Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST)
Archived Review| Primary area of work: | |
| Review Published: | November, 2020 |
Archived Version: November, 2020
What does Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan do?
Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) was founded in 1999. EAST currently works in Taiwan. They work to improve animal welfare standards through policy advocacy, legislative advocacy, corporate outreach, research, and investigations. EAST works to enact animal welfare policies, legislation, and industry norms by conducting comprehensive research, building relationships with stakeholders, exerting public pressure, and garnering broader support among members of Taiwan’s legislative body. EAST also works with corporations to adopt better animal welfare policies, specifically cage-free egg commitments. Additionally, they work collaboratively with industry actors to ensure that companies have the tools they need to improve welfare standards; they provide hands-on training and support to enable the successful implementation of welfare improvements, they run a welfare certification scheme for cage-free eggs, and they conduct research and investigations to support their programs. EAST also works toward increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values through media outreach and online campaigns, as well as developing campaigns targeting consumers and holding public education events. Finally, EAST runs the Taiwan Animal Protection College (TAPC), creating new leaders and strengthening the animal advocacy movement.
What are their strengths?
As farmed animal advocacy in Taiwan is currently relatively neglected, we believe that EAST’s work to build the capacity of the movement in Taiwan has the potential to be highly effective. EAST has a long track record of success running their welfare labeling and research and investigations programs, as well as achieving cage-free corporate commitments. We believe that their work conducting public education, especially their Taiwan Animal Protection College, has contributed to strengthening the animal advocacy movement in the region.
Results from our culture survey suggest that EAST has strong leadership. Staff report that leadership and board members are attentive to the organization’s strategy and promote both external and internal transparency. In addition, leadership reports that their organizational culture is decentralized, which we think empowers employees to participate in decision-making, direct their own work, and fulfill their potential.
What are their weaknesses?
We believe that EAST’s work targeting companion animals, animals used in science, and endangered animals in the wild are relatively less impactful and cost effective than advocacy on behalf of farmed animals. Overall, EAST’s work seems slightly less cost effective than the average charity under review.
According to our model, EAST’s room for more funding is of smaller size compared to the other charities we evaluated this year.
How Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan Performs on our Criteria
Interpreting our “Overall Assessments”
We provide an overall assessment of each charity’s performance on each criterion. These assessments are expressed as two series of circles. The number of teal circles represents our assessment of a charity’s performance on a given criterion relative to the other charities we evaluated this year.
| A single circle indicates that a charity’s performance is weak on a given criterion, relative to the other charities we evaluated: | |
| Two circles indicate that a charity’s performance is average on a given criterion, relative to the other charities we evaluated: | |
| Three circles indicate that a charity’s performance is strong on a given criterion, relative to the other charities we evaluated: |
The number of gray circles indicates the strength of the evidence supporting each performance assessment and, correspondingly, our confidence in each assessment relative to the other charities we evaluated this year:
| Low confidence: Very limited evidence is available pertaining to the charity’s performance on this criterion, relative to the other charities. The evidence that is available may be low quality or difficult to verify. | |
| Moderate confidence: There is evidence supporting our conclusion, and at least some of it is high quality and/or verified with third-party sources. | |
| High confidence: There is substantial high-quality evidence supporting the charity’s performance on this criterion, relative to the other charities. There may be randomized controlled trials supporting the effectiveness of the charity’s programs and/or multiple third-party sources confirming the charity’s accomplishments.1 |
Criterion 1: Programs
When we begin our evaluation process, we consider whether each charity is working in high-impact cause areas and employing effective interventions that are likely to produce positive outcomes for animals. These outcomes tend to fall under at least one of the following categories: increased availability of animal-free products, decreased consumption of animal products, improvement of welfare standards, increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values, stronger animal advocacy movement, or direct help.
Cause Areas
Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) focuses primarily on reducing the suffering of farmed animals, which we believe is a high-impact cause area. They also work to reduce the suffering of companion animals, animals used in research, and endangered animals in the wild, which we believe are relatively less impactful cause areas.
Countries of Operation
EAST currently works in Taiwan, where we believe animal advocacy to be relatively neglected.
Interventions and Projected Outcomes
EAST pursues different avenues for creating change for animals: They work to improve welfare standards, increase the prevalence of anti-speciesist values, and strengthen the animal advocacy movement.
To help communicate the process by which we believe a charity creates change for animals, we use theory of change diagrams. It is important to note that these diagrams are not complete representations of real-world mechanisms of change. Rather, they are simplified models that ACE uses to represent our beliefs about mechanisms of change. For the sake of simplicity, some diagrams may not include relatively small or uncertain effects.
Below, we also describe the work that EAST does.2 Unless otherwise specified, we have sourced the information in this criterion from Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020c). For each intervention, we provide an assessment of how effective we think that intervention is at achieving a given outcome (weak/moderate/high).3 These assessments are based on the available evidence and are determined through a vote and discussion among our researchers. We flag assessments in which we have particularly low confidence, i.e., if we know of little or no supporting research or expert opinions.
