Mercy For Animals

How Mercy For Animals 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

Mercy For Animals 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 greater magnitude of impact over time than anything that could be accomplished at present.

Interventions and Projected Outcomes

Mercy For Animals pursues many different 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

Mercy For Animals works to influence individuals to adopt more animal-friendly attitudes and behaviors through investigations and social media and content production. 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 individuals’ behavior, we still know very little about how animals are impacted by individuals engaging in behaviors such as changing their diet, 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.

MFA works to expose the suffering of animals in factory farms through undercover investigations. These investigations are then made public, and MFA makes an effort to get them as much exposure as possible. MFA’s investigations sometimes draw widespread media attention, lead to criminal charges, and play a role in the passage of legislation.³

MFA also engages in online and media outreach, particularly through social media and videos. MFA believes that their social media and content production raise awareness, engage activists, and push for institutional change.⁴ However, we are uncertain of the effect of online outreach and are concerned that the marginal impact may be fairly low as people may not engage with the content very deeply.

Influencing industry

Mercy For Animals works with corporations to adopt better animal welfare policies and ban particularly cruel practices in the animal agriculture industry. 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.

In Brazil and Mexico, MFA focuses on cage-free egg commitments. Cage-free egg systems are believed to reduce hen suffering by increasing the space available to hens and providing them with important behavioral opportunities, although during the transition process mortality may increase, and there is some risk it may remain elevated.⁵ After the success of their cage-free egg campaigns in the U.S. and Canada,⁶ MFA has transitioned to working on broiler chicken welfare commitments. They are campaigning for companies to switch to higher welfare (but likely slower growing) breeds of broiler chickens and to commit to provisions on stocking density, lighting, and environmental enrichments. Such commitments may lead to higher welfare but also to more animal days lived in factory farms.

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. MFA engages in volunteer training and recruitment, which is a form of capacity building.

MFA has volunteers in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States, and they are planning to expand their volunteer program to India and Hong Kong. They are developing resources for use by organizers and activists throughout the world. Their program focuses on community organizing, leadership development, and movement building. We believe that building the animal advocacy movement in Brazil and India is likely to be particularly effective due to the large scale of animal agriculture, the rising consumption of animal products, and the relative neglectedness of farmed animal advocacy in both countries. We also think there is an opportunity for capacity building in India due to the country’s long history of vegetarianism and concern for animal rights. Movement building in Hong Kong could be strategically valuable because of its relationship to mainland China, though any efforts to effect change in China are highly politically sensitive and missteps have a higher cost than in most other areas. Animal advocacy in China is therefore at a higher risk of having unintended harmful consequences. This risk is higher when the activities are carried out by a foreign organization, as local organizations have a more complete understanding of the political situation and are generally better received by the government.

Influencing policy and the law

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

In conjunction with other advocacy organizations, MFA worked to defeat the King Amendment to the federal farm bill, pass California’s Proposition 12, and pass a ban on large-scale driftnet fishing in California. Internationally, MFA has supported legal initiatives in both Hong Kong and Mexico. In general, we consider international legal work to be an effective intervention.

Building alliances

MFA’s outreach to celebrities, other social movements, restaurants, and schools 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.

MFA partners with major institutions in Latin America and Brazil—such as schools and local governments—with the goal of reducing the quantity of meat, eggs, and dairy served by at least 20%. In the short run, institutional meat reduction programs may affect more animals than individual outreach programs with the same amount of resources.

MFA also works to foster alliances with supportive celebrities. For instance, their 2019 gala included celebrity guests like Joaquin Phoenix and Moby.⁷ MFA’s celebrity supporters may be able to provide financial support to the organization, and they could inspire more individuals to support the charity as well. However, we are uncertain about the overall effectiveness of celebrity outreach.

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 MFA’s recent revenue, assets,⁸ and expenses.^{9, 10} In this chart, the 2019 revenue and expenses are estimated based on the financials of the first six months of 2019.¹¹ MFA notes they received significant funds from the Open Philanthropy Project in 2016, 2017, and the second half of 2019. They did not receive significant funding from the Open Philanthropy Project in 2018 or the first half of 2019.¹²

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,¹³ our assessment of the effectiveness¹⁴ of each future expense, and the feasibility of meeting each expense if more funding were provided.¹⁵

Estimated Room for More Funding

The cost of MFA’s plans for expansion over the three priority levels is estimated via Guesstimate and visualized in the chart above. We estimate that MFA’s plans for expansion would cost between $1.8M and $5.3M. 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. MFA has received funding influenced by ACE as a result of its prior Top Charity status, so in order to more accurately estimate their room for more funding, we have subtracted the estimated ACE-influenced funding from our estimates of future revenue, which means the charity’s real 2020 revenue could be higher than the revenue we predict.³² Comparing MFA’s estimated revenue for 2019³³ and 2020,³⁴ our projection predicts that in the next year, it will change between -1.4M to 3.7M. As mentioned before, this number could be lower than expected because we have not included ACE-influenced revenue in order to account for our own impact. 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.³⁵ 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.

