The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO)

How FIAPO 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’ve evaluated.

The number of gray circles indicates the strength of the evidence supporting each performance assessment and, correspondingly, our confidence in each assessment:

Criterion 1: Does the charity engage in programs that seem likely to be highly impactful?

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 categories described in our Menu of Outcomes for Animal Advocacy. These categories are: influencing public opinion, capacity building, influencing industry, building alliances, and influencing policy and the law.

Cause Area

The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations focuses primarily on reducing the suffering of farmed animals, which we believe is a high-impact cause area.

Theory of Change

To 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.

A note about long-term impact

We do represent some of each charity’s long-term impact in our theory of change diagrams, though we are generally much less certain about the long-term impact of a charity or intervention than we are about more short-term impact. Because of this uncertainty, our reasoning about each charity’s impact (along with our diagrams) may skew towards overemphasizing short-term impact. Nevertheless, each charity’s long-term impact is plausibly what matters most. The potential number of individuals affected increases over time due to both human and animal population growth as well as an accumulation of generations of animals. The power of animal charities to effect change could be greater in the future if we consider their potential growth as well as potential long-term value shifts—for example, present actions leading to growth in the movement’s resources, to a more receptive public, or to different economic conditions could all potentially lead to a greater magnitude of impact over time than anything that could be accomplished at present.

Interventions and Projected Outcomes

FIAPO pursues many avenues for creating change for animals: They work to influence public opinion, build the capacity of the movement, influence industry, build alliances, and influence policy and the law. Below, we describe the work that they do in each area, listed roughly in order of the financial resources they devote to each area (from highest to lowest).

Influencing public opinion

FIAPO works to influence individuals to adopt more animal-friendly attitudes and behaviors through media outreach, online outreach, veg pledges, movie screenings, virtual reality, veg fests, leafleting, and video outreach. The effects of public outreach are particularly difficult to measure for at least two important reasons. First, most studies of the effects of public outreach rely on self-reported data, which is generally unreliable.² Second, even if we understood the effects of public outreach on individual behavior, we still know very little about how animals are impacted by behaviors such as individuals changing their diets, deciding to vote for animal-friendly laws, or becoming activists. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of most public outreach interventions, we do think it’s important for the animal advocacy movement to target at least some outreach toward individuals. A shift in public attitudes and consumer preferences 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, as we describe in our Allocation of Movement Resources report.

FIAPO promotes a 21-day Compassion Challenge in which participants are encouraged and given guidelines to go vegan for three weeks. Vegan pledge programs are likely to recruit new people to the movement, normalize veganism, and raise awareness of veganism and animal-related issues. However, many participants are likely to return to eating animal products afterward.³

FIAPO organizes veg fests, shows movies related to veganism, and reaches out to the media to cover animal-related issues. These activities seem likely to promote awareness about animal welfare, though there is little available evidence of their effects on behavioral change. FIAPO also does outreach via billboards and through social media. We are uncertain of the effect of online and billboard outreach and are concerned that the marginal impact may be fairly low as people may not engage with the content very deeply.

FIAPO engages in grassroots outreach to individuals using leafleting, virtual reality, and video outreach. We’re unsure about the impact of many of these efforts to influence public opinion. For instance, we estimate that leafleting may be less cost effective at creating short-term impact than some other interventions. However, while our 2017 Leafleting Intervention Report failed to find compelling randomized controlled trial evidence for its short-term impact, leafleting may still serve other, more long-term purposes—such as general awareness-raising, contributing to gradual changes in perspective and habits,⁴ and providing an easy way for some people to get involved in animal activism. We would still like to see further research on VR’s potential, but there are some promising early results. In a study conducted by Faunalytics and Animal Equality, participants were shown footage of pigs on factory farms via the VR headset, a tablet, or not at all. While the study did not indicate that showing VR footage was necessarily more effective than showing the same footage on a tablet, the study did find that both presentations seemed to have a positive short-term impact on attitudes towards pork consumption as well as consumption itself. It is also possible that the novelty of VR technology could attract individuals who wouldn’t otherwise stop to pick up a leaflet or watch a video.

Influencing policy and the law

FIAPO engages in grassroots political campaigning. While legal change may take longer to achieve than some other forms of change, we suspect its effects to be long-lasting. We believe that encoding protections for animals into the law is a key component of creating a society that is just and caring towards animals.

Campaigning for welfare reforms in India is generally approached through the law, rather than through corporate outreach.⁵ As India has a negligible number of cows raised for beef,⁶ FIAPO focuses on legislative advocacy to improve conditions for cows in dairy farms and gaushalas (sanctuaries for cows who are no longer being used for dairy). Because cows are relatively large, these reforms may affect a smaller number of animals than reforms directed at smaller-bodied animals such as chickens. However, cows hold religious and cultural significance in the Hindu religion—which in 2011, represented 79.8% of the Indian population—making it likely that advocacy for cows is particularly tractable.

FIAPO also exposes how the slaughter industry—mostly illegal roadside meat shops—violates Indian animal welfare laws and then pressures the Indian government to enforce animal welfare legislation. FIAPO’s actions have led to the closure of hundreds of illegal roadside meat shops.⁷ We believe that this advocacy demonstrates the potential of working with the Indian government to improve conditions for animals.

Capacity building

Working to build the capacity of the animal advocacy movement can have far-reaching impact. While capacity-building projects may not always help animals directly, they can help animals indirectly by increasing the effectiveness of other projects and organizations. Our recent research on the way that resources are allocated between different animal advocacy interventions suggests that capacity building is currently neglected relative to other outcomes such as influencing public opinion and industry. FIAPO engages in activist training and assistance to other animal advocacy organizations, which are forms of capacity building.

