Modern Agriculture Foundation

How the Modern Agriculture Foundation 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: Programs

When we begin our evaluation process, we consider whether each charity is working in high-impact cause areas and employing effective interventions that are likely to produce positive outcomes for animals. These outcomes tend to fall under at least one of the following categories: increased availability of animal-free products, decreased consumption of animal products, improvement of welfare standards, increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values, stronger animal advocacy movement, or direct help.

Cause Areas

The Modern Agriculture Foundation (MAF) focuses exclusively on reducing the suffering of farmed animals, which we believe is a high-impact cause area.

Countries of Operation

MAF currently works in Israel. We believe that animal advocacy in Israel is relatively neglected.

Interventions and Projected Outcomes

MAF pursues one avenue for creating change for animals: They work to increase the availability of animal-free products.

To help communicate the process by which we believe a charity creates change for animals, we use theory of change diagrams. It is important to note that these diagrams are not complete representations of real-world mechanisms of change. Rather, they are simplified models that ACE uses to represent our beliefs about mechanisms of change. For the sake of simplicity, some diagrams may not include relatively small or uncertain effects.

Below, we also describe the work that MAF does.² Unless otherwise specified, we have sourced the information in this criterion from Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020c). For each intervention, we provide an assessment of how effective we think that intervention is at achieving a given outcome (weak/moderate/high).³ These assessments are based on the available evidence and are determined through a vote and discussion among our researchers. We flag assessments in which we have particularly low confidence, i.e., if we know of little or no supporting research or expert opinions.

A note about long-term impact

Each charity’s long-term impact is plausibly what matters most.⁴ The potential number of individuals affected increases over time due to population growth and an accumulation of generations of animals. Thus, we would expect that the long-term impacts of an action would be more likely to affect more animals than the short-term impacts of the same action. Nevertheless, we are highly uncertain about the particular long-term effects of each intervention. Because of this uncertainty, our reasoning about each charity’s impact (along with our diagrams) may skew toward overemphasizing short-term effects.

Increased availability of animal-free products

Increasing the quality and availability of alternative proteins may help to create a climate in which it is easier for individuals to reduce their use of animal products. In particular, we acknowledge that research is required to optimize cell culture methodology⁵ and that consumer acceptance of cell-cultured products could still increase.⁶ That said, we expect that if they reach price-competitiveness with conventional animal products, cell-cultured products are likely to cause a considerable decrease in demand for animal products, as well as a disruption of the industry in the long term.

MAF maps the state of the alternative protein industry in Israel to spread information about companies and progress in the space, including both plant-based and cell-cultured products. We believe that conducting research on alternative proteins is highly effective in increasing the availability of these products.

MAF identifies opportunities in the alternative protein sector, launches food start-ups, and provides strategic support to start-ups and other food companies. We believe with a low degree of confidence that supporting food start-ups is highly effective in increasing the availability of animal-free products.

Additionally, MAF hosts events to grow and develop the alternative protein industry. They run the Alternative Protein 2020 Technology Seminar to promote connections between companies and support the growth of the industry. We believe that hosting events is moderately effective in increasing the availability of animal-free products.

Finally, MAF works to scale up the industry in Israel by directly manufacturing alternative protein products for various companies. We believe that directly working to scale up the alternative protein industry is highly effective in increasing the availability of animal-free products.

Criterion 2: Room for More Funding

We look to recommend work that is not just high-impact, but also scalable. Since a recommendation from us could lead to a large increase in a charity’s funding, we look for evidence that the charity will be able to absorb and effectively utilize funding that the recommendation may bring in. To estimate a charity’s room for more funding, we not only consider the charity’s existing programs and potential areas for growth and expansion, but also non-monetary determinants of a charity’s growth, such as time or talent shortages.

Since we can’t predict exactly how an organization will respond upon receiving more funds than they have planned for, our estimate is speculative rather than definitive. This year, our estimates are especially uncertain, as we do not know the consequences of COVID-19 on financials. It’s possible that a charity could run out of room for funding more quickly than we expect or that they could come up with good ways to use funding beyond what we expect. At midyear, we check in with each recommended charity about the funding they’ve received since the release of our recommendations, and we use the estimates presented below to indicate whether we still expect them to be able to effectively absorb additional funding at that point.