Since being founded in 1999, MFA has been consistently working on their Investigations and Public Engagement programs. They launched their Corporate Engagement program and their Government Affairs and Public Policy program in 2012. In 2016, they expanded their policy work by launching an Institutional Food Policy program. Below is our assessment of each of these programs, ordered according to the expenses invested in each one (from highest to lowest) in 2018–2019:³⁶

Programs

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.⁶⁷

Analyzing cost-effectiveness carries some risks by incentivizing behaviors that, on the whole, we do not think are valuable for the movement.⁶⁸ 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 MFA’s total expenditures in 2018 and 2019, divided by program.⁶⁹

We asked MFA 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: received 2.3 billion social media impressions, 926 media mentions, and 15 million investigation views; and produced a documentary that won a Vimeo Staff Pick Award. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in media campaigns.

Use of resources

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

Relative to their expenditures for this program, MFA’s staff time is much lower than the average of charities we reviewed this year.

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

MFA’s media campaigns have achieved a large number of social media impressions and media mentions. Generally, we think that media campaigns are likely to be most cost effective when they are used to directly support other interventions the charity is engaging in, e.g. securing petitions to apply pressure on a corporation. With the exception of media related to their investigation work, it is not clear from the reported outcomes whether this is the case for MFA’s media campaigns. The content of their media campaigns seems to center mainly on their accomplishments as an organization or general interest content for vegans. We think this will primarily have an impact by reducing the recidivism rates of existing vegans by creating a sense of support and community, but it seems unlikely to be as cost effective as the average of other charities reviewed in 2019.

Corporate Outreach

Summary of outcomes: secured 38 cage-free commitments in Brazil, 15 cage-free commitments in Mexico, and 38 broiler commitments in the U.S. and Canada; made progress on the McDonald’s broiler campaign; implemented six meat reduction programs; trained 996 chefs; taught 20 nutritionists about plant-based eating; secured a commitment from the city of Campos dos Goytacazes. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in corporate outreach.

Note: MFA engages in two programs that we have categorized as corporate outreach for this analysis—Institutional Food Policy, and Public Engagement.

Use of resources

Table 2: Estimated resource usage in MFA’s corporate outreach Jan ‘18–Jun ‘19

MFA’s expenditures in corporate outreach as a whole was larger than the average of other charities we reviewed, and while their staff time is close to the average in their Institutional Food Policy program, it is higher than average in their Public Engagement program when accounting for the size of their expenditures.⁷⁸ All else equal, this will likely positively contribute to their cost-effectiveness in this program as they have more staff time available per dollar spent.

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

Table 3: Estimated number of animals affected by corporate commitments, Jan ‘18–Jun ‘19

Corporate outreach that is focused on securing commitments to improve welfare has a direct impact on animals. After factoring in the proportional responsibility that MFA had for each commitment, we can estimate how many animals will be affected when the commitments are implemented.⁸² Overall, after accounting for expenditures, their work appears to be less cost effective than the average of the charities we have reviewed this year. This estimate has limitations in that the ranges are often very uncertain, and it does not account for other activities that charities engage in as part of their corporate outreach programs.

As part of their Public Engagement program, they have continued their work on the McDonald’s campaign by, for example, producing an ad featuring 25 celebrities that called on McDonald’s to take action. Aside from the outcomes included in the above estimate, MFA is also one of six organizations leading a broiler welfare campaign against McDonald’s, which, if successful, would impact an estimated 200 million to 340 million chickens annually.

Additionally, in their meat reduction program, they have implemented several commitments that they estimate will spare 140,000 animals per year. As they were one of only two reviewed charities running a similar campaign, we are particularly uncertain as to how cost effective its implementation has been. While the number of animals affected is much lower than it is for their corporate outreach campaigns, the animals affected by meat reduction campaigns are spared through shifts in demand, rather than continuing to be farmed in improved conditions, so it is difficult to make direct comparisons.