FIAPO has 130 member organizations which they provide assistance to on an ad-hoc basis. They also run a legal helpline and a social media program, and they provide strategic advice and fundraising assistance for effective animal advocacy work.⁸ FIAPO trains activists through network calls, workshops, and intensive boot camps, with a focus on leadership development and effective vegan advocacy.⁹ In 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018, FIAPO organized the India for Animals Conference, which gave Indian advocates the opportunity to learn from leaders in animal advocacy from around the world.

Farmed animal advocacy in India is currently relatively neglected, with over 90% of animal protection organizations focusing on street dogs or the protection of cows for religious purposes. At the same time, the number of animals being slaughtered for food in India is rising dramatically as meat eaters consume more meat and increase their consumption of smaller-bodied animals such as chickens and fishes. India presents unique opportunities for animal advocates because of its large number of vegetarians, strong (if poorly enforced) animal welfare laws, and high public support for increased welfare standards. For this reason, we believe that building the capacity of the Indian farmed animal advocacy movement is likely to have a strong positive effect.

Building alliances

FIAPO’s outreach to other social movements and celebrities provides an avenue for high-impact work since it can involve convincing a few powerful people to make decisions that could influence the lives of millions of animals. We believe that the impact of building alliances varies considerably depending on who the key influencers are and the kinds of decisions they can make.

FIAPO builds relationships with other organizations that focus on human rights, environmental protection, education, public health, waste management, and wildlife protection.¹⁰ This relationship building and cross-movement outreach may be particularly important in India, where animal advocacy risks being seen as anti-development or anti-Indian. FIAPO also reaches out to celebrities to encourage them to endorse their 21-day Compassion Challenge.

Influencing industry

FIAPO collaborates with food and beverage companies and retailers to encourage them to offer vegan products or vegan versions of their most popular products.¹¹ By improving access to nutritious and appealing vegan food, FIAPO may make it easier for individuals to reduce their consumption of animal products.

In the short to medium term, corporate outreach can create change for a larger number of animals than individual outreach can with the same amount of resources. It also seems more tractable to secure systemic change one corporation at a time rather than lobbying for larger-scale legislative change. Though the long-term effects of corporate outreach are yet to be seen, we believe that these interventions have a high potential to be impactful when implemented thoughtfully.¹²

Criterion 2: Does the charity have room for more funding and concrete plans for growth?

We look to recommend charities that are not just high impact, but also have room to grow. Since a recommendation from us can 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. We consider whether there are any non-monetary barriers to the charity’s growth, such as time or talent shortages. To do this, we look at the charity’s recent financial history to see how they have dealt with growth over time and how effectively they have been able to utilize past increases in funding. We also consider the charity’s existing programs that need additional funding in order to fulfill their purpose, as well as potential areas for growth and expansion.

Since we can’t predict exactly how any organization will respond upon receiving more funds than they have planned for, our estimate is speculative, not definitive. It’s possible that a charity could run out of room for funding more quickly than we expect or come up with good ways to use funding beyond what we expect. We check in with each of our Top Charities mid-year 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 effectively absorb additional funding at that point.

Recent Financial History

The following chart shows FIAPO’s recent revenue, assets,¹³ and expenses.^{14, 15} In this chart, the 2019 revenue and expenses are estimated based on the financials of the first six months of 2019.¹⁶ FIAPO notes that due to external reasons, they had to greatly limit their expenses during this time period.¹⁷ They also note that they expect the total expenditures over 2019 to be around $0.49M,¹⁸ around twice the number that our linear projection predicts. This gives us additional uncertainty in our model. They don’t expect a significant change in their revenue in the next year.¹⁹

Estimated Future Expenses

A charity may have room for more funding in many areas, and each area likely varies in its cost effectiveness. In order to evaluate room for more funding over three priority levels, we consider each charity’s estimated future expenses,²⁰ our assessment of the effectiveness²¹ of each future expense, and the feasibility of meeting each expense if more funding were provided.²²

Estimated Room for More Funding

The cost of FIAPO’s plans for expansion over the three priority levels is estimated via Guesstimate and visualized in the chart above. We estimate that FIAPO’s plans for expansion would cost between $67k and $0.36M. Our room for more funding estimates include a linear projection of the charity’s revenue from previous years to predict the amount by which we expect the revenue to increase or decrease in the next year. Comparing FIAPO’s estimated revenue for 2019²⁸ and 2020,²⁹ we expect that in the next year, it will change between -$59k and $0.36M.³⁰ The estimates for change in revenue are more uncertain than the estimated costs of expansion, so we put limited weight on them in our analysis.

Criterion 3: Does the charity possess a strong track record of success?

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 consider whether each charity’s programs have been well executed in the past by evaluating some of the key results that they have accomplished. Often, these outcomes are reported to us by the charities and we are not able to corroborate their reports.³¹ 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 identified independently. The following outcomes were reported to us unless indicated otherwise.

FIAPO was founded in 2010. They launched their Legislative and Movement-Building programs in 2012, their Grassroots Vegan Advocacy program in 2014, their Enforcement and Policy Change for Slaughter Reform program in 2016, and their Mass Media Advocacy program in 2017. Below is our assessment of each of these programs, ordered according to the expenses invested in each one (from highest to lowest) from 2018 to mid-2019:

Criterion 4: Does the charity operate cost-effectively, according to our best estimates?

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 to 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 and compare that to the outcomes they have achieved in each of their main programs.

