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Animal Charity Evaluators

Helping People Help Animals

Leave an Effective Legacy Gift

Do the Most Good Possible with Your Bequest

One of the best ways that you can leave a legacy of compassion and create effective change for years to come is to leave a gift for animals in your will or living trust. Your gift to or through Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) will be used to reduce as much suffering as possible, as effectively as possible, at the time it is received.

Leave a legacy gift to Animal Charity Evaluators

You value our rigorous charity evaluations and efforts to promote effectiveness in the animal advocacy movement, and you want to see this work continue well into the future. By leaving a legacy gift for ACE, you will ensure that the pursuit of effective methods in animal advocacy will continue, and your gift will have a wide-reaching impact by influencing others to support effective charities that are helping the most animals.

You support ACE’s work to promote effective giving and advocacy research, and to use evidence to identify high-impact ways to reduce animal suffering. Your legacy gift to ACE will be invested in furthering our mission to help people help animals.

You can leave a bequest through your will or living trust by designating a specific dollar amount or asset, selecting a percentage of your estate, or leaving the “rest and residue” of your estate (after your gifts to loved ones have been made) to ACE.

You may leave an unrestricted gift to ACE to support our general operations, which include our Charity Evaluations and grantmaking, or you may leave a restricted gift to ACE to support a particular program. An unrestricted gift will permit us to use your donation in the best way we see fit to create positive impact for animals. However, if a particular program is most important to you, and aligns with our philosophical commitments, a restricted gift will ensure that your contribution will accomplish your particular goals for effective animal advocacy.

Suggested language for unrestricted gift:

“I, [name], of [city, state ZIP], give, devise and bequeath to Animal Charity Evaluators, federal tax identification number 36-4684978, the sum of $_______ [or description of the real or personal property, percentage of your estate, or rest and residue of your estate] for their unrestricted use.”

If you would like to leave a restricted gift for ACE, we recommend that you discuss your wishes and review options with ACE’s Development Director, Heather Herrell.

Leave a legacy gift to our Recommended Charity Fund

You value ACE’s annual charity recommendations, and want to support these effective, research-backed charities with a legacy gift, but you know that our recommendations may be different when your bequest is realized. By leaving your bequest to ACE’s Recommended Charity Fund, your legacy gift will be distributed to our Recommended Charities at the time your gift is received and according to their funding needs.

Recommended Charity Fund

This fund is a good option if you would like ACE to distribute your legacy gift among our Recommended Charities.

By leaving a legacy gift to this fund, a benefactor will bequeath money to ACE with the restriction that we distribute all of the bequest to our Recommended Charities. ACE may not use the money for funding our own work or any charity that is not recommended.

Donations to the Recommended Charity Fund will be disbursed twice per year (in January and July) according to the distribution that our Programs team determines to be the most impactful at that time. Because January’s disbursement falls soon after our annual release of new charity recommendations and July’s disbursement falls soon after our mid-year check on Recommended Charities’ Room for More funding, we will be able to use this information to guide our allocation decisions.

We will do our best to ensure that your personal goals for reducing animal suffering are being met. If there is a particular cause or intervention that is most important to you—and that aligns with ACE’s philosophical commitments—please let us know when you send a copy of your bequest language. We will keep your request on file to assist us in making the decisions that will most effectively achieve your goals.

For more information on the Recommended Charity Fund, and to see our grant history, please visit our Recommended Charity Fund web page.

Suggested language:

“I, [name], of [city, state ZIP], give, devise and bequeath to Animal Charity Evaluators, federal tax identification number 36-4684978, the sum of $_______ [or description of the real or personal property, percentage of your estate, or rest and residue of your estate] for their Recommended Charity Fund.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Who will determine how to distribute my donation?