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

Investigations

Summary of outcomes: conducted five investigations in the U.S., one in Canada, three in Mexico, and one in Brazil; conducted five drone investigations in the U.S. and one drone investigation in Mexico. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in investigations.

Use of resources

Table 4: Estimated resource usage in MFA’s investigations, Jan ‘18–Jun ‘19

Relative to their expenditures for this program, MFA’s staff time is much lower than the average of charities we reviewed this year. Note that we were only able to analyze the investigation campaigns of three of the charities we reviewed in 2019 that had investigations programs, so comparisons to the average should be given relatively less weight than for other interventions.

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

When taking an estimate of cost per investigation for this program, MFA’s investigations cost substantially more than the average of charities reviewed in 2019. That said, this is a somewhat simplistic quantification of cost-effectiveness as it doesn’t take into account other factors such as species of animal investigated, size/number of farms, use of investigation footage, etc. Their investigations have targeted fishes, chickens, cows, and in particular, pigs. In general, we expect a focus on chickens and fishes to be the most cost effective—this accounts for five of the 16 investigations.

MFA notes that they have recently changed their approach to investigations such that any investigations that they conduct should be tied to securing legislative or corporate change.⁸⁷ There is some evidence for this with their investigation on driftnets aiding their successful legal campaign to ban driftnet usage in California. We think that a strategic approach to connecting investigations to other programs is likely to be a substantial factor in the cost-effectiveness that each investigation has; should they follow-through on this policy, it is likely that the cost-effectiveness of their investigations will increase.

Legal Advocacy

Summary of outcomes: helped to defeat the King Amendment, pass Proposition 12 in California, and ban large-scale driftnet use in California; secured 38 animal cruelty related charges against Elite Farm Services; and gained approval from the Mexico senate on a statement urging the Agricultural Ministry to reduce farmed animal suffering. For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in legal advocacy.

Use of resources

Table 5: Estimated resource usage in MFA’s legal advocacy, Jan ‘18–Jun ‘19

MFA’s expenditures and staff time were both proportional to the average of other charities we reviewed.

Evaluation of outcome cost-effectiveness

MFA conducts legal advocacy in a variety of applications, so the cost-effectiveness of this program likely has a large degree of variation. Some of their reported outcomes, while having large impacts for animals, were conducted in conjunction with several other groups, so their responsibility for the outcome is not always clear. For example, in the defeat of the King Amendment to the Federal Farm Bill, they were one of over 220 organizations in opposition. Similarly, in the Proposition 12 campaign, they were one of 33 organizations listed in support of Proposition 12, and it seems likely that its success is mostly attributable to substantial funding from the Humane Society of the United States and the Open Philanthropy Action Fund.⁹² The outcomes that they were more directly responsible for—such as the animal cruelty charges and the letter they sent to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department in Hong Kong⁹³—are more indirect in their impact and thus difficult to assess their cost-effectiveness. Overall, MFA’s legal advocacy seems to have achieved outcomes that are below the average of other charities we have reviewed, when factoring in costs.

Capacity Building/Building Alliances

Summary of outcomes: restructured the volunteer program and completed 1,865 “volunteer actions.” For more information, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in capacity building/building alliances.

Use of resources

Table 6: Estimated resource usage in MFA’s capacity building/building alliances, Jan ‘18–Jun ‘19

MFA’s expenditures are at the average of other charities we reviewed, but their staff time is higher than average when accounting for the size of their expenditures.⁹⁸ 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

Capacity building/building alliances encompasses a broad category of outcomes for animals that are typically indirect, and as such, it is difficult to make an assessment of their cost-effectiveness. MFA notes that they have been going through a period of restructuring their volunteering program, which is the central focus of their capacity-building work. As such, it is likely that the cost-effectiveness of this program is probably lower than it will be in the future. This is reflected in their overall outcomes, which, relative to their program expenditures, seem to be smaller than other reviewed charities.

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?

Last year, MFA launched an impact center that measures progress towards their goals and mission. It is publicly available on their website. Alongside this public website, they have a web page for internal staff only that shows their goals by country and by year as well as the progress each department is making towards achieving those goals.⁹⁹ This way, they can detect the areas that are working, the areas that are not working as expected, and why. MFA’s new leadership also conducts a “quarterly conversation” with staff members to review progress towards their individual goals and discuss their needs and any obstacles they may be facing.