This year, we have used an approach in which we more qualitatively analyze a charity’s costs and outcomes. In particular, we have focused on the cost-effectiveness of the charity’s specific implementation of each of its programs in comparison to similar programs conducted by other charities we are reviewing this year. We have categorized the charity’s programs into different intervention types and compared the charity’s outcomes and expenditures from January 2018 to June 2019 to other charities we have reviewed in our 2019 evaluations. To facilitate comparisons, we have also compiled spreadsheets of all reviewed charities’ expenditures and outcomes by intervention type.⁶²

Analyzing cost-effectiveness carries some risks by incentivizing behaviors that, on the whole, we do not think are valuable for the movement.⁶³ Particular to the following analysis, we are somewhat concerned about our inclusion of staff time and volunteer time. Focusing on staff time as an indicator of cost-effectiveness can reward charities that underpay their staff, and discourage organizations from working towards increasing salaries to be more in line with the for-profit sector. As for volunteer time, we think that volunteer programs can increase the cost-effectiveness of a charity’s work, however, overreliance on volunteers can make a charity’s work less sustainable. While we think that these factors are relevant and worth including in our analysis of cost-effectiveness, we encourage readers to bear these concerns in mind while reading this criterion.

Overview of Expenditures

The following chart shows FIAPO’s total expenditures in 2018 and 2019, divided by program.⁶⁴

We asked FIAPO to provide us with their expenditures for their top 3–5 programs as well as their total expenditures. The estimates provided in the graph were calculated by dividing up their total expenditures proportionately, according to the size of their programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost-effectiveness.

Media Campaigns

Summary of outcomes: convinced 21 food and beverage companies to offer vegan products; obtained seven celebrity endorsements for the 21-day Compassion Challenge; reached 5,000 enrollments in the 21-Day Compassion Challenge; received ~460 million impressions through billboards and social media and 102 media mentions with ~700 million impressions. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in media campaigns.

Use of resources

Table 1: Estimated resource usage in FIAPO’s media campaigns Jan ’18–Jun ’19

FIAPO’s expenditures are much less than the average of other charities we reviewed, but their staff time is much higher than average when accounting for the size of their expenditures. All else equal, this will likely positively contribute to their cost-effectiveness as they have more staff time available per dollar spent.⁶⁹

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

Several outcomes for animals have been secured as a result of FIAPO’s media outreach, such as companies introducing vegan options and people signing up for their 21-day Compassion Challenge. FIAPO has also secured a substantial amount of reach through both their social media/billboard campaigns and their 102 media mentions. After accounting for all of their outcomes and expenditures, FIAPO’s media outreach seems close to the average cost-effectiveness of other reviewed charities in 2019.

Legal Advocacy

Summary of outcomes: supported rules requiring registration of cattle premises which were put in place by five states in India; supported the passage of voluntary guidelines for animal welfare in Gaushalas in the state of Uttar Pradesh; regulated/closed 557 illegal meat shops in collaboration with the government; conducted workshops on slaughter reform in conjunction with the government (attended by 237 butchers); and took action against an illegal meat market. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in legal advocacy.

Note: FIAPO engages in two programs that we have categorized as legal advocacy for this analysis—Legislative Change for Preventing Factory Farming in Dairies, and Enforcement and Policy Change for Slaughter Reform. In the former, they focus on introducing reforms at the state level that impact dairy farming. In the latter, they work with the government to reform slaughter standards and prevent illegal meat shops from operating.

Use of resources

Table 2: Estimated resource usage in FIAPO’s legal advocacy Jan ’18–Jun ’19

FIAPO’s expenditures are less than the average of other charities we reviewed, but their staff time is much higher than average when accounting for the size of their expenditures.⁷⁴ All else equal, this will likely positively contribute to their cost-effectiveness as they have more staff time available per dollar spent.

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

FIAPO’s legal advocacy is focused solely on cows, which we think is generally unlikely to be as cost effective as focusing on smaller-bodied, more numerous farmed animals such as chickens or fishes. That said, India has the largest population of cows in the world, with an estimated 305 million in 2018, comparable to the country’s estimated 274 million broiler chickens.⁷⁵ The Indian government also appears to have an interest in protecting cows,⁷⁶ which may mean that a focus on cows is particularly tractable and that similar legal outcomes may not be achievable for other types of farmed animals at this time.

While most of FIAPO’s legal advocacy directly impacts a small number of animals, the outcomes may lay the groundwork for affecting larger numbers of animals in the future. For example, a large proportion of animal agriculture in India appears to be unregulated,⁷⁷ and FIAPO’s work to establish registration rules for cattle premises may make it easier to pursue other, similar regulations and allow for more coordinated animal advocacy outreach. Similarly, their work in collaboration with the government may make it easier to collaborate on other projects in the future.

After accounting for all of their outcomes and expenditures, FIAPO’s legal advocacy seems more cost effective than the average of other reviewed charities in 2019.

Capacity Building/Building Alliances

Summary of outcomes: increased organization membership by 85% to 130; provided 100 member organizations with legal, social media, strategic, and fundraising help; mentored 220 activists; provided workshop training for 500 activists and residential boot camp training for 150 activists; conducted a national animal advocacy conference; and formed alliances with 14 organizations. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in capacity building/building alliances.