It is our fiduciary duty to use your legacy gift to reduce as much animal suffering as possible. To do this, upon receiving your gift, ACE’s Development Director will review any information that you have provided to us about your wishes for what your gift will achieve, and we will earmark your gift in the fund accordingly. In the January or July that most immediately follows the receipt of your bequest, ACE’s Executive Director and Development Director will consult with our Programs team to review the latest funding needs of our Recommended Charities and determine the most effective distribution of this fund. If all of their funding needs have been met, and a percentage of the fund still remains, then it will be held until the following distribution period, when ACE reevaluates the funding needs of our Recommended Charities. Our Programs team, along with ACE’s Executive Director and Development Director, will work together to determine how to regrant your bequest so that it will achieve the optimal outcome for both your own goals and those of ACE’s Recommended Charities.

Leave a legacy gift to our Effective Animal Legacy Fund

If you want your legacy gift to help as many animals as possible—but are unsure of which specific organizations to designate in your will or living trust—you may want to consider leaving your gift to ACE’s Effective Animal Legacy Fund. Contributions to this fund will be distributed to our Recommended Charities, and/or other promising charities or programs that our research indicates will do the most possible good at the time of distribution—which may include ACE’s own research. This fund will support those working efficiently and effectively to help reduce animal suffering, and its disbursement will be determined annually by ACE’s Programs team.

We will do our best to ensure that your personal goals for reducing animal suffering are being met. If there is a particular cause or intervention that is most important to you—and that aligns with ACE’s philosophical commitments—please let us know when you send a copy of your bequest language. We will keep your request on file to assist us in making the decisions that will most effectively achieve your goals.

Effective Animal Legacy Fund

This fund is for you if you would like ACE to redistribute your legacy gift to be used as effectively as possible.

You want to make sure that your legacy gift will be put to the best use possible. With this fund, ACE can help you do exactly that. We will evaluate where your donation will be used most effectively to accomplish your goal of reducing animal suffering.

Possible outcomes include:

  • Funding one or several of our Recommended Charities (grants from this fund will not exceed 50% of any one organization’s annual budget)
  • Funding ACE’s own operational expenses so that we may more effectively influence gifts to our Recommended Charities
  • If all of the needs of our Recommended Charities, and ACE have been met, we may fund specific advocacy projects or charities that are not currently on our list of recommendations but that are also doing impactful work

Donations to the Effective Animal Legacy Fund will be distributed annually, in the spring, after we have completed our latest round of charity evaluations. This will give us current information on each organization’s funding needs, programs, and effectiveness.

We will do our best to ensure that your personal goals for reducing animal suffering are being met. If there is a particular cause or intervention that is most important to you—and that aligns with ACE’s philosophical commitments—please let us know when you send a copy of your bequest language. We will keep your request on file to assist us in making the decisions that will most effectively achieve your goals.

Suggested language:

“I, [name], of [city, state ZIP], give, devise and bequeath to Animal Charity Evaluators, federal tax identification number 36-4684978, the sum of $_______ [or description of the real or personal property, percentage of your estate, or rest and residue of your estate] for their Effective Animal Legacy Fund.”

To discuss leaving a personalized legacy gift with ACE, please contact ACE’s Development Director Heather Herrell, or submit your name and preferred contact information here. We will be in touch with you shortly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who will determine how to distribute my donation?

It is our fiduciary duty to use your legacy gift to reduce as much animal suffering as possible. To do this, upon receiving your gift, ACE’s Executive Director and Development Director will review any information that you have provided to us about your wishes for what your gift will achieve, and we will earmark your gift in the fund accordingly. In January of the year after your bequest is received, ACE’s Executive Director and Development Director will consult with the Programs team to review the latest funding needs of our Recommended Charities, and ACE to determine the most effective distribution of this fund. If a percentage of the fund still remains, then the Executive Director and Programs team will review any outstanding projects or charities that we feel will reduce significant animal suffering with appropriate funding. The ACE Directors and Programs team will work together to determine how to regrant your bequest so that it will achieve an optimal outcome for both your own goals and those of the animal advocacy movement.

To discuss leaving a personalized legacy gift with ACE, please contact ACE’s Development Director Heather Herrell, or submit your name and preferred contact information here. We will be in touch with you shortly.


The material presented on this website is intended as general educational information on the topics discussed herein and should not be interpreted as legal, financial or tax advice. Please seek the specific advice of your tax advisor, attorney, and/or financial planner to discuss the application of these topics to your individual situation.