In the past three years, MFA has consulted with external organizations to seek advice on management, board governance, legal matters, and accounting and finance.¹⁰⁰

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

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

Before the change in leadership, MFA expanded very rapidly; they doubled in size every year for more than four consecutive years leading up to their leadership change.¹⁰¹ The new leadership realized there was a lack of a clear strategic plan in Asia and consequently decided to stop the regular activities in this region and focus instead on carrying out comprehensive scoping studies to understand the situation in each country and the opportunities for advocacy there.¹⁰² After each study is completed and analyzed, MFA plans to create a solid structure in each country that empowers the experts in each region, which is something they recognize as not being done appropriately enough in the past.¹⁰³ This change in approach would allow them to become more effective internationally, especially in Southeast Asia, India, and China, where social and cultural differences can be relevant enough to determine the success or failure of MFA’s projects.

We believe that MFA failed to respond appropriately to areas of success and failure in at least the following way:

MFA has dealt with major cultural challenges in recent years, and we recognize the efforts made by the new leadership to rebuild trust and create a healthy organizational culture. We understand that cultural issues are highly challenging to overcome and cannot always be resolved in a short period of time. There seems to be a general agreement that MFA’s organizational culture is still in transition¹⁰⁴ and that leadership has not yet been entirely successful in creating a healthy work environment. The culture survey^{105, 106} we distributed to MFA staff—along with our conversations with some MFA former and current employees—indicate divided perceptions towards the organization’s communication style and internal transparency, questioning leadership’s capacity to respond appropriately to a prior lack of trust and unity among their team. We would like to see MFA dedicating continued effort to successfully transition to a healthy work culture where employees feel safe and united.

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

MFA is principally led by President Leah Garcés. This is the first year that we are evaluating MFA under Garcés’ leadership. (The previous President of MFA was Milo Runkle, who now serves on their Board of Directors.) We are familiar with Garcés, however, as the former Executive Director of Compassion in World Farming USA which we first recommended as a Standout Charity under her strong leadership.

Garcés joined MFA approximately one year ago and we notice that many other members of MFA’s leadership team are also fairly new to the organization. As of September 2019, the leadership team includes:

• Lucas Alvarenga; Senior Vice President, International; 4 years
• Daina Bray; General Counsel; 11 months
• LeAnn Harris; Senior Vice President, Support; 1 year, 4 months
• Melanie Heymans; Senior Vice President, People and Culture; 1 year
• Jesse Marks; Senior Vice President, Engagement; 10 months
• John Seber; Senior Vice President, Advocacy; 1 year, 9 months
• Sandra Lopes; Managing Director, Brazil; 10 months
• Linda Obregón; Managing Director, Mexico; 6 months
• Travis Sitzlar, Vice President, Technology; 4 months
• Kenny Torrella; Vice President, Public Engagement; 2 years, 6 months¹⁰⁷

We distributed a culture survey to MFA’s team,^{108, 109} and we found that respondents generally agreed that the leaders of their organization are attentive to the organization’s overall strategy. Many respondents noted that some members of the leadership team are more attentive to strategy than others and that MFA’s leadership could do a better job of communicating their thinking to the rest of the organization. When we asked whether MFA’s leadership promotes internal transparency, we again saw general agreement, with some noting that it is more true of some leaders than others. There was a slightly higher level of agreement that MFA’s leadership promotes external transparency.

Some staff members noted that MFA’s transparency (both internal and external) has improved under the organization’s new leadership. However, a strong theme that we noticed in the survey responses is that—while there was disagreement around this issue—some respondents felt that MFA’s leadership seems more concerned about appearing transparent than actually being transparent.

Board of Directors

MFA’s Board of Directors consists of six members, none of whom are currently on MFA’s staff. Unlike the majority of charities we evaluate, MFA’s board meets U.S. best practices, which suggest that nonprofit boards 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.

The members of MFA’s board are relatively diverse. They include an investment specialist, the CEO of a technology company, and an expert in hospitality sales. We consider the board’s relative occupational diversity to be a strength. 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,¹¹⁰ better internal and external governance practices,¹¹¹ as well as with the use of inclusive governance practices that allow the board to incorporate community perspectives into their strategic decision making.¹¹²

Strategic Vision and Planning

Strategic vision

MFA is “dedicated to eradicating this cruel food system and replacing it with one that is not just kind to animals but essential for the future of our planet and all who share it.” They have identified the current food system as “the greatest cause of suffering on the planet,” and we expect them to remain committed to effectively reducing suffering in the long term.