A note about long-term impact
Each charity’s long-term impact is plausibly what matters most.4 The potential number of individuals affected increases over time due to population growth and an accumulation of generations of animals. Thus, we would expect that the long-term impacts of an action would be more likely to affect more animals than the short-term impacts of the same action. Nevertheless, we are highly uncertain about the particular long-term effects of each intervention. Because of this uncertainty, our reasoning about each charity’s impact (along with our diagrams) may skew toward overemphasizing short-term effects.
Improvement of welfare standards
EAST works to improve animal welfare standards through policy advocacy, legislative advocacy, corporate outreach, research, and investigations. This work generally seeks to make incremental improvements to the conditions in which animals live, e.g., in factory farms. For farmed animals, welfare reforms generally only result in small improvements to their living conditions. However, this is balanced by the large numbers of animals who can be impacted, and there is some evidence to suggest that farmed animal welfare reforms are likely to be very cost effective in the short term.5 Overall, we believe that securing systemic change one corporation at a time is more tractable than lobbying for larger-scale legislative change.
EAST works to enact animal welfare policies by conducting comprehensive research, building relationships with stakeholders, and exerting public pressure. They also establish relationships with legislators and their offices, and they host public hearings, meetings, and events to garner broader support among members of Taiwan’s legislative body. While policy and legal change may take longer to achieve than some other forms of change, we expect its effects to be particularly long-lasting. Overall, we believe that policy and legislative work to encode animal welfare protections into law are highly effective in improving welfare standards.
EAST also works with corporations to adopt better animal welfare policies and ban particularly cruel farming practices. Specifically, they campaign for companies to make cage-free egg commitments, help companies to commence sourcing cage-free eggs, and assist them in tackling obstacles they encounter before increasing the proportion of cage-free eggs they source. Cage-free egg systems are believed to reduce suffering by increasing the space available to hens and providing them important behavioral opportunities, although during the transition process mortality may increase, and there is some risk that it may remain elevated.6 We believe that cage-free egg commitments are highly effective in improving welfare standards.
Additionally, EAST works collaboratively with industry actors to ensure that companies have the tools they need to commit to improved welfare standards. They provide hands-on training and support to enable the successful implementation of welfare improvements, e.g., by connecting companies with suitable suppliers and by working with farm operators to improve slaughter practices. We believe that providing training and support to the animal agriculture industry to implement higher welfare standards is moderately effective in improving welfare standards.
Through their Cage Free Alliance (CFA), EAST runs a welfare certification scheme for eggs. Member farms must adhere to certain welfare standards in order to use the CTA’s certification mark on their product packaging. We believe with a low degree of confidence that welfare certification schemes are weakly effective in improving welfare standards.
EAST conducts investigations and research to expose cruel farming practices. Investigations and research can inform the public about animal welfare issues and serve as a key resource for advocates. We believe that undercover investigations and research are highly effective in improving welfare standards.
Increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values
EAST works to influence individuals to adopt more animal-friendly attitudes through media outreach. In particular, these interventions are aimed at spreading and solidifying anti-speciesist values. There is uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of changes in anti-speciesist values on changes for animals, but an increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values may decrease individual consumption of animal products, improve welfare standards, increase direct help, or overall strengthen the animal advocacy movement.
Despite the lack of evidence surrounding interventions aimed at increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values, we think it’s important for the animal advocacy movement to target at least some outreach toward individuals’ attitudes. A shift in public attitudes could help drive industry changes and lead to greater support for more animal-friendly policies; in fact, it might be a necessary precursor to more systemic change. On the whole, however, we believe that efforts to influence public opinion are much less neglected than other types of interventions.7
EAST uses media outreach to educate the public and shift values toward more compassion for animals. We believe that media outreach is moderately effective in increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values.
Stronger animal advocacy movement
Working to strengthen the animal advocacy movement can have a far-reaching impact. Capacity-building projects can help animals indirectly by increasing the effectiveness of other projects and organizations, and building alliances with key influencers, institutions, or social movements can expand the audience and impact of animal advocacy organizations and projects. ACE’s 2018 research on the way that resources are allocated between different animal advocacy interventions suggests that capacity building and building alliances are currently neglected relative to other interventions aimed at influencing public opinion and industry. EAST’s capacity building work includes running the Taiwan Animal Protection College (TAPC) and providing guidance to newer organizations in Taiwan.
As part of their public education program, EAST runs the TAPC, which aims to change the public discourse and create new leaders. They also report providing guidance and mentoring to new organizations. We believe that advocacy training and supporting other organizations are highly effective in strengthening the animal advocacy movement.
Criterion 2: Room for More Funding
We look to recommend work that is not just high-impact, but also scalable. Since a recommendation from us could lead to a large increase in a charity’s funding, we look for evidence that the charity will be able to absorb and effectively utilize funding that the recommendation may bring in. To estimate a charity’s room for more funding, we not only consider the charity’s existing programs and potential areas for growth and expansion, but also non-monetary determinants of a charity’s growth, such as time or talent shortages.
