work was featured in a Forbes article chronicling the movement to keep chickens out of cages in Africa, and they received coverage across multiple national television channels.

Asociación de Emprendedores Veganos de México

Grant amount: $50,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 29%
Location: Mexico
Updates:

• Hosted the Vegan Business Summit in October 2024 attracting 545 attendees and facilitating over 300 business networking connections. The Summit also included the Expo Plant-Based, the first specialized plant-based trade show in Mexico, which provided a platform for connecting emerging vegan brands with retail buyers, food service operators, and investors.
• Returned to Expo ANTAD—one of Latin America’s largest retail trade shows—with the Plant-Based Pavilion, after four consecutive years of participation.
• Organized the Labeling Threats in LATAM Virtual Workshop, which brought together key stakeholders from the plant-based sector across five countries to address regulatory barriers.
• Advanced partnership with Jüsto online grocery platform to create a specialized plant-based basket increasing product visibility and consumer access.
• Collaborated with Nielsen IQ to gather specialized market intelligence data on the plant-based sector in Mexico, including market value estimates and distribution channels.

Convergence Animaux Politique

Project: Political advocacy work to promote farmed animal welfare in France
Grant amount: $30,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 50%
Location: France
Updates:

• Held 41 meetings with Members of Parliament and government officials and attended four major political party conventions.
• Organized an event in Paris that brought together 18 NGOs and 30 policymakers.
• Provided political monitoring services to 25 partner NGOs with critical insights and legislative texts to act on. For example, actively opposing a bill that would facilitate intensive livestock farming by weakening environmental protections, particularly mobilizing against an article of the bill which seeks to raise thresholds allowing large-scale farms to expand with fewer regulatory constraints.
• Introduced 47 amendments during the Agricultural Policy Bill parliamentary debate advocating for sustainable practices, including dedicating 10% of farmland to legumes, and enhanced animal welfare standards. Additionally, Convergence Animaux Politique provided technical support to organizations including Compassion in World Farming and Greenpeace.
• Submitted 39 budget amendments with two initially adopted, including a $10 million allocation for inspections of live animal transport by sea. Unfortunately, this was later overturned.
• Monitored and resisted initiatives to cut environmental agency funding and gag amendments targeting animal protection NGO’s funding, freedom of expression, and investigative capacities.
• Introduced France’s first bill on industrial salmon farming in partnership with Seastemik and Welfarm, securing 48 of 70 required parliamentary signatures, and hoping to secure a full debate on the proposal.

Farmállatvédelem

Grant amount: $20,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: July 2024 through February 2025: 100%, then 10% thereafter
Location: Hungary
Updates:

• Held companies in Hungary accountable for their previously made cage-free commitments. So far, they have secured annual cage-free sourcing data reporting from five retailers, one wholesaler, and four hotels.
• Generated media coverage including the publication of Anima International’s undercover investigation in a leading Hungarian online journal, consumer education articles, and a radio interview about cage-free commitments with the leading Hungarian radio channel.
• Published a company ranking report in a leading Hungarian B2B journal, Trade Magazin.
• Launched a comprehensive fish welfare survey investigating farm practices including production volumes, water quality, feeding, transport, slaughter methods, and certification status.
• Contacted two fish researchers at Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences for interviews and survey feedback, and conducted a site visit to one of Hungary’s largest fish farms. Collected survey responses from five fish farms together representing 11.45% of Hungary’s total fish production.
• Established contact with eight European organizations working on similar interventions and joined the Open Wing Alliance and Aquatic Animal Alliance.
• Formed partnerships with Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete (Conscious Consumers’ Association Hungary) and Una Terra Foundation for awareness campaigns and to co-publish reports regarding their cage-free work.

Fórum Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Animal

Project: MIRA (Mapping, Informing and Raising Awareness) – Broiler Chickens Initiative
Grant amount: $50,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 67%
Location: Brazil
Updates:

• The complex supply chain dynamics in Brazil’s chicken meat industry mean that progress on the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) required engagement across the entire chain rather than securing commitments from meat-buying companies alone. Fórum Animal mapped and engaged 40 companies including producers, genetic houses, slaughterhouses, and retail chains.
• Conducted negotiations with leading producers JBS and C Vale on developing product lines aligned with BCC standards.
• Made progress on the Brazilian BCC standards including natural lighting, environmental enrichment, and density improvements, while identifying ongoing challenges in genetics and slaughter practices.
• Collaborated with four international NGOs to connect Brazilian suppliers with overseas companies, leveraging Brazil’s importance in the export market.
• Implemented a dual-expertise approach pairing animal welfare scientists with negotiation professionals.
• Produced a comprehensive report on the Brazilian broiler industry detailing progress and ongoing challenges in improving chicken welfare.

