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Animal Charity Evaluators

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Last Updated: May, 2020

Bylaws

Bylaws are rules that an organization creates to regulate itself. They also establish guidelines that govern future choices. The ACE Bylaws provide details about our governance and decision-making process.

Charity Evaluations: Scope of Consideration

We consider for recommendation primarily groups which act on behalf of animals through their own programs. We do not consider foundations or other groups which use a large part of their budget to make grants to other organizations within our scope of consideration. However, the existence of a grant program as part of a group’s activities does not remove it from our consideration if the program a) represents a small portion of the organization’s total expenditures and/or b) primarily distributes small-scale grants to individuals or to groups with overall very low budgets. The intent of this decision is to avoid evaluating organizations which would primarily redistribute donations to other groups that we could evaluate individually while leaving open the possibility of recommending an organization which supports small-scale and early-stage projects through grants, as we could not direct individual donations to such projects accurately or efficiently on our own.

We do not consider ACE as a charity for recommendation, as doing so would create a conflict of interest. Additionally, we do not consider organizations whose primary leadership has donated to ACE. See our donation policy below for more details.

Donation Policy: Potential conflicts of interest

Our donation policy helps ensure that we do not have a conflict of interest between our donors and our recommendations. We include the entire policy below.

Section 1. Definition

A donation conflict of interest arises when an individual strongly tied to a recommended animal charity offers a contribution to ACE. A donation conflict of interest could also occur if ACE applied for and was awarded a grant from an organization that could plausibly be recommended. In both these circumstances, the acceptance of such a donation could be perceived as influencing the evaluation process.

The term “strongly tied” refers to key decision-making individuals within an organization, and consists most often of, but is not limited to, the Executive Director and President/Chair of the Board.

Donations from employees or other board members of an organization will be allowed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the perceived influence that said individual has over the organization.

ACE will accept grants/donations from organizations that are outside our plausible scope for recommendations, as this is not a conflict of interest.

Section 2. Disclosure of donation conflict of interest

ACE features a section on the donations section of its website identifying the donation conflict of interest policy.

Section 3. Potential exceptions

It is possible that a donor may become “strongly tied” to an organization. In that situation, future donations will not be accepted, but ACE will not be required to return past contributions.

As ACE obtains donations from a larger pool of donors, it may turn out to be unfeasible to be aware of donors’ affiliations. If ACE was not aware of an affiliation that creates a conflict of interest at the time of receiving the donation, ACE may choose to keep the donation even if it becomes aware of such an affiliation at a later time.

If ACE corresponds with an organization that is interested in supporting ACE’s work but has no interest in being recommended, ACE may accept that support if the organization surrenders its potential for consideration.

Section 4. Actions involving conflict of interest donations

Should ACE receive a donation from an individual “strongly tied” to a recommended animal charity, the donation will be returned, and said individual will be directed to the section of the site that addresses this issue. Similarly, ACE will not apply for grants from organizations that could be considered for future recommendations.

Donor privacy

Our commitment to respect the privacy of our supporters extends to how we obtain, use, protect, and share information about them. For any personal identifying information that is shared with ACE, either by making a donation or signing up to receive email updates from ACE, it will be stored in our database and protected as follows:

We do not share, sell, or trade the names or contact information of our donors or email subscribers with any other entities, except as described below.

For people who make a donation to a Top Charity through ACE, their name and contact information will be shared only with the charity/charities to which they made a donation. Our Top Charities are required not to share these donors’ information with any other entities without first obtaining the donor’s permission. If a donor prefers for their gift to be reported anonymously to our Top Charities, they can let us know.

For any published names (for example, in our Annual Review, on our Top Donors web page, or on our Testimonials web page), we have obtained explicit permission from the supporters to publish their names and any accompanying information.

Recurring Donations

Recurring Donation Terms and Agreement:

  1. ACE hereby represents and warrants that ACE has the authorization to bill its donors’ Paypal or credit card accounts for the amounts and for the period of time indicated by the donor at the time they enroll with ACE’s monthly giving program.
  2. ACE hereby represents and warrants that ACE has complied with all applicable bank and credit card rules in billing its donors’ credit card and in its use of PayPal Merchant Services.
  3. By authorizing a recurring donation, you are consenting to the terms outlined in PayPal’s Recurring Payments and Billing Agreement.