Use of resources

Table 3: Estimated resource usage in FIAPO’s capacity building/building alliances, Jan ’18–Jun ’19

FIAPO’s expenditures are much less than the average of other charities we reviewed, but their staff time is much higher than average when accounting for the size of their expenditures. All else equal, this will likely positively contribute to their cost-effectiveness as they have more staff time available per dollar spent.⁸²

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

Capacity building/building alliances encompasses a broad category of outcomes for animals that are typically indirect, so it is difficult to make an assessment of their cost-effectiveness. Given FIAPO’s position in the animal advocacy movement in India, it seems likely that they can have a substantial impact with any capacity-building work that they do. Specifically, we think that their work to shift other groups’ focus and resources to farmed animal advocacy is likely to be particularly impactful. From a brief search of their member organizations, it appears that the vast majority are focused on companion animals. As such, of the support they provide to their membership organizations, giving strategic advice seems most likely to be effective. The impact of the legal, social media, and fundraising support they provide is likely very dependent on the effectiveness of each member organization.

Generally, their work on activist training seems likely to be worthwhile, but we would expect the cost-effectiveness to vary depending on implementation. For example, their online mentorship workshops seem very scalable without incurring substantial costs per additional mentee, whereas their residential courses are relatively less scalable and likely to have a much higher cost per mentee. Overall, it is difficult to draw any substantial conclusions, especially as there are likely to be additional benefits specific to in-person trainings.

After accounting for all of their outcomes and expenditures, FIAPO’s capacity-building/building alliances work seems more cost effective than the average of other reviewed charities in 2019.

Individual Outreach

Summary of outcomes: reached 400,000 people through leafleting, VR, or video outreach; held documentary screenings in six cities; and supported provisions for five veg-fests. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in individual outreach.

Use of resources

Table 4: Estimated resource usage in FIAPO’s individual outreach, Jan ’18–Jun ’19

FIAPO’s expenditures are much less than the average of other charities we reviewed, but their staff time is much higher than average when accounting for the size of their expenditures. All else equal, this will likely positively contribute to their cost-effectiveness as they have more staff time available per dollar spent.⁸⁷

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

Individual outreach primarily creates impact directly by inducing behavior changes in the individuals receiving the intervention. It is unclear what proportion of the 400,000 people FIAPO reached through individual outreach were reached through leafleting, VR, or video outreach. However, as leaflets are generally easier and cheaper to distribute, we would expect a large proportion to have been reached through leafleting. As discussed in Criterion 1, we think that video outreach and VR are both likely to be more effective than leafleting. Similarly, long-form individual outreach interventions such as documentaries seem more likely to induce a lasting effect. However, using them for public screenings will likely mean audiences are of small sizes and possibly already aligned with the messaging being presented.

After accounting for all of their outcomes and expenditures, FIAPO’s individual outreach seems more cost effective than the average of other reviewed charities in 2019.

Criterion 5: Does the charity identify areas of success and failure and respond appropriately?

By conducting reliable self-assessments, a charity can retain and strengthen successful programs and modify or discontinue less successful programs. 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.

In this section, we consider how the charity has assessed its programs in the past. We then examine the extent to which the charity has updated their programs in light of past assessments.

How does the charity identify areas of success and failure?

FIAPO tracks the impact of their campaigns regularly, publishing monthly reports to evaluate their progress and inform their decisions. In addition, they conduct research to assess the impact of their programs. For example, they report having undertaken a six-month study to evaluate the effectiveness of their vegan advocacy outreach.⁸⁸

In the past three years, FIAPO has worked with external advisors on different topics, including fundraising, campaign and communication strategies, governance and compliance, organizational development, and research and evaluation.⁸⁹

Does the charity respond appropriately to identified areas of success and failure?

We believe that FIAPO responded appropriately to their self-determined areas of success and failure in at least two ways, listed below.

1. FIAPO has been working to regulate slaughter practices in several cities in India by shutting down illegal meat shops in collaboration with local activists and governmental authorities. They recognize that although it is tempting and gratifying to close meat shops, this intervention was not effective in the long term since similar establishments would probably open up again and the conditions for animals would be equally poor. Therefore, six months ago, FIAPO decided to change their approach and focus instead on advising meat shops to comply with the law.⁹⁰ They kept working with local authorities who are now educating these establishments on the law and the welfare conditions that they must comply with.

2. FIAPO has been working for years on strengthening the animal advocacy movement in India by carrying out different capacity-building activities, such as providing advice, training, and networking opportunities to local organizations and animal advocates. In 2018, they expanded their membership significantly (by 85%), probably increasing the effectiveness of local organizations and individuals. For example, they have reached many local advocates who typically work for companion animals and equipped them with tools to take action for farmed animals, especially broiler chickens. FIAPO seems to be making additional efforts to position themselves as a key driver of movement building in the country by expanding their membership and continuing other capacity-building activities, and also by building alliances with groups from other social movements. FIAPO reports that they have started to connect with other movements on issues that are aligned with the animal cause, reaching out to other organizations and establishing common projects. They have recently decided to focus more on alliance building in the next few years.⁹¹

We believe that FIAPO failed to respond appropriately to their self-determined areas of success and failure in at least the following way:

According to the culture survey^{92, 93} we distributed to FIAPO’s staff, we noted contradictory responses about the internal communication of the organization,⁹⁴ and we also noted some variation in responses regarding the organization’s internal transparency.⁹⁵ In addition, several respondents mentioned a high attrition rate and consequently high levels of stress and burnout among employees who stay. FIAPO’s leadership has recognized their organization’s issue with burnout and says they are working to address it.⁹⁶ They have reportedly also taken steps to improve their internal communication and transparency.⁹⁷ However, we are concerned that leadership may not have yet properly tackled specific challenges in these areas.

Criterion 6: Does the charity have strong leadership and a well-developed strategic vision?

