The Albert Schweitzer Foundation

How Albert Schweitzer Foundation performs on our criteria

Criterion #1: The Organization Has Concrete Room for More Funding and Plans for Growth

In the past few years, they were able to raise enough funding to accomplish their goals. They had a €46,180 loss in 2013, but that was planned due to a bequest they received previously so it did not negatively affect their work. They try to maintain around six months’ operating expenses in assets, and they had 0.44 years of assets in reserve at the end of 2013.

While they have been able to consistently meet the financial needs of their projects, they could use additional funding to hire more full-time staff members. In particular, they would like to hire an assistant for Mahi Klosterhalfen, their Executive Director, and to hire additional staff for their media team.

We think that expending money in these areas would make sense, especially in the media realm, as they are working on many different projects already and therefore could most benefit from promoting those projects instead of taking on additional projects. ASF already uses strong metrics to track the success of their programs, so we feel confident that spending money on promotion makes sense at this stage. We also feel that the work Mahi would be able to do with some of his time freed by an assistant would be quite valuable.

ASF has a high quality internal structure with goals and targets for each of their campaigns. Their detailed work plans give us confidence that they understand how much money different campaigns will cost and what they will produce. We are unsure exactly how much more money they could use, but promotional efforts are expensive and we think it likely that they would have no problem spending an additional $50,000.

Criterion #2: A Back-of-the-Envelope Calculation Finds the Organization is Cost-Effective

ASF runs several programs; we estimate cost effectiveness separately for each of their main programs and then give a composite estimate of their overall impact. Note that all estimates factor in associated supporting costs including administrative and fundraising costs.

Corporate Outreach

ASF’s largest program, in terms of budget, is their corporate outreach program. In 2013 this accounted for about 26% of their budget, or $168,194.¹ Their corporate outreach led to 33 corporate policy changes: 26 companies switched to cage-free eggs, 1 stopped selling foie gras, 2 removed eggs from meat alternatives to make them vegan, and 4 added vegan menu items. Four universities also transitioned to cage-free eggs. This is a cost of about $4,546 per policy change.

Pig Mobile Tour

ASF spent about 22% of their 2013 budget, or $141,702, on their Pig Mobile Tour. The tour made 142 stops throughout Germany and handed out 95,000 leaflets. They also spoke to many people about diet change, 17,600 of whom both signed up to receive an email newsletter about switching to a plant-based diet and subsequently opened the newsletter. The average cost per stop was $998, and at an average stop, 669 leaflets were handed out and 124 people signed up for (and later opened) the newsletter.

Scientific Work

ASF spent about 15% of their 2013 budget, or $98,767, on their scientific work. This included writing 21 in-depth articles for their website, revising their leaflets based on new information, preparing to evaluate their leaflets, and persuading a network of environmental and farming organizations to do more work on meat reduction and vegan issues.

Truck Canvases

ASF spent about 9% of their 2013 budget, or $60,443, on printing truck canvases. They printed 10 canvases, each of which will be used to cover a large truck for at least five years, thus advertising the message printed on the canvas. Each year that a covered truck is on the road will have cost no more than $1,209.

Other Programs

ASF spent about 28% of their 2013 budget, or $181,261, on other programs. This included sending out around 400,000 leaflets requested online, organizing and supporting local groups and protests, lobbying, and outreach to media. They also had 16,600 people sign up for (and open) their dietary newsletter through their website. If all the leaflets requested got distributed, and we consider only that activity, this is an average cost of 45 cents per leaflet.

All Activities Combined

To combine these estimates into one overall cost-effectiveness estimate, we need to translate them into comparable units. This will introduce several sources for errors and imprecision, so the resulting estimate should not be taken literally. However, it will allow us to judge whether ASF’s efforts are comparable in efficiency to other groups’.