Modify Your Recurring Donation:

To make any of the following modifications to your monthly donation, please contact ACE’s Director of Operations, Gina Stuessy.

  1. Donation amount
  2. Donation currency
  3. Date of recurring donation
  4. Retry monthly donation
  5. Donation frequency
  6. Provide a new credit card number
  7. Provide a new credit card expiration date
  8. Term limit (number of payments) – default is infinite
  9. Update your name, address, or email address

Cancel Your Recurring Donation:

  1. If you selected Paypal as your payment option, you can cancel your donation via your Paypal account, or by contacting ACE’s Director of Operations, Gina Stuessy.
  2. If you selected Credit Card as your payment option, you can cancel your donation by filling out this form, or by contacting ACE’s Director of Operations, Gina Stuessy.

Gift Acceptance Policy

For more details on what types of donations we accept, view our Gift Acceptance Policy.

Board of Directors’ Conflict of Interest Policy

Our conflict of interest policy helps ensure that board members are not influencing decisions where they, their family, or their business interests could benefit or be harmed financially. We include the entire policy below. It can also be found in our bylaws.

Section 1. Definition

A conflict of interest arises whenever an individual is in a position to approve or influence corporation policies or actions which involve or could potentially benefit or harm financially:
(a) the individual;
(b) any member of the individual’s immediate family (spouse, parents, children, brothers or sisters, and spouses of these individuals); or
(c) any corporation in which the individual or an immediate family member is a director, officer, member, or partner.

Section 2. Disclosure of conflicts of interest

A director or officer shall disclose to the President, secretary, or board a conflict of interest:
(a) prior to voting on or otherwise discharging any duties with respect to any matter involving the conflict;
(b) prior to the corporation entering into any contract or transaction involving the conflict;
(c) as soon as possible after the director or officer learns of the conflict; and
(d) on any conflict of interest disclosure form required by the corporation. The Board of Directors, by a two-thirds vote of all disinterested directors then in office, may remove a director or officer for failure to promptly disclose a known conflict of interest.

Section 3. Actions involving potential conflicts of interest

Following receipt of information concerning a contract or transaction involving a potential conflict of interest, the board shall consider the material facts concerning the proposed contract or transaction including the process by which the decision was made to recommend entering into the arrangement on the terms proposed. The board shall approve only those contracts or transactions in which the terms are fair and reasonable to the corporation and the arrangements are consistent with the best interests of the corporation. Fairness includes, but is not limited to, the concepts that the corporation should pay no more than fair market value for any goods or services which the corporation receives and that the corporation should receive fair market value consideration for any goods or services that it furnishes others. The board shall set forth the basis for its decision with respect to approval of contracts or transactions involving conflicts of interest in the minutes of the meeting at which the decision is made, including the basis for determining that the consideration to be paid is fair to the corporation. The interested director or officer should not be present for the discussion and decision concerning the authorization of such contract or transaction; however, interested directors may be counted in determining the presence of a quorum at a meeting of the Board of Directors or committee which authorizes such contract or transaction.

Section 4. Compensation of directors and officers

No director or officer of the corporation shall receive, directly or indirectly, any compensation or other payment from the corporation, unless authorized by the concurring vote of two-thirds (2/3) of all the directors then in office and in no event shall any compensation or payment be paid or made, except reasonable compensation for services actually rendered or reimbursement for disbursements actually incurred.

Employment/Affiliation Policy: Potential conflicts of interest

Our employment/affiliation policy helps ensure that we do not have a conflict of interest between our staff or board members and our recommendations. We include the entire policy below.

Section 1. Definitions

An employment/affiliation conflict of interest (COI) may arise when an ACE staff or board member has a strong tie to an organization eligible for ACE’s recommendation. These could involve formal or informal positions, paid or unpaid, and are allowable in some circumstances but not others.

No board member shall have a paid position with an organization that progresses to the stage of comprehensive review. Board members may have a formal volunteer position with an organization that is evaluated by ACE.

No staff member shall have a paid position with an organization that is evaluated by ACE. Staff members may not have a formal position with an organization that is evaluated by ACE, even if it is volunteer.

A COI may arise when a former staff member takes a position at an organization eligible for ACE’s recommendation, since they may have direct experience in conducting evaluations while at ACE. ACE cannot forbid its former employees from taking these positions, but we do have a policy that states that former ACE employees may not be the primary contact person for an evaluation.