Financial History and Financial Sustainability

An effective charity should be financially sustainable. Charities should be able to continue raising the funds needed for their basic operations. Ideally, they should receive significant funding from multiple distinct sources, including both individual donations and other types of support. Charities should also hold a sufficient amount of reserves.

The chart below shows MAF’s recent revenues, assets, and expenditures.⁷ The financial information for 2019 and the first six months of 2020 was reported by the charities during this year’s evaluation process,⁸ the financial information for earlier years was acquired from various sources, and the revenue for 2020 is an estimate based on the first six months of 2020. MAF’s revenue has been steady in the past few years. They received a large donation (42% of their annual revenue) in 2019. They also received an ACE Movement Grant (about 43% of their annual revenue) in 2020. With more 657% of their current expenditures held in net assets, we believe that MAF holds a sufficient amount of reserves.

Planned Future Expenditures

Below we list MAF’s plans for expansion for 2021.⁹ For each plan, we provide an estimate of the expenditure as well as a confidence level, which indicates how confident we are that the plan can be realized in 2021.¹⁰ For staff salaries, we estimated the number of staff MAF could hire by considering the number of existing staff they have and the number of staff they have plans to hire in 2021. For the corresponding costs, we made salary estimates based on information about the job’s seniority, type, and location using data from current and past job postings whenever possible.¹¹ We also factored in additional costs incurred as part of the hiring process. We estimated non-staff-related costs for each charity’s plans for expansion¹² based on their 2019 program expenditures;¹³ in some cases, we also considered MAF’s estimations of their future expenditures¹⁴ and/or our impressions of how much the expansions would cost.¹⁵ Additionally, we accounted for an estimate—based on a percentage of the charity’s current annual budget—of possible unforeseen expenditures.

Estimated Room for More Funding

We estimated MAF’s room for more funding for 2021. For this, we relied on an estimate of their predicted revenue for 2021. We estimate that MAF’s revenue in 2021 will be $27k or within the 90% prediction interval [$1.3k, $52k].¹⁹ MAF did not provide a prediction of their 2021 revenue.

Using our predictions of future revenue, MAF’s room for more funding was estimated via Guesstimate. Note that when ACE estimates a charity’s room for more funding, we are estimating the amount of funding that the charity could use on top of their predicted, regular funding in the coming year.

The chart shows MAF’s room for more funding in 2021 distributed across our three confidence levels. For donors influenced by ACE wishing to donate to MAF, we estimate that MAF’s room for more funding in 2021 is $50k (90% prediction interval: [$23k, $84k]) with high confidence. Overall, we have some confidence that MAF has room for $0.18 million (90% prediction interval: [$76k, $0.33M]) in additional funding in 2021. We believe that MAF’s room for more funding relative to the size of their organization is of larger size compared to the other charities we evaluated this year. We also believe that their absolute room for more funding is of smaller size relative to the funding we influence through our recommendations. Given the impact a recommendation may have on a charity’s funding, we base our rating of performance in this criterion on the latter assessment.

Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness

A charity’s recent cost effectiveness provides an insight into how well it has made use of its available resources and is a useful component in understanding how cost effective future donations to the charity might be. In this criterion, we take a more in-depth look at the charity’s use of resources over the past 18 months and compare that to the outcomes they have achieved in each of their main programs during that time. We have used an approach in which we qualitatively analyze a charity’s expenditures and key results and compare them to other charities we are reviewing this year.

We categorized the charity’s programs into different outcomes—improvement of welfare standards, increased availability of animal-free products, decreased consumption of animal products, increased prevalence of anti-speciesist values, and stronger animal advocacy movement. Then, for a given outcome, we compared the charity’s key results and expenditures from January 2019 to June 2020 to other charities we evaluated in 2020, and we gave our assessment of how cost effective we think their work toward that outcome has been.

Increased Availability of Animal-Free Products

MAF engages in four programs that we have categorized as contributing to increasing the availability of animal-free products—the Alternative Proteins IL 2020 Technology Seminar, mapping of Israel’s alternative protein landscape, planning and promoting the creation of the world’s first dedicated industrial-scale AP products manufacturing site, and creating a new alternative protein start-up. As the resource usage and key results of each program are distinct, we have kept them as separate categories in our analysis.

Key results and use of resources

Below is our estimated resource usage for MAF’s programs focused on increasing the availability of animal-free products, January 2019–June 2020. In this section, we have only included what we believe are the key results of each program. For a full list of results and resource usage, see Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020a).

