Evaluating animal charities with Animal Charity Evaluators

Animal advocacy has no equivalent of a clinical trial. Organizations work on different species, in different countries, using tactics whose effects are hard to measure and slow to appear. Someone has to do the comparison anyway, or donors are left choosing on the strength of a photograph.

The core program reviews animal organizations worldwide and publishes the reasoning in full, examining each one's programs, cost-effectiveness, room for more funding, and leadership and culture, before naming a small set as recommended. Alongside the reviews sits research aimed at the open questions the whole movement faces, rather than at any single organization.

Research that nobody acts on changes nothing, so the work extends into moving money: a recommended charity fund and a movement grants program that route donations to evaluated organizations and to promising newer projects. A third strand is educational, explaining to a general audience how giving decisions can help far more animals, and publishing guidance for the people running animal organizations.

Recommendations from this program shape our own Animal Welfare Fund. The organization is Animal Charity Evaluators.

Canadian donors receive an official Canadian donation receipt for gifts made through Rethink Charity. If you would rather your gift reach a field organization, our recommendations page lists the programs this research points to.