Though ACE lists this as a potential COI, it believes that having a former ACE employee at a considered organization would not provide much advantage over other organizations, since ACE makes its review process and criteria publicly available and tries to help all evaluated charities understand what aspects of their work it is most interested in knowing about.

An affiliation COI may arise when ACE works on a project with an organization eligible for ACE’s recommendation. ACE attempts to limit extensive or repeated collaboration with any given charity that is eligible for recommendation and publicly lists those that exist on our Disclosures webpage.

Section 2. Disclosure of employment/affiliation conflict of interest

ACE features a section on its website identifying the relationships of staff and board to recommended organizations and any other affiliations that ACE has to organizations eligible for a recommendation.

Section 3. Potential exceptions

Board members may have a formal position on another organization’s board, so long as it is in a volunteer capacity; in this situation, board members would recuse themselves from any discussion regarding the charity in question. Board members may also volunteer in other ways, again with the same recusal applying to relevant discussions.

Staff members may volunteer for an organization eligible for an ACE recommendation, so long as it is not a formal position and is entirely unpaid.

Both staff and board members may apply for grants from the ACE Advocacy Research Fund. However, these applications must be submitted in compliance with the conflict of interest policy created by the Advocacy Research Fund. This may include the Program Officer recusing him/herself from evaluating the proposal, and instead passing that responsibility onto an appropriate member of the Oversight Committee.

Both staff and board members may accept travel and lodging compensation when speaking at events, including those organized by considered or recommended charities. However, neither staff nor board may accept honoraria from a considered or recommended organization.

Advisory board members are not subject to the confines of this policy given their infrequent involvement and lack of decision-making authority.

Section 4. Actions involving employment/affiliation conflict of interest

Should ACE realize an external relationship from a board or staff member that does not adhere to these bylaws, said individual will be directed to resolve their relationship to be in compliance with this policy. If such a relationship is unable to be resolved, ACE will take action to remedy the situation, which may include restructuring or termination as appropriate.

Any discovered violations of this conflict of interest will result in the pertinent organization being unable to be considered for a minimum of one year after the conflict of interest has been resolved.

Charity Evaluation and Effective Animal Advocacy Fund Committees’ Policies

While ACE tries quite hard to avoid conflicts of interest (COIs) with charities we may evaluate and charities we may grant to from our Effective Animal Advocacy Fund, a growing staff means that there is increasing difficulty involved in avoiding individual COI situations entirely. We have developed the following policies to address COIs as they arise in these two contexts.

Charity Evaluation Committee Policy

Of particular concern are COI situations involving staff members directly involved in evaluations and recommendation decisions, the research team and the Executive Director. Additionally, COIs involving members of the Board who sit on the research committee would require some action.

Individual COI could take multiple forms, for example:

  • Close personal (e.g., marriage, family, close friendship) relationship with an employee of charity being evaluated
  • Past employment with a charity being evaluated
  • Board of Directors involvement with a charity being evaluated
  • Volunteer involvement with a charity being evaluated

These COIs are not all equal in weight. While employees are expected to disclose all COIs, how we handle each COI should depend on its seriousness.

  • Serious COIs (employment within the last three years, present involvement with the Board of Directors, close personal relationship with an employee) disqualify an employee from being involved in evaluating the particular charity in the normal way. Replacement procedures will be outlined below.
  • Minor COIs (volunteering with organization) should be acknowledged, and the employee should let ACE know if, under the circumstances, they feel they cannot impartially contribute to the charity evaluation. But in general, we expect it will be possible to continue with evaluation procedures in the normal way.

Some conflicts may fall between the outlined serious and minor levels, particularly those involving a personal relationship between an ACE employee and an employee of another organization that is not close enough to be definitively classed as a serious COI. In these cases, we expect the employee involved to work with research department leads and/or the Executive Director to find an appropriate level of involvement for the situation, defaulting to the procedures for a serious COI if they are unsure of the appropriate course of action. Staff members concerned about how any COI is handled should bring their concerns to the supervisor of the party with the COI first, rather than directly to the party with the COI. If the Executive Director has a possible COI, the final decision will be made by the Chair of the Board.

If any ACE employee or board member involved in the evaluation/recommendation process has a COI with an evaluated charity that is determined to be above the minor level, ACE will list that conflict on the relevant review page. All affiliations between ACE staff and board members and charities we may review are listed on our Disclosures page.