Since we can’t predict exactly how an organization will respond upon receiving more funds than they have planned for, our estimate is speculative rather than definitive. This year, our estimates are especially uncertain, as we do not know the consequences of COVID-19 on financials. It’s possible that a charity could run out of room for funding more quickly than we expect, or that they could come up with good ways to use funding beyond what we expect. At midyear, we check in with each recommended charity about the funding they’ve received since the release of our recommendations, and we use the estimates presented below to indicate whether we still expect them to be able to effectively absorb additional funding at that point.
Financial History and Financial Sustainability
An effective charity should be financially sustainable. Charities should be able to continue raising the funds needed for their basic operations. Ideally, they should receive significant funding from multiple distinct sources, including both individual donations and other types of support. Charities should also hold a sufficient amount of reserves.
The chart below shows EAST’s recent revenues, assets, and expenditures.8 The financial information for 2019 and the first six months of 2020 was reported by the charities during this year’s evaluation process,9 the financial information for earlier years was acquired from various sources, and the values for 2020 are estimated based on the first six months of 2020. EAST’s revenue has grown steadily in the past few years. They received a large donation (32% of their annual revenue) in 2018, a large grant in 2019 (26% of their annual revenue), and a large restricted donation in 2020 (about 21% of their annual revenue). They also received an ACE Movement Grant (about 10% of their annual revenue) in 2019. With about 222% of their current expenditures held in net assets, we believe that EAST holds a sufficient amount of reserves.10
Planned Future Expenditures
Below we list EAST’s plans for expansion for 2021.11 For each plan, we provide an estimate of the expenditure as well as a confidence level, which indicates how confident we are that the plan can be realized in 2021.12 For staff salaries, we estimated the number of staff EAST could hire by considering the number of existing staff they have and the number of staff they have plans to hire in 2021. For the corresponding costs, we made salary estimates based on information about the job’s seniority, type, and location using data from current and past job postings whenever possible.13 We also factored in additional costs incurred as part of the hiring process. We estimated non-staff-related costs for each charity’s plans for expansion14 based on their 2019 program expenditures;15 in some cases, we also considered EAST’s estimations of their future expenditures16 and/or our impressions of how much the expansions would cost.17 Additionally, we accounted for an estimate—based on a percentage of the charity’s current annual budget—of possible unforeseen expenditures.
| Planned Expansion | Estimate of Expenditure18 | Confidence Level in Realizing Expansion19 |
| Hiring 4 additional staff | $54k to $0.3M | High (43%) and moderate (58%) |
| Conducting research on Taiwan’s animal agriculture industry | $0.37k to $3.7k | High (43%) and moderate (58%) |
| Running awareness campaigns on chicken and quail welfare | $0.31k to $1.6k | High (43%) and moderate (58%) |
| Possible additional expenditures20 | $2.7k to $55k | Low |
Estimated Room for More Funding
We estimated EAST’s room for more funding for 2021. For this, we relied on an estimate of their predicted revenue for 2021. We estimate that EAST’s revenue in 2021 will be $0.68 million or within the 90% prediction interval [$0.55M, $0.81M].21 EAST did not provide a prediction of their 2021 revenue.
Using our predictions of future revenue, EAST’s room for more funding was estimated via Guesstimate. Note that when ACE estimates a charity’s room for more funding, we are estimating the amount of funding that the charity could use on top of their predicted, regular funding in the coming year.
The chart shows EAST’s room for more funding distributed across our three confidence levels. For donors influenced by ACE wishing to donate to EAST, we estimate that EAST’s room for more funding is $62k (90% prediction interval: [$-12k, $0.15M]) with high confidence. Overall, we have some confidence that EAST has room for $0.16 million (90% prediction interval: [$-31k, $0.39M]) in additional funding in 2021. We believe that EAST’s room for more funding relative to the size of their organization is of smaller size compared to the other charities we evaluated this year. We also believe that their absolute room for more funding is of smaller size relative to the funding we influence through our recommendations. Given the impact a recommendation may have on a charity’s funding, we base our rating of performance in this criterion on the latter assessment.
Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness
A charity’s recent cost effectiveness provides an insight into how well it has made use of its available resources and is a useful component in understanding how cost effective future donations to the charity might be. In this criterion, we take a more in-depth look at the charity’s use of resources over the past 18 months and compare that to the outcomes they have achieved in each of their main programs during that time. We have used an approach in which we qualitatively analyze a charity’s expenditures and key results and compare them to other charities we are reviewing this year.
We categorized the charity’s programs into different outcomes—improvement of welfare standards, increased availability of animal-free products, decreased consumption of animal products, increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values, and stronger animal advocacy movement. Then, for a given outcome, we compared the charity’s key results and expenditures from January 2019 to June 2020 to other charities we evaluated in 2020, and we gave our assessment of how cost effective we think their work toward that outcome has been.