Strategic planning process

MFA has a three-year strategic plan which was developed during Garces’ first three months with the organization. It was developed by senior leadership and reviewed by a “guiding coalition” consisting of one or two members of each department. The plan was passed by the board in February 2019.¹¹³

Goal setting and monitoring

MFA’s strategic plan includes estimates of the number of animals the organization plans to impact. MFA has recently created an “impact center,” charged with monitoring progress towards the goals in the plan. Staff input data into the system and estimates of the impact of MFA’s work are updated on a public dashboard.

In addition to the public impact page, MFA also has an internal “progress” page. There, individuals and departments can set and monitor goals in alignment with the strategic plan.¹¹⁴

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 MFA 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 MFA’s leadership, the organization’s culture is “still in transition.”¹¹⁵ MFA has dealt with major cultural problems in recent years, and when Garcés joined, there was understandably “a lot of emotional baggage and a lot of distrust of leadership.”¹¹⁶ Garcés tells us that she has been working to build trust by attending monthly meetings with each team, sending staff newsletters explaining her decisions and reasoning and doing “Ask Me Anythings.” She also raised the number of vacation days for U.S. employees from 12 to 20.¹¹⁷

Our conversations with current and former MFA employees, along with the culture survey we distributed to MFA’s team, confirm our impression that MFA has undergone a difficult cultural transition. They also suggest that, while many employees notice and appreciate Garcés’ efforts to rebuild trust, it will take some more time for their team to feel that their work environment is fully united, safe, and healthy. Our survey suggests that there is some room for improvement in MFA’s employee engagement (which we measured using an adapted version of the Gallup Q12 survey), which might be a symptom of the challenging work environment.

When we asked MFA’s team to describe their organization’s communication style, the most common descriptions by far included adjectives like “transparent,” “honest,” and “clear.” However, the second most common descriptions included adjectives like “confusing,” “contradictory,” and “unclear.” Another theme was “improving,” “evolving,” and “growing,” so perhaps the fact that MFA’s culture is still in transition can explain some of the disparate descriptions from employees.

In addition to being divided in their perceptions of MFA’s culture, we have the sense that MFA’s team may be somewhat divided into social factions. Some employees described the culture as “clique-ish.” This term was most often used in relation to MFA’s leadership, with some employees expressing a desire that MFA’s leadership would place a higher value on input from the rest of the team.

We feel it’s important to note that, while current employees generally seem to agree that MFA’s culture is improving, many other MFA employees have left the organization over the past year, including several members of leadership. Some of these former employees have reached out to us to provide input on our evaluation of MFA. Common reasons for staff departure, according to those who contacted ACE, include a lack of alignment with the organization’s new strategy and a lack of trust for the organization’s new leadership. We recognize that those former employees who chose to reach out to ACE were self-selecting and may not be representative of all employees who have recently left MFA. Therefore, their observations should be considered within that context. Given the tensions that existed in MFA’s culture prior to their executive transition, it is difficult for us to determine the degree of responsibility that MFA’s new leadership bears for these difficulties.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion¹¹⁸

One important part of acting responsibly towards stakeholders is providing a diverse,¹¹⁹ 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.¹²⁰ 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.

Garcés tells us that MFA has made efforts to achieve a more diverse staff, particularly through their recruiting process. The organization also participated in three webinars with Critical Diversity Solutions. MFA’s Senior Vice President of People Operations is currently designing a DEI training and strategy for the future.¹²¹ Meanwhile, MFA’s team seems to have become more diverse over time, particularly as they have expanded to Mexico and Brazil, and their leadership is fairly diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity.

On our culture survey, MFA’s staff expressed general agreement that MFA still needs to work on improving its racial diversity and providing further education on intercultural sensitivity. Some respondents mentioned witnessing “microaggressions” from colleagues. These are instances that might have made people feel excluded due to features of their identity, but that did not rise to the level of explicit harassment or bullying. While most respondents agreed that, in general, MFA is an inclusive work environment, some had suggestions for becoming more inclusive. In addition to further (mandatory) trainings for both staff and leadership, respondents suggested raising salaries, showing greater solidarity with other social movements, and ensuring that salaries are based on skills and merit, not on external factors like educational degrees.

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.

MFA has recently undergone many leadership and staff changes. While the transitions have not always been perfectly smooth, they do not appear to have posed an existential threat to the organization. MFA has shown sustained fundraising ability over the years and seems to have a large base of individual donors, even with its growth and change. Given MFA’s large and capable team, multiple strong leaders, and dedication to self-evaluation, we think they are likely to survive further organizational transitions.

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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. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

4. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

5. Cotra, 2017 

6. Mercy For Animals, n.d. 

7. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

8. 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. 