If an employee has a serious COI with a charity they would otherwise participate in evaluating…

  • They must:
    • Formally abstain from suggesting a course of action for this charity when asked in general what charities should be reviewed or recommended
    • Leave discussions or calls about the evaluation process while the charity in question is being discussed
  • They might:
    • Provide an appropriate contact email for the charity
    • Remind others (at any time) that they are recused from offering an opinion due to a COI
  • They must not:
    • Be assigned any aspect of the charity to research
    • Conduct a call with the charity on behalf of ACE
    • Draft any sections of the evaluation itself, even if they are fulfilling one of these roles for every other charity evaluated
    • Vote on what level of review the charity should receive or on its recommendation status
    • Be present for oral discussion of the charity’s status or review
    • Contribute to written discussions about the charity’s status or review
    • Make overall comparisons to other charities or offer an opinion on what the status of the charity should be, even if they are directly asked
    • Provide additional information to other members of the evaluation team without first clearing this action with the Director of Research, research department leads, and/or the Executive Director

If the staff member in question is the Director of Research, Executive Director, or a research department lead, additional care is required to ensure that the conflict does not pose a problem for the neutrality of the review. In particular:

  • When a conflict for one or more of these parties has been identified, the other parties should be involved in deciding how serious the COI is and should have access to additional neutral parties (e.g., other research staff or board members) for consultation in case of difficulties. Those parties identified with the COI must abide by the decision reached.
  • If one of these parties has a serious COI with a charity being evaluated, they should not have access to draft reviews or review materials until these have been edited by all staff participating fully in the evaluation of the charity in question to reflect a consensus viewpoint, thus partially anonymizing the views of any team members who worked on the evaluation. Another member of the team will restrict their access to the initial documents created and will provide them with access to copies without comment/edit history at the appropriate time.
  • If the Executive Director or Director of Research has a serious COI with a charity being evaluated, they should not have access to information about who has drafted each section of the review, in order to further anonymize team member contributions.
  • If the Director of Research, research department leads, or the Executive Director has any identified COI with a charity being considered for evaluation, a staff member will be designated to create and monitor an anonymous feedback form for staff to use in reporting concerns over the handling of the COI. The designated individual will relay feedback from this form to the Executive Director (if concerning the Director of Research) or to the Chair of the Board (if concerning the Executive Director), editing the copy if necessary to preserve anonymity.
  • Staff members are also encouraged to bring their concerns directly to the supervisor of the party with the COI or to any board member if they feel comfortable doing so. The identity of an individual who brought up a concern should not be disclosed to the party with the COI without prior consent. Staff members should bring their concerns to the supervisor of the party with the COI first or to the anonymous feedback mechanism, rather than directly to the party with the COI.
  • The Director of Research, research department leads, and Executive Director are prohibited from applying for employment with any charities we are evaluating during the time we are reviewing them.

If a member of the Board has a serious COI with a charity being evaluated:

  • They must:
    • Formally abstain from suggesting a course of action for this charity when asked in general what charities should be reviewed or recommended
    • Leave discussions or calls about the evaluation process while the charity in question is being discussed
    • Vote on what course of action to pursue for other charities if other board members do and participate in discussions about them
      • In general, they should view these votes as not affecting what will happen to the charity with regard to which they have a COI. (In most stages of the process, including deciding on final recommendations, there is not a specific target number of charities to include, so the team has the flexibility to include or exclude an additional charity if they feel that it is appropriate to do so.)
    • Treat any information they have about ACE’s process as highly confidential and refrain from sharing it outside of the team unless they have specific permission to do so
      • If they feel this will present undue difficulty for them, they should not read draft reviews.
  • They might:
    • Remind others (at any time) that they are recused from offering an opinion due to a COI
  • They must not:
    • Be present for oral discussion of the charity’s status or review
    • Vote on what level of review the charity should receive or on its recommendation status
    • Make overall comparisons to other charities or offer an opinion on what the status of the charity should be, even if they are directly asked
    • Provide additional information to other members of the evaluation team without first clearing this action with the Director of Research, research department leads, and/or the Executive Director

Effective Animal Advocacy Fund Committee Policy

Several staff members, interns, and board members are involved in the Effective Animal Advocacy Fund (EAA Fund) grantee selection process, under the leadership of the EAA Fund Program Officer. Some staff members are involved in reviewing the applicants’ materials and some staff members, board members, and interns participate by reviewing and/or discussing others’ proposed decisions. In this document, we refer to the staff members and board members who are involved in either (a) reviewing applications or (b) making final decisions as the EAA Fund committee members.1 All staff members, current interns, and board members are invited to give feedback on the decisions of the EAA Fund committee members, but the committee members are responsible for making the final decisions. All applicable COI considerations described above in the Charity Evaluation Committee Policy also apply to EAA Fund decisions.