Improvement of Welfare Standards
EAST engages in four programs that we have categorized as contributing to the improvement of welfare standards—policy advocacy, legislative advocacy, corporate engagement, and industry engagement.22 As the resource usage and key results of each program are distinct, we have kept them as separate categories in our analysis.
Key results and use of resources
Below is our estimated resource usage for EAST’s programs focused on the improvement of welfare standards, Jan 2019–Jun 2020. In this section, we have only included what we believe are the key results of each program. For a full list of results and resource usage, see Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020a).
Table: Estimated number of animals affected29 by corporate commitments, Jan 2019–Jun 2020
| Number affected per year by commitments | |
| Caged hens | 1.5M–29M |
Evaluation of cost effectiveness
EAST’s corporate engagement and industry engagement programs focus on securing commitments to improve welfare standards for farmed animals. In the past 18 months, EAST has reported securing six cage-free commitments. After factoring in the proportional responsibility that EAST has had for securing these commitments, we estimate these commitments have the potential to affect 1.5 million to 29 million animals once implemented.
A detailed analysis of these estimates can be found in this Guesstimate model. Our estimates for the effects of corporate outreach take into account the uncertainty about the rates with which charities follow through on their commitments. In the U.S., for example, companies have made commitments often with deadlines 5–10 years after the commitment, which leaves the risk that they will not be followed through on without continued campaigning.30 EAST reports that their corporate outreach is built on collaboration with food companies and that they actively follow up on commitments. After accounting for all of their key results and expenditures, we think the cost effectiveness of EAST’s work in their corporate engagement and industry engagement programs seem slightly lower than the average cost effectiveness of other, similar programs working toward improving welfare standards we evaluated this year.
EAST reported to us that in light of COVID-19, their corporate campaigns had to be paused.
EAST’s policy and legislative advocacy programs focus on influencing policies and legislation to better farmed animal welfare standards in Taiwan. For example, they influenced Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture to include poultry and protected terrestrial and marine species in their Animal Transport and Management Regulations. The majority of the results of these programs are indirect, and as such, it is difficult to make an assessment of their cost effectiveness.
After accounting for all of their key results and expenditures, we think the cost effectiveness of EAST’s work in their policy and legislative advocacy programs seems slightly lower than the average cost effectiveness of other, similar programs working toward improving welfare standards we evaluated this year.
Overall, we think the cost effectiveness of EAST’s work toward improving welfare standards seems slightly lower than the average cost effectiveness of other charities’ work toward this outcome we have evaluated this year.
Increased Prevalence of Anti-Speciesist Values
EAST engages in one program that we have categorized as contributing to an increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values—public education.
Key results and use of resources
Below is our estimated resource usage for EAST’s program focused on increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values, Jan 2019–Jun 2020. In this section, we have only included what we believe are the key results of this program. For a full list of results and resource usage, see Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020a).
Evaluation of cost effectiveness
EAST’s public education program focuses on promoting compassion toward animals. In the past 18 months, they have held public education events, run fish welfare and caged duck campaigns, and engaged influencers to produce online content on the egg industry. We believe people may not engage with online messages as deeply as they would engage with other forms of outreach, and therefore we are uncertain how many individuals have been successfully persuaded by EAST’s online campaigns.
Overall, we think the cost effectiveness of EAST’s work toward increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values seems similar to the average cost effectiveness of other charities’ work toward this outcome we have evaluated this year.
Stronger Animal Advocacy Movement
EAST engages in one program that we have categorized as contributing to strengthening the animal advocacy movement—public education.
Key results and use of resources
Below is our estimated resource usage for EAST’s program focused on strengthening the animal advocacy movement, Jan 2019–Jun 2020. In this section, we have only included what we believe are the key results of this program. For a full list of results and resource usage, see Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020a).
Evaluation of cost effectiveness
As part of their public education program, EAST runs the Taiwan Animal Protection College (TAPC). In the last 18 months, they held at least 12 public education events and two professional training workshops, targeting the public, industry professionals, and animal advocates, building a community around animal protection in Taiwan.
EAST reports that COVID-19 has affected this program. They have postponed talks for the Taiwan Animal Protection College (TAPC), and they recently opened a live streaming option.
Overall, we think the cost effectiveness of EAST’s work toward strengthening the animal advocacy movement seems similar to the average cost effectiveness of other charities’ work toward this outcome we have evaluated this year.
Criterion 4: Track Record
Information about a charity’s track record can help us predict the charity’s future activities and accomplishments, which is information that cannot always be incorporated into our other criteria. An organization’s track record is sometimes a pivotal factor when our analysis otherwise finds limited differences between two charities.
In this section, we evaluate each charity’s track record of success by considering some of the key results that they have accomplished prior to 2019.35 For charities that operate in more than one country, we consider how they have expanded internationally.