Evaluation of cost effectiveness

As MAF’s programs have so few key results and resources invested in them, we are particularly uncertain about their cost effectiveness, and thus we have not included any assessment.

Criterion 4: Track Record

Information about a charity’s track record can help us predict the charity’s future activities and accomplishments, which is information that cannot always be incorporated into our other criteria. An organization’s track record is sometimes a pivotal factor when our analysis otherwise finds limited differences between two charities.

In this section, we evaluate each charity’s track record of success by considering some of the key results that they have accomplished prior to 2019.²⁶ For charities that operate in more than one country, we consider how they have expanded internationally.

Overview

MAF was founded in 2014, but all their current programs commenced in 2020, so their track record is relatively short. Before 2020, MAF was entirely run by volunteers (they did not have any paid staff) and was focused on fundraising, developing their social media presence, and giving lectures to various audiences; they also reportedly supported the creation of Food Visionaries, a Swiss organization working on alternatives to animal products.²⁷ MAF reports that they were planning to merge with The Good Food Institute (GFI) to create a GFI subsidiary in Israel, however, in 2019 they decided not to follow through with the merger.²⁸ For recent outcomes of MAF’s programs (2019–2020), see Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness.

Criterion 5: Leadership and Culture

Leadership directly affects an organization’s culture, performance, and effectiveness. Strongly-led charities are likely to have a healthy organizational culture that enables their core work. We collect information about each charity’s internal operations in several ways. We ask leadership to describe the culture they try to foster, as well as potential areas of improvement. We review each charity’s human resource policies and check that they include those we believe are important. We also send a culture survey to the staff of each charity.²⁹ Note that because MAF only reports two paid staff members, who are part of the leadership, we also sent the survey to MAF’s volunteers.³⁰ For this reason, our culture survey did not capture an impression on MAF’s staff satisfaction about compensation and benefits.

Key Leadership

In this section, we describe each charity’s key leadership and assess some of their strengths and weaknesses.

Leadership staff

• Executive Director (ED): Ronny Reinberg, involved in the organization for eight months
• Project Manager: Neta Rosenthal, involved in the organization for three months

All respondents to our culture survey agree that MAF’s leadership is attentive to the organization’s strategy. All respondents agreed that leadership promotes internal transparency respondents, and most of them agreed that their leadership promotes external transparency (78%).

Recent leadership transitions

Before 2020, MAF was run entirely by volunteers. In early 2020 they hired an ED and a Project Manager.

Board of Directors

MAF’s Board of Directors consists of four members, none of whom are leadership staff. We consider the board’s independence to be a strength.

Members of MAF’s Board of Directors

• Ronen Bar (Chairperson): journalist, has a background in undercover investigations
• Levana Shifman (board member): finance and banking professional, has a background in Israel’s finance and banking sectors, as well as an M.A. in Law
• Shaked Regev (board member): Director of International Engagement, Lecturer, has an M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering
• Noa Deutsch (board member): IT Manager, has a B.Sc. in Bioinformatics

All respondents to our culture survey agreed that MAF’s board supports the organization in achieving its strategic vision.

We believe that boards whose members represent occupational and viewpoint diversity are likely most useful to a charity since they can offer a wide range of perspectives and skills. There is some evidence suggesting that nonprofit board diversity is positively associated with better fundraising and social performance³¹ and better internal and external governance practices,³² as well as with the use of inclusive governance practices that allow the board to incorporate community perspectives into their strategic decision making.³³ MAF’s board is composed of individuals with diverse occupational backgrounds and experiences; we consider the board’s relative diversity to be a strength.

Policies and Benefits

Here we present a list of policies that, if properly drafted and enforced, we find to be beneficial for fostering a healthy culture. A green mark indicates that MAF has such a policy and a red mark indicates that they do not. A yellow mark indicates that the organization has a partial policy, an informal or unwritten policy, or a policy that is not fully or consistently implemented. We do not expect a given charity to have all of the following policies, but we believe that, generally, having more of them is better than having fewer.

Culture and Morale

A charity with a healthy culture acts responsibly toward all stakeholders: staff, volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, and others in the community. According to MAF’s leadership, their organizational culture is liberal and open (employees feel free to talk about their needs), positive, and constructive, and it encourages systematic thinking and creativity.