Projet Animaux Zoopolis

Project: Fight against live bait fishing and fish stocking
Grant amount: $14,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 100%
Location: France
Updates:

• Produced a comprehensive report on French departmental subsidies for recreational fishing and made recommendations to stop financing fish stocking and to stop authorizing live bait fishing.
• Submitted an audit request to the Cours des Comptes to review public funding for recreational fishing.
• Organized four demonstrations in departments Haute-Savoie, Indre, Tarn et Garonne, and Dordogne.
• Between July 2024 and March 2025, the Decathlon campaign made significant progress:
  • PAZ organized nine targeted demonstrations and 24 petitions.
  • Sent greeting cards to 50 Decathlon stores selling fish or crabs, resulting in two stores announcing they would stop selling.
  • 15 Decathlon stores stopped live fish sales in this period.
  • In total, since the start of the Decathlon campaign, over a hundred Decathlon stores have stopped selling live fish and/or crabs with 22 stores directly attributable to PAZ’s targeted actions.
• Distributed leaflets on recreational fishing to all members of parliament, leading to two bills being tabled in the French National Assembly: banning live bait fishing and increasing VAT on fish stocking.
• Generated extensive media coverage with 168 articles across major outlets including Reporterre, BFM TV, Le Figaro, and France Inter.

Reporters for Animals International

Grant amount: $50,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 20%
Location: Global
Updates:

• Organized 15 educational events reaching more than 100 investigators, facilitating 440 new connections and strengthening 445 existing relationships within the investigative community.
• Trained new investigators across five countries and launched a mentorship program connecting 10 mentees with experienced investigators for ongoing guidance and support.
• Released a study on investigator well-being in partnership with Faunalytics, contributing insights to the movement and raising awareness of field challenges.
• Re-granted $50,000 to five investigative projects and secured $100,000 for the next funding round.
• Provided ongoing one-on-one consultations totaling around 60 hours advising individuals on specific challenges and practical solutions.
• Coordinated the world’s largest egg investigation in collaboration with The Humane League and We Animals, releasing footage from 37 countries.

Samayu, in partnership with A Just World

Project: Advancing farmed animal welfare in poultry and aquaculture in India
Grant amount: $33,000
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 68%
Location: Madhya Pradesh, India
Updates:

• Secured formal recognition as an associate collaborator by Madhya Pradesh (MP) state government, ensuring involvement in shaping aquaculture policies.
• Successfully advocated for MP statewide Fisheries Directive mandating water quality monitoring, pollution control, and aquatic weed management to improve fish welfare across the entire state. Samayu integrated One Health governance into the directive, linking environmental and public health policies.
• Within MP, Samayu received authorization from the Directorate of Fisheries to incorporate water quality monitoring and pollution control into local governance in Balaghat and Jabalpur districts. They provided water testing kits to five cooperatives and conducted training with over 200 fish farmers.
• Supported seven community fish ponds achieving significant improvements in dissolved oxygen levels and reduced ammonia, improving water quality and fish health.
• Published peer-reviewed research papers on aquaculture topics including zoonotic risks, antimicrobial resistance, and sustainable alternatives like seaweed farming.
• Worked with the government to establish an advisory board in Madhya Pradesh focused on long-term accountability for poultry welfare. Published peer-reviewed research papers on zoonotic disease transmission and One Health strategies for poultry welfare.

User-Friendly Marketing

Image courtesy of User-Friendly Marketing.

Project: Marketing 101 course and follow-up consultation
Grant amount: $5,712
Percent of their reported updates funded by ACE: 100%
Location: Global
Updates:

• Launched the Marketing 101 course, which provides a practical foundation in effective marketing for high-impact projects. It attracted 176 enrollments, demonstrating strong community demand.
  • The course was developed with a self-paced structure designed for accessibility, targeting participants without formal marketing training who need effective communication skills.
  • To date, the course has been completed by 10 organizations with unanimously positive feedback: 100% rated the course as “Very Good” or “Excellent” and 100% would recommend it to others.
  • Recorded high impact scores with 65% of respondents rating the course’s helpfulness at 6 out of 7, and 37.5% rating it 7 out of 7 for improving marketing abilities.
• Created a Slack community group with 41 members that fosters peer support, idea-sharing, and collaborative problem-solving of marketing challenges.
• Established a foundation for ongoing course improvement based on participant feedback and community engagement tracking.

Looking Ahead to the Rest of 2025

We still plan to award dozens more Movement Grants by the end of this year, but time is running out to apply!

To receive an invitation to apply for a Movement Grant, you need to first submit an expression of interest (EOI) form on Granti.

We will close applications on Friday, October 3, 2025 and you will need to have submitted your EOI at least one week before (by Friday, September 26). Read more about applying for a Movement Grant.

Disclosures

To limit the potential influence of conflicts of interest involving the Movement Grants review committee members and applicants, we followed ACE’s COI Policy.

In accordance with this policy, no ACE staff or board members participated in the review or decision-making in cases where a real or perceived conflict of interest existed.

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