Strongly-led charities are likely to be more successful at responding to internal and external challenges and at reaching their goals. In this section, we describe each charity’s key leadership and assess some of their strengths and weaknesses.

Part of a leader’s job is to develop and guide the strategic vision of the organization. Given our commitment to finding the most effective ways to help nonhuman animals, we look for charities whose strategy is aligned with that goal. We also believe that a well-developed strategic vision should include feasible goals. Since a well-developed strategic vision is likely the result of well-run strategic planning, we consider each charity’s planning process in this section.

Key Leadership

Leadership staff

FIAPO’s Executive Director is Varda Mehrotra, who has been with the organization for the past seven years. She has experience with the animal advocacy movements in both India and Scotland and is passionate about a grassroots, movement-building approach.⁹⁸

We distributed a culture survey^{99, 100} to FIAPO’s team and found general agreement that FIAPO’s leadership is attentive to the organization’s strategy. There was also general agreement that the organization promotes external transparency and (to a slightly lesser degree) internal transparency.

Board of Directors

FIAPO’s Board of Directors consists of nine members with a variety of occupational backgrounds. We find the size and diversity of FIAPO’s board to be a strength of the organization. In the U.S., it’s considered a best practice for nonprofit boards to be comprised of at least five people who have little overlap with an organization’s staff or other related parties. (However, there is only weak evidence that following this best practice is correlated with success.) 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 performance,¹⁰¹ better internal and external governance practices,¹⁰² as well as with the use of inclusive governance practices that allow the board to incorporate community perspectives into their strategic decision making.¹⁰³

Strategic Vision and Planning

Strategic vision

FIAPO’s mission is “[t]o connect and empower animal protectors to achieve animal rights by advocacy, networking and capacity building” and “to create a high-impact, well-connected movement at all levels which will continually address ongoing animal issues.” We think such a mission is likely to guide FIAPO towards high-impact work—at least in the near term—because we believe that alliance-building and capacity-building activities are currently relatively neglected.¹⁰⁴ However, over the long term, the distribution of resources in the movement could change, as could the most effective approaches. We wonder whether FIAPO may be limiting their ability to respond to new developments or information by making such a fundamental organizational commitment to a particular approach.

Strategic planning process

FIAPO is currently operating under their second strategic plan, which spans from 2019 to 2022. They began their strategic planning process by sending questionnaires to all stakeholders, including members, donors, leadership, and board members. They also sought feedback from external stakeholders familiar with the animal advocacy movement in India. They sifted through the feedback and categorized it into strategic themes.¹⁰⁵

While we support the process of seeking feedback from as many stakeholders as possible, we wonder whether a slightly more top-down approach may also have benefits, like ensuring continuity and focus on the organization’s key objectives.

Goal setting and monitoring

FIAPO measures the impact of their campaigns continuously throughout the year. They have a full-time staff member who is responsible for monitoring the impact of their ongoing campaigns, and they publish monthly reports which inform their decision-making processes.¹⁰⁶ They also develop research projects to measure the impact of some of their projects.

Criterion 7: Does the charity have a healthy culture and a sustainable structure?

The most effective charities have healthy cultures and sustainable structures to enable their core work. We collect information about each charity’s internal operations in several ways. We ask leadership about the culture they try to foster and their perceptions of staff morale. We review each charity’s policies related to human resources and check for essential items. We also send each charity a culture survey and request that they distribute it among their team on our behalf.

Human Resources Policies

Here we present a list of policies that we find to be beneficial for fostering healthy cultures. A green mark indicates that FIAPO 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 towards all stakeholders: staff, volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, and others in the community. According to FIAPO’s leadership, FIAPO has a warm, friendly, and collegiate culture. Mehrota tells us that her team’s ambitious goals have necessitated a fast pace and a high level of trust in the organization.¹⁰⁷

We found that respondents to our culture survey offered somewhat contradictory descriptions of FIAPO’s culture. For example, while some respondents described FIAPO’s communication style as “challenging” or “opinionated,” others described it as “polite” or “restrained.” Some respondents described the communication as “honest” or “direct,” while others described it as “disorganized” or “unprofessional.” Several respondents mentioned that FIAPO has a high attrition rate, which has contributed to high stress levels for remaining employees. (Mehrota acknowledges the organization’s high levels of stress and burnout and says they are working to address it.)¹⁰⁸

FIAPO has a high level of employee engagement, according to our culture survey. Many respondents had very positive things to say about FIAPO’s culture, though these were not centered around any particular themes.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion¹⁰⁹

One important part of acting responsibly towards stakeholders is providing a diverse,¹¹⁰ equitable, and inclusive work environment. Charities with a healthy attitude towards diversity, equity, and inclusion seek and retain staff and volunteers from different backgrounds, which improves their ability to respond to new situations and challenges.¹¹¹ Among other things, inclusive work environments should also provide necessary resources for employees with disabilities, require regular trainings on topics such as diversity, and protect all employees from harassment and discrimination.

Mehrota tells us that FIAPO is predominantly young and female,¹¹² but that they are trying to encourage diversity (including diversity of creeds, cultures, and races) through their hiring process.¹¹³ Respondents to our culture survey generally agreed that FIAPO has staff from different backgrounds, with several respondents specifying that they have colleagues of different faiths, languages, cultural backgrounds, age groups, and castes. Respondents were mixed about whether they had been sufficiently trained on issues related to harassment and discrimination, though some commented that there was an external training last year and that there are informational materials posted around the office.

When asked what FIAPO’s leadership could do to be more inclusive, some respondents suggested more actively recruiting staff from marginalized groups. Others suggested holding more workshops and trainings, possibly with shorter “refresher” sessions throughout the year.