We estimate that corporate policy changes instigated by ASF spare, on average, about 10,000 animals from the factory farming system (in the case of policy changes that reduce animal product consumption) or an equivalent amount of suffering (for policies like purchasing cage-free eggs which do not necessarily result in a drop in consumption). This means ASF’s corporate outreach spares about 2.2 animals per dollar. We estimate that the Pig Mobile Tour spares about 1.2 animals per dollar, using our Leafleting Impact Calculator to estimate the effects of the leaflets and a survey conducted by ASF to estimate the effectiveness of the email newsletter. We estimate the effectiveness of their miscellaneous programs similarly; these spare about 2 animals per dollar through distribution of leaflets and the newsletter. Finally, we estimate very roughly that the truck canvases spare about .4 animals per dollar.² We do not have a separate estimate of the number of animals spared through scientific work, and indeed we believe a large proportion of that work serves mainly to enhance the effectiveness of ASF’s other activities, by improving materials such as leaflets and raising ASF’s credibility to corporations and other organizations.

Combining our estimates from the previous paragraph, we find that ASF is able to spare about 1.4 animals per dollar donated to them. This is near the low end of the range of estimates for other groups we have reviewed at this depth. Because of extreme uncertainty even about the strongest parts of our calculations (the calculator linked above each has error bounds spanning 2-3 orders of magnitude), there is currently limited value in further elaborating this estimate. Instead, we give weight to our other criteria.

Criterion #3: The Organization is Working on Things That Seem to Have High Mission Effectiveness

Corporate Outreach

Corporate outreach seems to have high mission effectiveness because it involves convincing a few powerful people to make decisions which influence the lives of millions of animals. This seems likely to be easier than reaching and persuading millions of consumers in order to accomplish the same goal. However, corporate outreach often deals with small welfare improvements. It’s not clear whether such improvements, even if very easy to achieve, are highly effective in the long term, since as well as changing conditions for animals, they may also influence public opinion, either towards concern for farmed animals or towards complacency with regard to industrial agriculture.

Grassroots outreach for farmed animals

Individual outreach is a necessary precursor to many possible systematic changes. ASF engages in leafleting, a mobile advertisement tour, and regular email communications.

Depending on the content, leaflets may or may not emphasize additional approaches to helping farmed animals beyond changing one’s diet individually or encouraging friends and family to do the same. If they do not, the effectiveness of leafleting may be hampered because even people who are strongly affected by the leaflets influence animals primarily through changes in their diet and potentially in the diets of a few other people. Other activities which specifically attempt to leverage the connections and abilities of people they reach, or to target particularly influential individuals, may have higher effectiveness for this reason.

A mobile advertisement tour can be an efficient way of promoting your message to large groups of the public at low cost. Because these tours are often continuously mobile, people cannot engage on a personal level unless the tour is stationary, in which case the reach is limited. Such tours can also provide a context for conversations about the treatment of farmed animals, and also serve as a hub for other types of related grassroots outreach like leafleting.

Scientific work

Conducting research and being aware of statistics related to advocacy can play a pivotal role in how successful an organization can be. A group might be the best at what they do, but if what they do isn’t effective, or has negative side effects, then they are not being as impactful as they could be or may even be unintentionally creating net harm. Furthermore, it is important for groups to use research to determine the optimal audience for their message so that they can acquire the highest value for each dollar spent. Evaluating and conducting research helps organizations maximize their impact, and sharing that information publicly can be beneficial to the entire advocacy community.

Criterion #4: The Organization Possesses A Robust and Agile Understanding of Success and Failure

We think Albert Schweitzer Foundation has a particularly strong understanding of success and failure.

ASF has a good system of setting performance goals each year, and they use the information they collect on this front to ensure that their impact grows consistently. This includes financial, outreach, and media goals (among others), and ASF sets reasonable and measurable goals in almost every area. For example, in measuring the impact of their newsletter, they want to have 45,000 people actually open each new newsletter by the end of 2014, and to reach 16,500 clicks on each one after opening. These specific metrics are important because it shows they understand the value of engagement, not just of building a higher number of email signups.