9. Sources:
   2014–2017 revenue, assets, and expenses: ProPublica, n.d.
   2018 and 2019: Mercy For Animals, 2019 

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

11. We assume that charities receive 40% of their revenue in the last two months of the calendar year. To calculate estimates of total revenue, we multiply the revenue from the first six months by 2.778. We assume that expenses stay constant over the year, so to calculate estimates of total expenses in 2019, we multiply expenses from the first six months by 2.  

12. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

13. 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). 

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

15. 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 the capacity for expanding staff based on the current number of staff employed, as reported in Mercy For Animals (2019). MFA employs 105 full-time staff, 7 contractors, and 2 part-time staff. Our subjective assessment is that we are highly confident that MFA can hire all of the new staff they would like to hire before running into non-funding related bottlenecks. 

16. MFA noted that they would hire a “Director of Web Development Operations, a Digital Strategist (Growth Hacker) to increase [their] mailing lists and engage supporters, a Community Organizer, a Policy Advisor,” as well as two staff in tech support and innovation, one in legal support, and one in human resources” (Mercy For Animals, 2019). Some of the positions are not U.S.-specific, but global. We included these positions here because the U.S. office is MFA’s largest office. MFA lists 8 specific positions for which they would like to hire. We regard all of these as high priority positions, either for their direct impact or because of their support for the organization.  

17. Via Mercy For Animals (2019): Agricultural Economist ($48,000–$60,000); Director of Major Giving ($60,000–$75,000); Legal Fellow: Programs Support ($50,000); Policy Advisor ($50,000–$60,000); Vice President of Investigations ($65,000–$80,000). Based on the current salaries, we estimate salaries at MFA are between $38,400 and $96,000 per year (the lower bound is the lowest salary mentioned -20%, and the upper bound is the highest salary mentioned +20%).   

18. MFA plans to hire 4 specific new staff members in India in 2020: a Managing Director, a Government and Public Policy Director, a Communications Manager, and an Operations Manager (Mercy For Animals, 2019). 

19. These ranges are based on salary estimates from FIAPO, an animal advocacy organization working mainly in India. 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 salariesThe salary ranges for current open positions at FIAPO are as follows:
    – Campaign Coordinator: INR 30,000–40,000 per month ($422–$562 per month, or $5,064–$6,744 per year) (FIAPO, 2019)
    – Senior Campaign Manager: INR 60,000–65,000 per month ($843–$914 per month, or $10,116–$10,968 per year) (FIAPO, 2019)
    We estimate that salaries at FIAPO are between $4,051 (20% less than the lowest salary mentioned) and $13,162 (20% higher than the highest salary mentioned) per year. 

20. MFA plans to hire 8 specific new staff members in Asian countries other than India in 2020. In Hong Kong, they plan to hire a Managing Director, a Movement Building Manager, and an Operations Manager. In China, they plan to hire an Executive Director, a Corporate Engagement Director, and a Finance Manager. (MFA did not explicitly provide a year for their plans to hire for these positions in China. When no year was provided, we interpreted this as them potentially hiring for the positions in 2020.) In their Southeast Asia Regional Office (one office in Thailand or Singapore covering the region), they plan to hire a Managing Director and a Corporate Engagement Director (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). We separated the hires in India from those in other Asian countries because we estimate there is a significant difference in income between these two regions. In total, MFA would like to hire 26 people in Asia over the next two years.  

21. We base these estimates on the salaries received by U.S. employees at MFA, and the difference between median income in the U.S. as a whole and Hong Kong—which is $35,443/$43,585 = 0.81 (World Population Review, 2019). To estimate the Asian salaries, we multiply the distribution of the U.S. salaries by this factor.  

22. As mentioned in Criterion 1, we believe animal advocacy in China may have particularly high risks attached to it. This campaign to expand to Asia would be primarily focused on Hong Kong and mainland China which is why we assign moderate (instead of high) priority to it. 

23. (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

24. The average salary for a software developer in Sao Paulo Brazil is 89 kR$ or $21.673. We add an uncertainty of ± 20% (Glassdoor, 2019).  

25. MFA noted that “[f]ollowing a review of recent exit interviews, one reason people noted leaving not just MFA but the sector altogether is not having a matching 401k for staff. We’d like to match our staff’s 401k with a %, likely 3%, to help set up staff for retirement savings success” (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). We calculate the expenses as 3% of 60% of total expenses in 2019, with an uncertainty of ± 20%, and we add it to $10k.  