Overview
EAST was founded in 1999. Since then, they have been working on their Policy Advocacy, Legislative Advocacy, Public Education, and Research and Investigations programs, building a long track record of success in influencing policies and legislation to improve the welfare of animals in Taiwan, as well as developing public education campaigns and conducting investigations. They have worked on their Industry Engagement program for 20 years and Corporate Engagement program for seven years, building a long track record of success in running a welfare labeling program and achieving cage-free corporate commitments. Note that EAST’s industry engagement and corporate engagement programs concern only industrial agriculture, while their other programs concern both industrial agriculture and cause areas that ACE does not prioritize.
Key Results Prior to 201936
Below is a summary of EAST’s programs’ key results prior to 2019, ordered by program duration (with the longest-running programs listed first). These results were reported to us by EAST, and we were not able to corroborate all their reports.37 We do not expect charities to fabricate accomplishments, but we do think it’s important to be transparent about which outcomes are reported to us and which we have corroborated or verified independently. Unless indicated otherwise, the following key results are based on information provided by Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020c).
Note that many of these results have been achieved in collaboration with other organizations and individuals.
Criterion 5: Leadership and Culture
Leadership directly affects an organization’s culture, performance, and effectiveness. Strongly-led charities are likely to have a healthy organizational culture that enables their core work. We collect information about each charity’s internal operations in several ways. We ask leadership to describe the culture they try to foster, as well as potential areas of improvement. We review each charity’s human resource policies and check that they include those we believe are important. We also send a culture survey to the staff of each charity.40, 41
Key Leadership
In this section, we describe each charity’s key leadership and assess some of their strengths and weaknesses.
Leadership staff
- Chief Executive: Wu Hung, involved in the organization for 20 years
- Deputy Chief Executive: Yu-Min Chen, involved in the organization for 20 years
- Director: Tai-Ching Lin, involved in the organization for 13 years
- Director of Taiwan Animal Protection College: Liping Peng, involved in the organization for four years
All respondents to our survey agreed that EAST’s leadership is attentive to the organization’s strategy and that leadership promotes external and internal transparency.
Recent leadership transitions
EAST did not have a transition in leadership recently.
Board of Directors
EAST’s Board of Directors consists of 20 members (15 directors and 5 supervisors).
Members of EAST’s Board of Directors
- Dr. Yung Hsiang, Chien (Standing Director): Vice Researcher at Humanity & Social Science Institute, Acadmia Sinica
- Mr. Ching Rong, Fang (Standing Director): Founder of Yer Shin Enterprise
- Mr. Hung Wei, Li (Standing Director): Lecturer, National Dong Hwa University
- Ms. Gu Yin, Dong (Standing Director): Deputy Director, Digital Producer Center, United Daily News
- Dr. Cheng Liang, Chen (Standing Director): Professor at Social Development Institute Shi Hsin University
- Ms. Pei Feng, Su (Director): Founder of ActAsia
- Dr. Tsung Huei, Hwang (Director): Professor, Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literature College of Liberal Arts at National Taiwan University
- Dr. Tsung Chieh, Hwang (Director): Professor, Dept. of Chinese Languages and Literatures. National Dong Hwa University
- Ms. Yu Fang, Liang (Director): Deputy Director of News Center at United Daily News
- Ms. Hsin Yi, Yao (Director): Freelancer
- Ms. Ren Huei, Lin (Director): Secretary General at Environmental Jurists Association
- Mr. Tze Lin, Lin (Director): Secretary General at Treasure Our Land Taiwan
- Ms. Li Ping, Peng (Director): Designer at Shang Chi Advertising Co.
- Mr. Chen Chi, Hsu (Director): Deputy Director, Chinese Fencing Association
- Mr. Wei Hwa, Won (Director): Editor of Network News at United Daily News
All respondents to our survey agree that EAST’s board supports the organization in achieving its strategic vision.
We believe that boards whose members represent occupational and viewpoint diversity are likely most useful to a charity since they can offer a wide range of perspectives and skills. There is some evidence suggesting that nonprofit board diversity is positively associated with better fundraising and social performance42 and better internal and external governance practices,43 as well as with the use of inclusive governance practices that allow the board to incorporate community perspectives into their strategic decision-making.44 EAST’s board is composed of individuals with diverse occupational backgrounds and experiences. We consider the board’s relative occupational diversity to be a strength.
Policies and Benefits
Here we present a list of policies that, if properly drafted and enforced, we find to be beneficial for fostering a healthy culture. A green mark indicates that EAST has such a policy and a red mark indicates that they do not. A yellow mark indicates that the organization has a partial policy, an informal or unwritten policy, or a policy that is not fully or consistently implemented. We do not expect a given charity to have all of the following policies, but we believe that, generally, having more of them is better than having fewer.
Culture and Morale
A charity with a healthy culture acts responsibly toward all stakeholders: staff, volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, and others in the community. According to EAST’s leadership, their organizational culture is decentralized, and employees are empowered to participate in decision-making, have the space to direct their own work, and fulfill their potential.46
The survey we distributed supports leadership’s claim that EAST’s culture is overall positive. Respondents noted in an open-response box that their workplace is respectful and collaborative, and their work is positively challenging. A few common adjectives that respondents used to describe EAST’s communication style were “democratic,” “accepting,” “respectful,” or similar.