Realizing the complexity of measuring corporate outreach, they use a system of impact points based on the level of change and the size of the company involved to assess their progress. They actively seek to maximize their gains by phasing out specific corporate outreach efforts that take more time but affect fewer animals. An example of this is their foie gras campaign – while they saw successes, they ultimately decided to end it because the input/outcome-ratio was not as high as other areas.

They have a science department which looks at studies related to their work, evaluates current legal opportunities/restrictions, and examines their target audience. This department also is currently evaluating their leafleting materials. The work of this department along with their organization-wide objectives shows that they are actively taking measures to ensure the maximum impact with their outreach.

Finally, they network with other organizations to ensure they’re not duplicating efforts and that they are engaging in the best practices.

Criterion #5: The Organization Possesses a Strong Track Record of Success

Carrying out planned programs

Due to ASF’s commitment to evaluating and improving their work, they have a strong track record of successes. They achieved or came close to achieving all of their goals from 2013, which included reasonable organizational growth goals such as growing their newsletter signup list and raising their budgeted amount of income.

Most notable is their success with corporate outreach. Using well-planned campaigns to convince organizations and corporations to go cage-free, they eventually convinced all major supermarket chains in Germany to go completely cage-free for shell eggs between 2003 and 2010. This involved careful planning with their messaging to coincide with other legal changes that were in the pipeline, and their ability to execute it effectively shows their strong understanding of how to succeed with their efforts.

They have also had notable successes convincing other institutions that deal with specific markets (like big business or college students) to go cage-free as well. Their approach also involves discussion to promote other good messages within corporations such as reducing meat consumption and adding additional vegan options. At this stage, their university conversations have been so successful that there is only one university left in Germany that has not complied with their cage-free requests and campaigns.

Programs leading to change for animals

ASF’s corporate outreach programs have demonstrably led to changes for animals. Most notably they bear a large proportion of the responsibility for Germany’s egg industry having transitioned mainly to a cage-free model instead of to enriched battery cages after barren battery cages were banned in the European Union. By their work on the cage-free campaigns discussed above, they helped determine the way the egg industry responded to the ban.

Some of ASF’s programs have less well-documented effects on animals. For instance, leafleting on behalf of farmed animals is one of the better-documented individual outreach activities, but so far there are problems documenting the results of any individual outreach strategy, because following up with individuals is difficult and expensive and they often have limited access to their own reasons for making dietary changes. However, we think that individual outreach in some form is necessary in order to bring about long-term change, and ASF is among the organizations most conscientiously testing their own programs in this area.

Criterion #6: The Organization Has Strong Organizational Leadership and Structure

ASF has less than 20 people on staff; half of which are paid for partially through a governmental program. Their board is comprised of three people who are in charge of making key strategic decisions. They have a wiki with information for new trainees which provides access to relevant materials.

Criterion #7: The Organization is Transparent

Several of their campaigns involve working with other organizations, showing that they are open to collaboration. They work primarily in Germany, but conduct campaigns with other groups from around Europe and the United States. They regularly engage in discussion with other advocacy leaders, and they make many of their materials available to other groups.

ASF has a transparency section on their website and adheres to standards for NGOs by Transparency International Germany. They use the Social Reporting Standard to write annual reports, which shows that they are being thorough in their writings and conscious of making their materials useful and easy to navigate. The Social Reporting Initiative, which manages the Social Reporting Standard, recognized both their 2012 and 2013 reports as “outstanding” implementations of the standards.

1. Because Albert Schweitzer Foundation is based in Germany, they provided their budget to us in Euros. We used the 2013 Euros-to-dollars exchange rate provided by the IRS to convert to US dollars. 

2. The truck covers do not contain detailed persuasive or instructional material, but do contain pointers to where such material can be found online. Our estimate corresponds to two people per day actually seeking out information based on seeing each truck canvas, and that information being about as persuasive as a leaflet. As mentioned in the text, we are aware that this is a particularly rough estimate.