Sustainability

An effective charity should be stable under ordinary conditions and should seem likely to survive any transitions in leadership. The charity should not seem likely to split into factions and should seem able to continue raising the funds needed for its basic operations. Ideally, it should receive significant funding from multiple distinct sources, including both individual donations and other types of support.

We project that, in 2019 and 2020, FIAPO’s revenue and assets will far exceed their expenses, so we are not concerned about the organization’s financial sustainability. As this is the first year we have comprehensively reviewed FIAPO, we have limited information about their ability to survive potential changes in leadership.

Questions for Further Consideration

Some people would argue that relying too much on volunteer work can bring challenges to ensure a fair pay system within the organization. How does FIAPO ensure their volunteer scheme is fair and sustainable?

FIAPO’s response:

“Although we agree that there is a reliance on volunteers for certain programmes, it doesn’t internally affect the fair pay system. Our salaries are comparable, if not more than that offered by most other animal organisations in the country and employees of these organisations don’t work with as many volunteers either.

The framing of the question is itself problematic because one of the goals of some programmes (like Living Free) is to build the grassroots movement for animal rights in the country, which is mainly steered by volunteers. When the goal of the programme itself is to increase the volunteer base, the question about over-reliance on volunteers becomes non-significant. The outcome – outreach figures – is an indicator of volunteer growth, both in numbers and in terms of their capacity. The reason as we all know for increasing the volunteer base is to spread the information about animal rights far and wide so as to make it mainstream.

We have to admit that there are not a lot of schemes for volunteers and we are now in the process of diversifying the portfolio of services and schemes that we will be providing to volunteers and member organisations. We currently offer free capacity building trainings, highly discounted prices/ full fee waiver for attendance of intensive regional bootcamps and conferences, leadership training for city/ regional leaders, FIAPO fellows who will be certified by FIAPO to undertake trainings in their region for their peers, etc. for volunteers. We also cover their costs if they undertake certain types of events like food tasting, vegan fests, etc. to reduce their financial burden.

We have experienced and still are experiencing a sine wave pattern in terms of volunteer turnover after achieving a saturation point at around 1000 activists and employee attrition and we do agree that it is not contributing much to the growth of organizational knowledge. As mentioned in the HR section of the review, we are working on addressing burnout in employees and helping them with their career progression in the animal protection sector. As mentioned above, we are also hopeful that by diversifying the portfolio of services and schemes for activists, we would be able to retain more of our volunteers.”

FIAPO works on a large variety of cause areas (farmed animals, companion animals, animals in entertainment, etc.). Has FIAPO considered prioritizing those areas to increase the impact of their work?

FIAPO’s response:

“The top priority for FIAPO has always been farmed animals and nearly 80-90% of our expenditure is on farmed animal programmes. We haven’t prioritized a specific species to work on before, but after the new Livestock census was released in October 2019, we have started the process of prioritizing which farmed animal work to take up with more resources – the prioritization is being done based on the three criteria – scale, neglectedness and tractability of an intervention. We are slowly bringing in alignment our programmatic work with priorities based on the livestock survey – which in descending order would be: fish> chicken> goat> sheep> buffalo> cattle. Upon examination of the Livestock census, we are looking to initiate dedicated programmes aimed at goats/ sheep, poultry and buffaloes over the next few years. We are already in the process of investigating aquaculture in India and based on the results, we will also be initiating an intervention regarding regulation in the aquaculture sector.”

Edit 12/16/2019: We mistakenly reported that the number of broiler chickens alive in India is 780 million, an estimate including both broiler chickens and egg-laying hens. The best estimate for the number of broiler chickens alive in India today is in fact 274 million.¹¹⁴

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1. 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. 

2. For more information on the reliability of self-reported data, see van de Mortel (2008) in the Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing. Also see Peacock (2018) on the use of self-reported dietary data. 

3. Grassian, 2019 

4. Most people go vegan or vegetarian over a long period (Jabs, Devine, & Sobal 1998; Beardsworth & Keil, 1992; Pfeiler & Egloff, 2018; Mullee et al, 2017), with an abrupt “conversion experience” (Beardsworth & Keil, 1992) being much less common. The adoption of a politicized dietary identity (such as vegetarianism/veganism) has been found to most commonly occur through a series of encounters (Chuck et al., 2016). Thus, when receiving a leaflet, such experiences may contribute to a gradual shift in perspective. NGOs serve as a primary site of awareness-raising, which is key in achieving widespread societal and political change, particularly in the current climate. Researchers into political change have repeatedly argued that awareness-raising is key if we want to change policy (e.g. Basiley et al., 2014). Awareness of reduction motivations does appear to be increasing (Siegrist, Visschers, & Hartmann, 2015) and awareness may be linked to increased reduction (Lee & Simpson, 2016). Leafleting may play a role in this.  

5. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

6. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

7. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

8. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019  

9. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

10. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

11. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

12. Between 2010 and 2015, plant-based milk sales (particularly almond milk sales) increased, while the total milk market shrunk by over $1 billion in the U.S., according to Nielsen (2016). 

13. We found that charities interpreted the question of how many assets they had very differently. Some interpreted assets as financial reserves, some as net assets, and some as material assets. We have interpreted assets as financial reserves, which we calculated by taking the assets from the previous year, adding the (estimated) revenue for the current year, and subtracting the (estimated) expenses for the current year. There is a discrepancy between the assets that FIAPO provided over 2018 (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019) and the number we obtained by the calculation described above (which is $0.35M). In the graph, we present the number provided by FIAPO instead of the one based on our calculation. About their assets over the first half of 2019, FIAPO writes: “There is no such provision in India accounting to create a reserve as such, however I understand the principle and to achieve that cushion, we do maintain such funds. Our cash reserves are 185,200 USD” (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019).  

