For those who aren’t aware, Animal Charity Evaluators, or ACE, is a charity evaluator and fundraiser in the animal space. They play a similar role for animal advocacy as GiveWell plays for global health and development (though with a fraction of GiveWell’s budget and evidence base—animal welfare is a much more neglected field than human health). At FWI, we believe ACE plays an important role in the animal advocacy space by providing accountability for charities, and advice for donors.
FWI was recommended by ACE in 2022. This recommendation was hugely significant for us, as it brought in several hundred thousand dollars in additional funding ($330,000 of which came directly from ACE).
ACE evaluations take place on a 2-year cycle, and so in 2024, we were invited to re-apply for recommendation. Of the 10 organizations ACE evaluated this year, FWI was unfortunately not one of the 5 they chose to recommend. In keeping with our value of transparency, we wanted to share our understanding of ACE’s reasons here, as well as our own reflections.
You can see ACE’s full review of FWI in 2024 here.
Why ACE Chose Not To Recommend FWI This Year
From our communications with ACE and our reading of their review, we understand that their primary reasons were the following:
Current cost-effectiveness: Our current programs do not meet their cost-effectiveness bar. Right now, we estimate our current farm program’s cost-effectiveness to help about 7 fishes per dollar, but this is much lower than some of the other charities ACE did choose to recommend. You can see ACE’s full cost-effectiveness analysis of FWI here. ACE’s bar for cost-effectiveness has also increased from 2022, as noted by this quote from their evaluation:
"Our opinion is not that FWI’s work is less effective now than when ACE first decided to recommend them in 2022. In fact, we think their work has become more promising since then, but our bar for recommendation has changed as our evaluation methods have evolved."
Uncertainty of our future programs: Our future programs, which we are developing for the purpose of being more cost-effective (and evidence-based and scalable), have a limited track record and are yet to actually be implemented. This applies, for instance, to our work on satellite imagery, feed fortification, and stunning. Our work in China is also relatively uncertain (we haven’t had Chinese staff this year, and are currently in the process of hiring one now).
It should be noted that, from our discussions and what is written in their report, it does not seem that FWI’s organizational health and culture was a factor in ACE deciding to not recommend us this year. The following is a quote from their full evaluation:
"Our assessment indicates that FWI has positive staff engagement (average staff engagement survey score = 4.5/5) and is operating in ways that support their effectiveness and stability."
You can see more about ACE’s view of FWI’s organizational health in the policy analysis and staff survey they conducted (which they shared privately with us and we are sharing publicly with their permission).
Our Reflection
Not being recommended this year is unfortunate, but, by ACE’s own evolving methodology, we don’t think it’s unreasonable: FWI is still largely in an intervention development phase—for instance, currently only about 25% of our budget goes towards any program designed to have an immediate impact.
With ACE’s focus on cost-effectiveness, however, their reviews generally prioritize organizations that are in a more established implementation phase (though they do recommend several charities that solely focus on research, such as Faunalytics). We intend to be in such a phase by the end of 2026—this is in fact the primary focus of our 2026 Goal.
Until that day, we think it best to think of a donation to FWI as serving two distinct values:
Enabling much more cost-effective, scalable, and evidence-based programs to be developed for the future (primary value). See more on that here. As ACE notes though, our track record here is limited—we only launched our revamped R&D Department in 2023.
Supporting a moderately cost-effective and fairly unique program right now (secondary value).
For an organization in its 5th year of existence, we realize that to still primarily be focusing on research may seem like a slow development. After all, we have always aspired to be an organization primarily focused on direct impact. However, we do think this long timeline is warranted, given that we work in a context—helping farmed fishes in lower/middle income countries—where there is virtually no track record of animal welfare initiatives. Our timeline has also been lengthened by the various mistakes we have made along the way.
Overall, we found ACE very easy to work with throughout the process, and, while we don’t always agree with their decisions, we continue to be grateful for the role they play in the animal movement. We also encourage our readers to consider supporting their new batch of recommended charities.
We intend to re-apply for recommendation with ACE in 2026, and as always will keep our blog updated.
For more information, you can also see ACE’s analysis of our theory of change (which they shared privately with us and we are sharing publicly with their permission).