According to our culture survey, EAST has an overall level of employee engagement higher than the average of charities we evaluated this year.
EAST does not have a formal compensation plan to determine staff salaries; about 50% of respondents to our survey agreed with the statement that their compensation is adequate. EAST offers paid leave—as required by Taiwan’s laws—and offers 30 paid sick days annually. About 63% of respondents agreed that these paid benefits provided are sufficient. EAST reports that employees do not have clearly defined essential functions for all positions and do not regularly evaluate performance. About 50% of respondents to our culture survey agreed that the system of staff performance evaluation needs to be changed or improved upon.
According to leadership, the following areas of EAST’s organizational culture have room for improvement: active involvement of employees in meetings and strategy discussions. We think distributing regular culture surveys could help EAST to better understand their workplace culture and identify further areas for improvement.
Overall, we think that EAST’s staff satisfaction and morale are close to the average charity we evaluated this year. We think that EAST’s culture could benefit from establishing a formal compensation strategy, as well as a system of regular performance evaluations.
Representation/Diversity,47 Equity, and Inclusion48
One important part of acting responsibly toward stakeholders is providing a representative/diverse,49 equitable, and inclusive work environment. Charities that have a healthy attitude toward representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion (R/DEI) seek and retain staff and volunteers from different backgrounds. Among other things, inclusive work environments should also provide necessary resources for employees with disabilities, protect all team members from harassment and discrimination, and require regular trainings on topics such as equity and inclusion, in conjunction with year-round efforts to address R/DEI throughout all areas of the organization.
All staff that participated in our culture survey agreed that EAST has members from diverse backgrounds. EAST made an effort to increase representation/diversity through their recruitment process by having a diverse team of employees; the majority of their staff is female, and staff backgrounds include different ages, sexual orientations, nationalities, and abilities.
EAST supports R/DEI through their human resource activities. They have a workplace code of ethics/conduct and a written statement that they do not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or other characteristics. EAST has a written procedure for filing complaints and explicit protocols for addressing concerns or allegations of harassment50 or discrimination.51 In our culture survey, about 88% of respondents agreed that EAST protects staff, interns, and volunteers from harassment and discrimination in the workplace, and all agreed that they have someone to go to in case of harassment or other problems at work. However, our culture survey suggests that EAST’s staff experienced or witnessed some harassment or discrimination in the workplace during the past year, similarly to the average charity under review. Because staff feel overall protected from harassment and discrimination, and EAST has in place systems to prevent and handle harassment and discrimination in the workplace, we are not highly concerned about this finding.
EAST does not offer regular trainings on topics such as harassment and discrimination in the workplace. In our culture survey, 38% of staff agree that they and their colleagues have been sufficiently trained in matters of R/DEI. Some respondents mentioned that no training is needed. We believe that the opportunities for the team to learn about R/DEI at EAST should be increased.
Overall, we believe that EAST is as diverse, equitable, and inclusive as the average charity we evaluated this year.
Criterion 6: Strategy
Charities with a clear and well-developed strategy are more likely to be successful at setting and achieving their goals. In this section, we describe and assess each charity’s strategic vision and mission, plan, and planning process.
Given our commitment to finding the most effective ways to help nonhuman animals, we assess the extent to which the charity’s strategic vision is aligned with this commitment. We believe that their strategic planning should clearly connect the charity’s overall vision to their more immediate goals. Additionally, we assess the extent to which their strategic planning process incorporates the views of all their staff and board members and whether the frequency of this process is adequate, given the nature of their work. There are many different approaches to strategic planning, and often an approach that is well suited for one organization may not work well for others. Thus, in this section, we are not looking for a particular approach to strategy. Instead, we assess how well the organization’s approach to strategy works in their context.
Strategic Vision
EAST’s vision: A “harmonious interaction between humans, animals and the environment”
Strategic Position in the Movement
We asked EAST how they see their organization’s work fitting into the overall animal advocacy movement. They report that in the context of the global movement, they explore new approaches that work within an East Asian cultural sphere. They report that in Taiwan, their campaigns are focused on farmed animal issues, which are neglected by other organizations. They also note that they see cooperation with other organizations as a central strategy for EAST.
Strategic Plan and Planning Process
Type(s) of plan: No formal strategic plan
EAST does not have a formal strategic plan. Instead, they hold an annual meeting to set their strategy as a “broad vision” for that year. They prefer an informal process so that they can remain agile and responsive to opportunities that may arise throughout the year.
Goal-Setting and Monitoring
EAST’s goals are set in response to political and legislative opportunities that arise. Following goal-setting, an action plan is developed, and a member of staff is assigned to each goal. EAST’s goals are monitored on an ad-hoc basis, as determined by the members of staff responsible. They do not hold retrospective meetings—i.e., postmortems—following major projects.