14. Audit report 2015–2016; Audit report 2016–2017; Audit report 2017–2018 

15. We have included all financial information available from 2014 until mid-2019.  

16. For most other charities we assume they receive 40% of their revenue in the last two months of the calendar year. Because FIAPO is working in India, we assumed this was not the case for them, and we multiplied the expenses and revenue from the first half of 2019 by 2 instead of by 2.778 like with other charities.  

17. An employee at FIAPO told us: “The expenditures in the first half of FY 2019-20 was low owing to the trouble we had in getting our FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) renewed. So, until we had some clarity about whether or not our FCRA will be renewed, we had to curtail our expenditures and focus only on the most fundamental tasks of all programmes” (personal communication, November 12, 2019). 

18. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, personal communication, November 12, 2019 

19. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

20. In combination with our estimates of the priority level and costs of each planned expansion, the estimates are based on charities’ own estimates of planned expansion as expressed in our follow-up questions for them (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). 

21. See ACE’s 2019 cost-effectiveness estimates spreadsheet. 

22. Potential bottlenecks besides lack of funding include lack of operational capacity to support new staff members and difficulty to find and hire value-aligned individuals with the right skill sets. We base our estimates for capacity for expanding staff based on the current number of staff employed, as reported in Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (2019). FIAPO currently employs 30 full-time and 2 part-time staff. Based on this our subjective assessment is that we are highly confident that FIAPO can hire 53% of the new staff they would like to hire before running into non-funding related bottlenecks. For 47% of the hires, we believe the non-funding related bottlenecks play a more significant role and we are only moderately confident that FIAPO can overcome these bottlenecks within the next year. Therefore, we estimate that 53% of new hires are high priority and 47% are moderate priority. 

23. FIAPO would like to hire 14 new staff members in 2020 (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019):
    – Management staff: 2 (Chief Operating Officer and Head of Programmes)
    – Fundraising staff: 2 (CSR and Grants)
    – Communications staff: 2 (social media and videos)
    – Research staff: 2 (Junior Researcher and Undercover Investigator)
    – HR staff: 1 (Recruiter)
    – Campaigns staff: 5 (corporate, movement building, plant based businesses, partnerships, training)  

24. Salaries are based on salaries listed in open job openings advertised on FIAPO’s website at the time of writing. FIAPO requested we not publish these salaries. To estimate the total expenses related to hiring a new staff member, we multiply the salary with a distribution of 1.5 to 2.5 to account for recruiting expenses, employment taxes, benefits, training, equipment, etc. To account for the fact that people will be hired throughout the year and not only at the beginning, we multiply the expenses by a distribution of 0.25 to 1.25. 

25. FIAPO notes they expect to expand their non-staff costs proportionally to their staff costs. Of the programs they expect to expand, they expect non-staff costs to be between 20% and 50% of the total costs (V. Mehrotra, personal communication, November 12, 2019). 

26. FIAPO notes they expect various costs for expansion that have not been covered in the model thus far. These costs include hiring external research agencies, subscribing to paid journals, providing online trainings for staff, increasing the salaries of their current employees, and getting medical insurance for all staff (V. Mehrotra, personal communication, November 12, 2019). 

27. 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 it constitutes a range from 1%–20% of the charities’ total projected expenses. 

28. The total revenue is based on the first six months of 2019 with an uncertainty of ± 10%. 

29. The calculations on which this estimate is based exclude revenue influenced by ACE, and have an uncertainty of ± 20%. 

30. FIAPO notes: “[A] blanket statement about the lack of room for funding doesn’t capture the nuance of programmes that suffer due to a lack of funding. Most of our foreign grants are locked for each project, which means that certain projects within a programme are rich while others aren’t. Similar thing goes for different programmes as well – grants are locked for projects in a particular programme, so other programmes are still not having enough funding to take on the projects under it.” (V. Mehrotra, personal communication, November 12, 2019)  

31. While we are able to corroborate 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.  

32. Since we did not ask charities to provide details about accomplishments prior to 2018, key results before 2018 were sourced from publicly available information and may be incomplete. 

33. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

34. FIAPO reports that celebrities have a total following on social media of ~4.2 million, and that about 5,000 people have signed up to the 21-day Compassion Challenge since 2018 (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

35. Since we did not ask charities to provide details about accomplishments prior to 2018, key results before 2018 were sourced from publicly available information and may be incomplete. 

36. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

37. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

38. FIAPO reports that “a concentrated effort by an activist in Mangalore against an illegal meat market for a total of 8 months resulted in saving 70,000 birds (mostly chickens)” (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

39. Since we did not ask charities to provide details about accomplishments prior to 2018, key results before 2018 were sourced from publicly available information and may be incomplete. 

40. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

41. FIAPO reports over 500 activists participated in the conference (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

42. These organizations include three human rights organizations (e.g. Oxfam), three environmental protection organizations (e.g. Navdanya), two education organizations (e.g. Pratyek), one waste management organization, one public health organization, and one wildlife protection organization (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

43. For the list of FIAPO member organizations, see Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (n.d.). 

44. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

45. FIAPO reports they also provided legal and social media help (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

46. FIAPO reports that they are “helping people who typically work for cats and dogs—and equipping them with similar skills that they can use to take action for broiler welfare” (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). 

47. Since we did not ask charities to provide details about accomplishments prior to 2018, key results before 2018 were sourced from publicly available information and may be incomplete. 