Committee members must disclose any level of COI to the EAA Fund Program Officer. These affiliations will be listed on the Disclosures webpage and the affiliations with grantees will be mentioned in the blog post announcing the grantees. Committee members should be aware of the COIs of staff or board members involved in all parts of the process, but the COIs of staff and board members who are not on the EAA Fund committee will not be listed in the blog post. The EAA Fund Program Officer will request staff or board members to disclose their COIs with applicants they will interact with prior to their involvement in the EAA Fund process.

If a committee member has a serious COI with an applicant (examples included in Charity Evaluation Committee Policy above), the committee member must notify the rest of the committee and recuse themself completely from oral and written discussions about the applicant. Because the EAA Fund review process is not nearly as involved as the charity evaluation process, it is not necessary for individuals with serious COIs to participate in parts of the relevant applicant’s review.

If the committee member with a serious COI has information that they believe is useful and relevant to the EAA Fund granting decision, they may provide this information to the Program Officer and/or the Executive Director. They should not share information with the rest of the committee without first clearing this action with the EAA Fund Program Officer or Executive Director.

If the conflicted committee member is either the EAA Fund Program Officer or Executive Director, the other of these two should be involved in deciding how serious the COI is and should have access to additional neutral parties (e.g., other committee members or the Board of Directors) for consultation in case of difficulties. If both the EAA Fund Program Officer and the Executive Director have the same COI, the Director of Research or an appointed member of the review committee will decide how serious the COI is. The party with the COI must abide by the decision reached.

All staff members (not only those on the EAA Fund committee) aware of COIs are encouraged to bring their concerns directly to the EAA Fund Program Officer or to any board member. The identity of an individual who brought up a concern should not be disclosed to the party with the COI without prior consent. Staff members should bring their concerns to the supervisor of the party with the COI first, rather than directly to the party with the COI.

Social Media Policies

Thank you for your interest in participating in Animal Charity Evaluators’ social media page. The purpose of these pages is to create a place where our followers can share their thoughts, opinions, and insights on Animal Charity Evaluators, and on topics relevant to our mission.

By using or accessing our social media pages, you agree to comply with Facebook’s Terms and Conditions, and Twitter’s Terms of Service. As we welcome input from anyone, please note that postings by fans on our social media pages do not necessarily reflect the views of Animal Charity Evaluators, nor do we confirm their accuracy.

We understand that animal advocacy is a subject many of you are passionate about – a passion we share. We welcome all questions and commentary, including constructive feedback. We don’t take decisions on moderating posts lightly, but we do expect that participants post content and commentary that is both relevant and respectful to this community as a whole. Animal Charity Evaluators reserves the right to remove any posts that don’t adhere to our guidelines and to block anyone who violates them repeatedly. Specifically, we do not tolerate these kinds of posts:

  • Abusive, harassing, stalking, threatening or attacking others
  • Defamatory, offensive, obscene, vulgar or depicting violence
  • Hateful in language targeting race/ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality or political beliefs
  • Fraudulent, deceptive, misleading or unlawful
  • Trolling or deliberate disruption of discussion
  • Violations of any intellectual property rights
  • Spamming in nature
  • Uploading files that contain viruses or programs that could damage the operation of other people’s computers
  • Commercial solicitation or solicitation of donations
  • Link baiting (embedding a link in your post to draw traffic to your own site)

Thank you for participating in helping us create a respectful environment for our followers. If you have any questions, please email us at contact@animalcharityevaluators.org.

Respective in the Workplace Policy

We make our internal “Respect in the Workplace” Policy available online as a resource for other organizations.

Code of Conduct

Our Code of Conduct applies to all ACE employees, interns, select contractors, and board members.

  1. By default, the staff members who review and discuss the applications are the same staff members who make final decisions, but these two groups may differ due to staff changes during the process. Board members will not participate in the review process but will approve the decisions made by staff members.