The survey we distributed supports leadership’s claim that MAF’s culture is overall positive. Respondents noted in an open-response box that they enjoy working at MAF and there is a good team atmosphere. A few common adjectives that respondents used to describe MAF’s communication style were “friendly,” “organized,” “professional,” “transparent,” or similar.

According to our culture survey, MAF has an overall level of employee engagement higher than the average of charities under review.

MAF has a formal compensation plan to determine staff salaries. MAF offers 12 days of paid time off and 18 days of sick days as required by Israeli law. MAF reports that employees do not have clearly defined essential functions for all positions and they do not regularly evaluate performance. About 22% of respondents to our culture survey agreed that the system of staff performance evaluation needs to be changed or improved upon.

According to leadership, the following areas of MAF’s organizational culture have room for improvement: (i) methodology of all HR aspects and (ii) systematizing strategy and management discussions. MAF does not conduct surveys to their staff but they are planning to do so once the organization grows more.

Overall, we think that MAF team members’ satisfaction and morale are higher than the average charity we evaluated this year, but given the size of their staff and the participation of volunteers in the survey, we have a low degree of confidence in this assessment.

Representation/Diversity,³⁵ Equity, and Inclusion³⁶

One important part of acting responsibly toward stakeholders is providing a representative/diverse,³⁷ equitable, and inclusive work environment. Charities that have a healthy attitude toward representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion (R/DEI) seek and retain staff and volunteers from different backgrounds. Among other things, inclusive work environments should also provide necessary resources for employees with disabilities, protect all team members from harassment and discrimination, and require regular trainings on topics such as equity and inclusion, in conjunction with year-round efforts to address R/DEI throughout all areas of the organization.

About 89% of staff that participated in our culture survey agreed that MAF has members from diverse backgrounds. MAF made an effort to increase representation/diversity through their recruitment process by sharing ads on inclusive spaces (e.g., Facebook groups of job seekers from marginalized communities). According to MAF’s leadership and respondents to our culture survey, MAF is developing a code of ethics that will help them be more inclusive or better support staff who are members of marginalized groups.

MAF is developing a workplace code of ethics/conduct and lacks a written statement that they do not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or other characteristics. MAF also lacks a written procedure for filing complaints and explicit protocols for addressing concerns or allegations of harassment³⁸ or discrimination.³⁹ In our culture survey, all respondents agreed that MAF protects staff, interns, and volunteers from harassment and discrimination in the workplace, and they all agreed that they have someone to go to in case of harassment or other problems at work. Our culture survey gives no evidence that MAF’s staff experienced or witnessed harassment or discrimination in the workplace during the past year.

MAF does not offer regular trainings on topics such as harassment and discrimination in the workplace. In our culture survey, 50% of respondents agree that they and their colleagues have been sufficiently trained in matters of R/DEI. We believe that the opportunities for the team to learn about R/DEI at MAF should be increased.

Overall, we believe that MAF is less diverse, equitable, and inclusive than the average charity we evaluated this year, but given the size of their staff and the participation of volunteers in the survey, we have a low degree of confidence in this assessment.

Criterion 6: Strategy

Charities with a clear and well-developed strategy are more likely to be successful at setting and achieving their goals. In this section, we describe and assess each charity’s strategic vision and mission, plan, and planning process.

Given our commitment to finding the most effective ways to help nonhuman animals, we assess the extent to which the charity’s strategic vision is aligned with this commitment. We believe that their strategic planning should clearly connect the charity’s overall vision to their more immediate goals. Additionally, we assess the extent to which their strategic planning process incorporates the views of all their staff and board members and whether the frequency of this process is adequate, given the nature of their work. There are many different approaches to strategic planning, and often an approach that is well suited for one organization may not work well for others. Thus, in this section, we are not looking for a particular approach to strategy. Instead, we assess how well the organization’s approach to strategy works in their context.

Strategic Vision

MAF’s vision: “[A] food system in which healthy, sustainable and affordable food is produced without harming animals or the environment”

Strategic Position in the Movement

We asked MAF how they see their organization’s work fitting into the overall animal advocacy movement. They report that they see their position as being an organization advocating for animals via changes in food technology. They also note that they see cooperation with other organizations as a central strategy of their organization.

Strategic Planning Process

Type(s) of plan: No formal strategic plan

Leadership staff’s role: Leadership drafts the strategic plan.