48. The following states in India issued these rules: Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

49. See Business Wire India (2013) for more information about FIAPO’s involvement on stopping the first mega dairy in India. 

50. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

51. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, n.d. 

52. FIAPO reports that voluntary guidelines passed in UP impacted about 6,500 gaushalas and therefore about 300,000 cows (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

53. See FIAPO’s report about India’s dairy industry (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, n.d.).  

54. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, n.d. 

55. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

56. Since we did not ask charities to provide details about accomplishments prior to 2018, key results before 2018 were sourced from publicly available information and may be incomplete. 

57. FIAPO reports Melanie Joy and Tobias Leeneart conducted sessions on effective vegan advocacy (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

58. FIAPO reports in 1.5 years, they have introduced four new outreach methods: Truth on Wheels, Question Your Notion, Erase the Divide, and Have a Heart (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

59. FIAPO reports reaching out to over 42,000 people in each of those fests (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019). 

60. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

61. FIAPO reports they have “reached out to over 400,000 people with a message to move towards a vegan lifestyle via leaflets, Video Outreach and Virtual Reality outreach.” (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019)  

62. Note that some charities’ programs do not fit in well with the rest of the reviewed charities according to our categorization of intervention type.  

63. For a longer discussion of the limitations of modeling cost-effectiveness, see Šimčikas (2019). 

64. To estimate their 2019 expenditures, we doubled the financial data provided from January–June 2019. 

65. This includes all charities reviewed in 2019 that are engaged in a program related to media campaigns. 

66. 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 allows us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost-effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

67. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. 

68. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. We think it is unlikely that, in practice, volunteers are working full-time weeks, however we are using this unit in order to maintain a comparison with the amount of staff time used. 

69. This could be a result of a few different factors, such as India having lower average wages than other countries, lower overhead than other organizations, etc. We do not have enough information to know conclusively. 

70. This includes all charities reviewed in 2019 that are engaged in a program related to legal advocacy. 

71. 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. To convert from INR to USD, we calculated the average exchange rate from January ’18–June ’19. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

72. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. 

73. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. We think it is unlikely that, in practice, volunteers are working full-time weeks, however we are using this unit in order to maintain a comparison with the amount of staff time used. 

74. This may be a result of a combination of factors, such as lower average wages in India, lower overhead than other organizations, etc. We do not have enough information to know conclusively. 

75. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

76. For instance, “[a]s part of their continued efforts to protect cows, the Indian government attempted to enforce a ban on beef in 2017” (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). 

77. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

78. This includes all charities reviewed in 2019 that are engaged in a program related to capacity building/building alliances. 

79. 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 allows us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost-effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

80. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. 

81. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. We think it is unlikely that, in practice, volunteers are working full-time weeks, however we are using this unit in order to maintain a comparison with the amount of staff time used. 

82. This could be a result of a few different factors, such as India having lower average wages than other countries, lower overhead than other organizations, etc. We do not have enough information to know conclusively. 

83. This includes all charities reviewed in 2019 that are engaged in a program related to individual outreach. 

84. 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 allows us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost-effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

85. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. 

86. They provided this number in hours, and we converted it into weeks for readability. We assume that one week consists of 40 hours of work. We think it is unlikely that, in practice, volunteers are working full-time weeks, however we are using this unit in order to maintain a comparison with the amount of staff time used. 

87. This is likely to be a result of a combination of factors, such as lower average wages in India, lower overhead than other organizations, etc. We do not have enough information to know conclusively. 

88. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

89. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

90. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

91. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

92. We distributed our survey to FIAPO’s team 30 members and 12 responded, for a response rate of 40%.  

93. We recognize at least two major limitations of our culture survey. First, because participation was not mandatory, the results could be skewed 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. 

94. For more details about FIAPO’s culture, see Criterion 7. 

95. For more details about FIAPO’s transparency, see Criterion 6. 

96. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

97. V. Mehrotra, personal communication, November 12, 2019 

98. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, n.d. 

99. We distributed our survey to FIAPO’s team 30 members and 12 responded, for a response rate of 40%.  

100. We recognize at least two major limitations of our culture survey. First, because participation was not mandatory, the results could be skewed 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. 

101. Siciliano, 1996 

102. Buse, Bernstein, & Bilimoria, 2014 

103. Brown, 2003 

104. See ACE’s Allocation of Movement Resources report.  

105. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

106. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

107. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

108. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

109. Our goal in this section is to evaluate whether each charity has a healthy attitude towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. We do not directly evaluate the demographic characteristics of their employees. There are at least two reasons supporting our approach: First, we are not well-positioned to evaluate the demographic characteristics of each charity’s employees. Second, we believe that each charity is fully responsible for their own attitudes towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, but the demographic characteristics of a charity’s staff may be influenced by factors outside of the charity’s control.  

110. We use the term “diversity” broadly in this section to refer to the diversity of any of the following characteristics: racial identification, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ability levels, educational levels, parental status, immigrant status, age, and/or religious, political, or ideological affiliation. 

111. There is a significant body of evidence suggesting that teams composed of individuals with different roles, tasks, or occupations are likely to be more successful than those which are more homogeneous (Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007). Increased diversity by demographic factors—such as race and gender—has more mixed effects in the literature (Jackson, Joshi, & Erhardt, 2003), but gains through having a diverse team seem to be possible for organizations which view diversity as a resource (using different personal backgrounds and experiences to improve decision making) rather than solely a neutral or justice-oriented practice (Ely & Thomas, 2001).  

112. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

113. Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, 2019 

114. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019