Our Assessment
EAST’s strategic mission implies reducing animal suffering but does not commit to farmed animals exclusively, although most of their work is directed toward the animals used by the food industry. EAST’s mission also implies achieving benefits for people and the environment, which can support the growth of the farmed animal advocacy movement as a whole.52 We think that they have a clear notion of how they fit into the wider animal advocacy movement and that this is reflected in their strategic decision to focus on farmed animal advocacy, a neglected cause area in Taiwan. In general, we think it is valuable for an organization to have a strategic plan to guide their actions. That said, EAST is focused primarily on policy change, which requires the ability to quickly pivot in response to changing circumstances. Therefore , in their case, a formal strategic plan may be less valuable. Their goal setting appears to be carried out well and monitored frequently. However, we think they could benefit from conducting retrospective meetings following major projects. Overall, we think EAST’s approach to strategy is average compared to other evaluated charities, given the context in which they operate and the type of work they do.
Criterion 7: Adaptability
A charity’s self-assessment should inform their decisions. This will aid them in retaining and strengthening successful programs and modifying or discontinuing less successful programs, and will enable them to see if or when it is necessary to change their organizational structures. When such systems of improvement work well, all stakeholders benefit: Leadership is able to refine their strategy, staff better understand the purpose of their work, and donors can be more confident in the impact of their donations.
We have identified the following examples of how EAST has adapted to success and failure:
Early in EAST’s history, they were focused on companion animals. However, after observing the number of new companion animal organizations in Taiwan and the relative neglectedness of advocacy work for farmed animals and animals used for testing, they pivoted strongly toward those cause areas.53 They still do some work for companion animals, but it is a very small part of their work as an organization. We think farmed animals are a particularly high-priority cause area compared to both companion animals and animals used in testing, so we think they could benefit from further shifting toward farmed animals. That said, it is important to acknowledge that any shift on the level of cause area is difficult to achieve, and we think EAST has adapted well to change.
After recognizing their wider role in the movement, EAST established the Taiwanese Animal Protection College (TAPC) to focus on building a stronger animal advocacy movement by training early-career activists. This kind of movement-building work is likely neglected across the movement as a whole, and we think EAST has done well to identify and proactively use their position to address this.
Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected EAST’s ability to carry out some of their programs, most notably their corporate outreach campaigns.54 They have slowed down their campaign against global restaurant chain Din Tai Fung, and they have postponed an in-person press conference for companies announcing their transition to cage-free eggs until 2021. They have also switched their other in-person events (such as talks through their TAPC) to being online. Additionally, EAST has put resources into a campaign that targets the live transport of chickens to be slaughtered at markets. The campaign aligns with the health concerns around live markets that have become more prescient in light of the pandemic.
Overall, we believe that EAST is just as able as the average charity evaluated this year to adequately respond to success and failure.
Note that we are never 100% confident in the effectiveness of a particular charity or intervention, so three gray circles do not necessarily imply that we are as confident as we could possibly be.
We acknowledge that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has impacted each charity’s programs in various ways. This impact is addressed in Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness.
We consider an intervention to be weakly effective if we believe it is unlikely to have a positive impact on the relevant outcome. We consider an intervention to be moderately effective if we believe it has some positive impact on the relevant outcome, though relatively less than other interventions. We consider an intervention to be highly effective if we believe it has a clear positive impact on the relevant outcome.
For arguments supporting the view that the most important consideration of our present actions should be their impact in the long term, see Greaves & MacAskill (2019) and Beckstead (2019).
EAST was founded in 1999. We show data for the last five years.
Note that Taiwanese government regulations require social organizations to set aside funds (up to 20%) each year that cannot be utilized except in exceptional circumstances, and with permission from the board. This accounts for around USD $120,000, more than a fifth of current assets.
We do not list any expansions beyond what the charity itself plans to implement. We acknowledge that charities may differ in how ambitious their reported plans are independent of what they can realize. Such a difference in reporting could bias our estimates of the room for more funding. To counteract such a bias, we first ask all charities not only for the expansions they already planned for 2021, but also which expansions they would plan if their budget would increase by 50%—they report these responses in Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020a). Second, we indicate our confidence in whether the charities’ expansion plans could actually be realized. We refer to our evaluation of the effectiveness of EAST’s programs for an assessment of the effectiveness of their planned expansions.
For staff expenditure and any non-staff expenditure that is scalable with staff, we estimate confidence levels based on our researchers’ joint assessment of how feasible it is to hire a certain number of staff dependent on the organization’s current size.
For estimating the salary of a given role, we used the following sources of information in order of priority: current and past job postings by that charity, current and past job postings by similar charities, seniority and type of job, average wages in the country of hire.
Note that our cost estimates for non-staff expansions account for the partial correlation between costs for new staff and non-staff costs that involve staff.
The column shows 90% confidence intervals assuming normal distributions for all variables, except for potential additional expenditure, for which we assume a log-normal distribution.