Board of directors’ role: The board at MAF used to vote on the strategic plan. MAF informs us that in the future, they plan to involve some members of the board in the creation of the strategic plan.

Non-leadership staff’s role: Non-leadership staff is not directly involved in the creation of the strategic plan. MAF informed us that they plan to allow non-leadership staff to give feedback on a preliminary version of the strategic plan.

Goal Setting and Monitoring

MAF includes specific annual goals in their strategic planning process, which are derived from their longer-term goals. MAF’s goals are monitored on a continuous basis, during their team meetings. They do not currently hold retrospective meetings—i.e., postmortems—following major projects. However, they plan to do so in the future.

Our Assessment

MAF’s vision implies reducing animal suffering and transforming the food system. MAF’s mission also implies achieving benefits for other causes related to the food system, such as human health and environmental degradation, which can support the growth of the farmed animal advocacy movement as a whole. We think that they have a clear notion of how they fit into the wider animal advocacy movement, although this may be of less importance to MAF given the limited overlap between their work and the wider animal advocacy movement. MAF does not currently have a formal strategic plan. However, they are reportedly in the process of drafting one. In general, we think it is valuable for an organization to have a strategic plan to guide their actions. We believe that charities benefit from deliberately connecting their short-term goals to their organizational vision and critically reflecting on their trajectory. If this is not otherwise taking place at MAF, we think it is likely that they would benefit from a formal strategic plan. Their goals appear to be monitored frequently. Overall, we think MAF’s approach to strategy is weak compared to other evaluated charities, given the context in which they operate and the type of work they do.

Criterion 7: Adaptability

A charity’s self-assessment should inform their decisions. This will aid them in retaining and strengthening successful programs and modifying or discontinuing less successful programs, and will enable them to see if or when it is necessary to change their organizational structures. When such systems of improvement work well, all stakeholders benefit: Leadership is able to refine their strategy, staff better understand the purpose of their work, and donors can be more confident in the impact of their donations.

We have identified the following examples of how MAF has adapted to success and failure:

MAF reports that their limited resources and a lack of staff in key roles are their major weaknesses as an organization.⁴⁰ Having been run by volunteers for some years, they hired a CEO in 2020, who started expanding the team—including hiring additional employees into key roles. MAF informed us that they are also in the process of hiring a resource development professional to further address their weaknesses.

MAF reports that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted some of their plans—in particular, their technology seminar will now likely be an online event.⁴¹

Overall, we believe that MAF is just as able as the average charity evaluated this year to adequately respond to success and failure.

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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. We acknowledge that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has impacted each charity’s programs in various ways. This impact is addressed in Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness. 

3. We consider an intervention to be weakly effective if we believe it is unlikely to have a positive impact on the relevant outcome. We consider an intervention to be moderately effective if we believe it has some positive impact on the relevant outcome, though relatively less than other interventions. We consider an intervention to be highly effective if we believe it has a clear positive impact on the relevant outcome. 

4. For arguments supporting the view that the most important consideration of our present actions should be their impact in the long term, see Greaves & MacAskill (2019) and Beckstead (2019). 

5. Chriki & Hocquette (2020) 

6. Animal Charity Evaluators (2020) 

7. MAF was founded in 2014. We show data for the last five years. 

8. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020a) 

9. We do not list any expansions beyond what the charity itself plans to implement. We acknowledge that charities may differ in how ambitious their reported plans are independent of what they can realize. Such a difference in reporting could bias our estimates of the room for more funding. To counteract such a bias, we first ask all charities not only for the expansions they already planned for 2021, but also which expansions they would plan if their budget would increase 50%—they report these responses in Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020a). Second, we indicate our confidence in whether the charities’ expansion plans could actually be realized. We refer to our evaluation of the effectiveness of MAF’s programs for an assessment of the effectiveness of their planned expansions. 

10. For staff expenditure and any non-staff expenditure that is scalable with staff, we estimate confidence levels based on our researchers’ joint assessment of how feasible it is to hire a certain number of staff dependent on the organization’s current size. 

11. For estimating the salary of a given role, we used the following sources of information in order of priority: current and past job postings by that charity, current and past job postings by similar charities, seniority and type of job, and average wages in the country of hire. 

12. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020a) 

13. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020c) 

14. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020a) 

15. Note that our cost estimates for non-staff expansions account for the partial correlation between costs for new staff and non-staff costs that involve staff.  