26. MFA describes how with $6 million in additional funding, they would spend $3 million on expanding to Asia over the next two years. Part of this budget is already covered in this table by the hiring staff in Asia.  

27. MFA noted that they would spend $2,060,000 on reaching a broader audience, for both online and offline programs. They told us that for an offline educational and acquisition campaign: “(This is a campaign that doesn’t necessarily require an increase of the capacity of our teams): We would like to run a major flagship public awareness campaign to shift attitudes about factory farming AND grow our monthly donor base. This would include a multi-media advertising campaign (for example through TV, radio and outdoor ads), with an inspiring, educational focus and a strong fundraising goal (to secure monthly donors). Donors want to give to something concrete, so a visionary ad campaign will help get them in the door, whilst also serving as a strong initiative to shift the debate on this important issue. The public discourse this would create would help support Corporate/Legislative campaigns” (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). This campaign would be very costly if it goes through, but we are uncertain whether it will, so we used a beta function in our Guesstimate model to return a bimodal distribution. 

28. A major flagship campaign could potentially be highly effective, but there is little evidence on the effectiveness of offline ads. In addition, using ads on tv and radio is expensive, so this would be a high-risk campaign, though there is also value in learning about how the campaign would work and whether it is effective. Another consideration is that MFA noted they could use $2,060,000 over the next two years for both online and offline acquisition programs, of which this would be the offline program. They note this campaign doesn’t necessarily require an increase in the capacity of their teams. In their list of funding gaps, they list this campaign as the last one, which leads us to believe it’s not of the highest priority for MFA. 

29. MFA noted that they would spend $2,060,000 on reaching a broader audience, for both online and offline programs. They told us that for an online acquisition program: “We want to further invest in developing and optimizing our digital strategy to increase our capacity to generate and retain new leads online, and to personalize and deepen their engagement with MFA. This program would focus on turning leads into donors, volunteers and activists, to support our teams to achieve our change goals. We will prioritize organic lead generation through petitions, campaign actions and other online engagement and supplement with some digital ads to grow and diversify our audience. This budget would cover one manager for the program and operational costs.” (Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019). 

30. When the current assets are less than half of the expected expenses for 2020, we think charities can use the difference ± 10% for replenishing their reserves.  

31. 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 of 1%–20% of the charities’ total projected budget. The estimated expenses in 2020 are $12,824,628. 

32. To estimate the revenue not influenced by ACE, we consider the total revenue per year and subtract the amount we estimate is influenced by ACE in the same year. We use these numbers to estimate the average growth not influenced by ACE. To calculate the estimated 2020 revenue, we add the average growth not influenced by ACE to the 2019 revenue not influenced by ACE. In the case of MFA, the amount of revenue influenced by ACE was $2,131,645 between the beginning of 2016 and the end of 2017. For details, see our giving metrics reports from 2016 and 2017. 

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

34. The calculations on which this estimate is based exclude revenue influenced by ACE, and have an uncertainty of ± 20%. The calculations are made via a linear projection of the total revenue of previous years. 

35. 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.  

36. Note that MFA has also spent a considerable amount of resources on their movement-building (volunteer) program, which is going through a period of transitions and has established 65 active volunteer communities, each with a trained leader (Mercy For Animals, 2019). We excluded it from our analyses because expenses and staff hours invested have been low relative to their other programs.  

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

38. Social media impressions measure the number of times a post is displayed, and therefore do not provide information about the number of viewers (a viewer doesn’t have to engage with the post in order for it to count as an impression, and one person could have multiple impressions for a single piece of content).  

39. MFA reports that from January 2018 to date, they have had over 2.3 billion social media impressions and over 190 million video views from their U.S., Latin America, and Brazil social media accounts (Mercy For Animals, 2019). 

40. MFA reports that since January 2018 to mid-2019, their work and victories were mentioned 926 times in media outlets, of which 101 mentions were in a top 50 media outlet in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil (Mercy For Animals, 2019).  

41. They have created outreach websites in the U.S. in both English and Spanish, in China, in Latin America, in India in both English and Hindi, in Canada in both English and French, and in Brazil. 

42. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2015 

43. MFA has active social media accounts in English, Spanish and Portuguese, with millions of followers on Facebook and hundreds of thousands on Twitter and Instagram.  

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

45. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2016 

46. Little, 2018; Henderson, 2018 

47. MFA reports that their 2018–2019 investigations videos had over 15 million views in the media, and that their drone videos had more than 3 million views on social media and were covered by major media outlets (Mercy For Animals, 2019). For example, MFA’s video of cruelty towards piglets at Tosh Farms was mentioned in CPR News (The Associated Press, 2018), Politico (Boudreau, 2018), and The Sacramento Bee (Mercy For Animals, 2018).  