For staff expenditure and any non-staff expenditure that is scalable with staff, we indicate the proportion of the charity’s expansion plans that we are highly confident they’ll be able to achieve, the proportion we are moderately confident they’ll be able to achieve, and the proportion we have low confidence in. We generally have high confidence that reserves can be replenished if funds are available, and low confidence in the amount of unexpected expenditures the charity may have.
This is an estimate to account for additional expenditures beyond what has been specifically outlined in this model. This parameter reflects our uncertainty as to whether the model is comprehensive and constitutes a range from 1%–20% of the charity’s total projected 2020 expenditures.
We assume a linear trend in revenue. The estimates are based on a linear regression using EAST’s revenue data from 2016 to 2020.
EAST reported an additional program—research—that they see as supporting all their other programs. Since they did not report any key results unique to this program, we considered all expenditures for their research program to be general operating expenses.
We believe that language can have a powerful impact on worldview, so we avoid terms such as “poultry” when possible. This term is likely to contribute to a lack of awareness about the origins of food and could make it difficult for consumers to understand the effects of their food choices. That being said, Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture categorizes animals in this way, so we will use the term for simplicity.
To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures.
To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures.
To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures.
To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures.
We provide these estimates as 90% subjective confidence intervals. For more information, see this explainer page on subjective confidence intervals.
For more information, see Simcikas (2019) and Open Philanthropy (2019).
To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures.
Some of the results of this program contribute to increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values, while other results contribute to strengthening the animal advocacy movement. We chose to attribute 50% of the expenses to each outcome in our analysis.
To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures.
Some of the results of this program contribute to increasing the prevalence of anti-speciesist values, while other results contribute to strengthening the animal advocacy movement. We chose to attribute 50% of the expenses to each outcome in our analysis.
For more recent achievements (2019–2020), see Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness.
For more recent achievements (2019–2020), see Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness.
While we are able to verify some types of claims (e.g., those about public events that appear in the news), others are harder to corroborate. For instance, it is often difficult for us to verify whether a charity worked behind the scenes to obtain a corporate commitment, or the extent to which that charity was responsible for obtaining the commitment.
In Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020c), EAST reports that “MOS Burger later walked back on its commitment and begun sourcing eggs from enriched cages following an unexpected intervention by a US-based organization.”
In Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (2020c), EAST reports that “[w]hile the campaign did not result in a commitment, McDonald’s toured cage-free farms and has continued to engage with us, remaining aware of the cage-free shift.”
We distributed our culture survey to EAST’s 10 team members and seven responded, yielding a response rate of 70%. EAST has a very small team—four out of 10 employees were identified as members of leadership—which could have affected the results of our survey.
We recognize at least two major limitations of our culture survey. First, because participation was not mandatory, the results could be affected by selection bias. Second, because respondents knew that their answers could influence ACE’s evaluation of their employer, they may have felt an incentive to emphasize their employers’ strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
EAST reports that most internships are paid, but sometimes they have unpaid interns.
ACE uses the term “representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion (R/DEI)” in place of the more commonly-used “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).” While we acknowledge that the terms “diversity” and “DEI” are in the public lexicon, as the concepts have become popularized, “diversity” has lost the impact of its original meaning. The term is often conflated with “cosmetic diversity,” or diversity for the sake of public appearances. We believe that “representation” better expresses the commitment to accurately reflect—or represent—society’s demographics at large.
Our goal in this section is to evaluate whether each charity has a healthy attitude toward representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion. We do not directly evaluate the demographic characteristics of their employees.
We use the terms “representation” and “diversity” broadly in this section to refer to the diversity of certain social identity characteristics (called “protected classes” in some countries), such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender or gender expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental status, marital status, national origin, citizenship, amnesty, veteran status, political beliefs, age, ability, or genetic information.
In the culture survey we included the following definition of harassment: “Harassment can be non-sexual or sexual in nature. Non-sexual harassment refers to unwelcome conduct—including physical, verbal, and nonverbal behaviors—that upset, demean, humiliate, intimidate, or threaten an individual or group. Harassment may occur in one incident or many. Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances; requests for sexual favors; and other physical, verbal, and nonverbal behaviors of a sexual nature when (i) submission to such conduct is made explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment; (ii) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting the targeted individual; or (iii) such conduct has the purpose or effect of interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.”
In the culture survey we included the following definition of discrimination: “Discrimination is the differential treatment of or hostility toward an individual on the basis of certain characteristics (called “protected classes” in some countries), such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender or gender expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental status, marital status, national origin, citizenship, amnesty, veteran status, age, ability, genetic information, or any other factor that is legislatively protected in the country in which the individual works. ACE extends its definition of discrimination to include the differential treatment of or hostility toward anyone based on any characteristics outside of one’s professional qualifications—such as socioeconomic status, body size, dietary preferences, political views or affiliation, or other belief- or identity-based expression.”
For more information, see Salazar & van der Werf (2020).
The following materials are supplementary research documents associated with our charity review process and are referenced in the Comprehensive Review.
Research Documents