16. The column shows 90% confidence intervals assuming normal distributions for all variables, except for potential additional expenditure, for which we assume a log-normal distribution.  

17. For staff expenditure and any non-staff expenditure that is scalable with staff, we indicate the proportion of the charity’s expansion plans that we are highly confident they’ll be able to achieve, the proportion we are moderately confident they’ll be able to achieve, and the proportion we have low confidence in. We generally have high confidence that reserves can be replenished if funds are available, and low confidence in the amount of unexpected expenditures the charity may have. 

18. This is an estimate to account for additional expenditures beyond what has been specifically outlined in this model. This parameter reflects our uncertainty as to whether the model is comprehensive and constitutes a range from 1%–20% of the charity’s total projected 2020 expenditures. 

19. We assume a linear trend in revenue. The estimates are based on a linear regression using MAF’s revenue data from 2016 to 2020. 

20. To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

21. This program is relatively new, and therefore has not produced any key results yet. 

22. To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

23. This program is relatively new, and therefore has not produced any key results yet. 

24. To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

25. To estimate their expenditures, we took their reported expenditures for this program and added a portion of their general non-program expenditures weighted by the size of this program compared to their other programs. This allowed us to incorporate their general organizational running costs into our consideration of their cost effectiveness. All estimates are rounded to two significant figures. 

26. For more recent achievements (2019–2020), see Criterion 3: Cost Effectiveness. 

27. R. Reinberg, personal communication (September 11, 2020)  

28. R. Reinberg, personal communication (September 11, 2020)  

29. We distributed our culture survey to MAF’s nine team members and nine responded, yielding a response rate of 100%.  

30. We recognize at least two major limitations of our culture survey. First, because participation was not mandatory, the results could be affected by selection bias. Second, because respondents knew that their answers could influence ACE’s evaluation of their employer, they may have felt an incentive to emphasize their employers’ strengths and minimize their weaknesses. 

31. Siciliano (1996) 

32. Buse, Bernstein, & Bilimoria, (2016) 

33. Brown (2003) 

34. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020b) reports that their code of ethics is under development. 

35. ACE uses the term “representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion (R/DEI)” in place of the more commonly used “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).” While we acknowledge that the terms “diversity” and “DEI” are in the public lexicon, as the concepts have become popularized, “diversity” has lost the impact of its original meaning. The term is often conflated with “cosmetic diversity,” or diversity for the sake of public appearances. We believe that “representation” better expresses the commitment to accurately reflect—or represent—society’s demographics at large.  

36. Our goal in this section is to evaluate whether each charity has a healthy attitude toward representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion. We do not directly evaluate the demographic characteristics of their employees.  

37. We use the terms “representation” and “diversity” broadly in this section to refer to the diversity of certain social identity characteristics (called “protected classes” in some countries), such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender or gender expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental status, marital status, national origin, citizenship, amnesty, veteran status, political beliefs, age, ability, or genetic information. 

38. In the culture survey we included the following definition of harassment: “Harassment can be non-sexual or sexual in nature. Non-sexual harassment refers to unwelcome conduct—including physical, verbal, and nonverbal behaviors—that upsets, demeans, humiliates, intimidates, or threatens an individual or group. Harassment may occur in one incident or many. Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances; requests for sexual favors; and other physical, verbal, and nonverbal behaviors of a sexual nature when (i) submission to such conduct is made explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment; (ii) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting the targeted individual; or (iii) such conduct has the purpose or effect of interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” 

39. In the culture survey we included the following definition of discrimination: “Discrimination is the differential treatment of or hostility toward an individual on the basis of certain characteristics (called “protected classes” in some countries), such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender or gender expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental status, marital status, national origin, citizenship, amnesty, veteran status, age, ability, genetic information, or any other factor that is legislatively protected in the country in which the individual works. ACE extends its definition of discrimination to include the differential treatment of or hostility toward anyone based on any characteristics outside of one’s professional qualifications—such as socioeconomic status, body size, dietary preferences, political views or affiliation, or other belief- or identity-based expression.” 

40. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020b) 

41. Modern Agriculture Foundation (2020c) 

Research Documents

• MAF's Reporting of Programs (2020)
• MAF's Reporting of Financials (2020)
• MAF's Reporting of Leadership, Strategy, and Culture (2020)
• MAF Strategic Outlook
• Reference List

• RFMF Model