48. MFA reports that their drones captured footage revealing the scale of factory farming’s devastation on the environment (Mercy For Animals, 2019).  

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

50. According to MFA’s Impact Center, they have achieved 53 cage-free and 38 broiler welfare corporate commitments (Mercy For Animals, n.d.). 

51. This campaign was mentioned by the Atlanta Journal Constitution (Quinn, 2019). 

52. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2016 

53. MFA estimates that 73 million animals could be impacted each year once 2018–2019 corporate commitments are fully implemented—55 million with broiler welfare commitments and 18 million with cage-free commitments (Mercy For Animals, n.d.). 

54. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

55. Note that both MFA (Torrella, 2019) and the Humane Society of the United States (Block, 2019) have reported Walmart’s cage-free commitment in Brazil as a victory of their corporate work.  

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

57. See Prevent Cruelty California (n.d.) for the list of all organizations in this coalition. 

58. This was reported by MFA (Mercy For Animals, 2019) and by the Humane Society of the United States (Block, 2018).  

59. Green (2018) suggests the influence of a video (released by MFA together with 3 environmental groups) on California’s ban on drift nets. 

60. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2016 

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

62. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

63. According to MFA’s blog post (Nascimento, 2019), Niteroi, a city in Brazil, implemented this program resulting in more than 100 municipal schools serving a combined 25,000 plant-based meals per day. 

64. They have created outreach websites in Mexico (in Spanish), Brazil (in Portuguese), China, and India (in English and Hindi).  

65. MFA reports that so far, they have trained 750 public school chefs in Brazil (Mercy For Animals, n.d.). 

66. MFA estimates that “for each year the programs launched in 2018 remain active, 5.8 million vegan meals will be served, potentially sparing approximately 100,000 animals per year” (Mercy For Animals, 2019).  

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

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

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

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

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. 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. 

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 includes all charities reviewed in 2019 that are engaged in a program related to corporate outreach. 

75. 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. 

76. 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. 

77. 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. 

78. This may be a result of a combination of factors, such as lower average wages in some of the countries in which they operate, lower overhead than other organizations, etc. We do not have enough information to know conclusively. 

79. We provide these estimates as 90% subjective confidence intervals. For more information, see this explainer page. 

80. This only includes charities engaged in securing commitments for the animal type in question. 

81. We provide these estimates as 90% subjective confidence intervals. For more information, see this explainer page. 

82. These estimates are informed by a variety of sources—charities’ self-reported estimates, information about the size and production output of the companies, data from the Open Philanthropy Project, etc. For more details, see our spreadsheet comparing 2019 reviewed charities engaged in corporate outreach and the accompanying Guesstimate sheet. 

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

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. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

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

89. 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. 

90. 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. 

91. 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. 

92. See California Secretary of State (n.d.) for a list of organizations providing financial support. 

93. In this letter, MFA reportedly “urged that all farmed animals be included under anti-cruelty protections” (Mercy For Animals, 2019). 

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

95. 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. 

96. 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. 

97. 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. 

98. This may be a result of a combination of factors, such as lower average wages in some of the countries in which they operate, lower overhead than other organizations, etc. We do not have enough information to know conclusively. 

99. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

100. Mercy For Animals, 2019 

101. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

102. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

103. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

104. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

105. We send each charity a culture survey and request that they distribute it among their team on our behalf. MFA sent their survey to 111 team members and 75 responded, for a response rate of 68%.  

106. 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. 

107. L. Garces, personal communication, November 15, 2019 

108. We send each charity a culture survey and request that they distribute it among their team on our behalf. MFA sent their survey to 111 team members and 75 responded, for a response rate of 68%.  

109. 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. 

110. Siciliano, 1996 

111. Buse, Bernstein, & Bilimoria, 2014 

112. Brown, 2003 

113. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

114. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

115. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

116. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

117. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

118. 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.  

119. 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. 

120. 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).  

121. Animal Charity Evaluators, 2019 

Research Documents

• Mercy For Animals Questionnaire, 2019
• Follow-Up Questions for Mercy For Animals, 2019
• Mercy For Animals Top 3–5 Programs, 2019

• Conversation with Leah Garcés and Lucas Alvarenga of Mercy For Animals, 2019
• Guesstimate Model of RFMF for Mercy For Animals, 2019
• Reference List for ACE’s Review of Mercy For Animals, 2019