2018 was a year of transition for ACE. We had a number of changes in key staff and carried out an extensive and thoughtful Executive Director selection process. One of our primary goals for 2019 is to focus on navigating these changes, working to improve our internal infrastructure in a way that enables us to continue growing sustainably into the future. This prioritization is reflected in our goals for the year, which include a smaller number of projects with a greater degree of specificity on outcomes.

There are two main factors that will play a key role in determining how many of these goals we are able to achieve: (1) the amount of available funding, and (2) the level of success we have in attracting appropriate applicants for the available positions. Because the goals mentioned here are numerous, we have, in general, listed the higher priority goals closer to the top of each respective section.

Note that as we are publishing this list halfway through the year, many of these goals are already accomplished or underway.

Research

Charity evaluations

Update our charity evaluation process Implement changes that we expect will (1) eventually reduce the amount of time we spend per review, (2) improve the quality of the reviews, and (3) make the reviews more readable for a wider audience

Conduct charity evaluations Continue expanding our search for effective charities internationally, focusing on potentially high-impact regions Conduct 10–15 charity evaluations and provide a new set of recommendations by December 3, 2019



Intervention research

Develop a system for intervention research that allows us to publish smaller pieces more frequently, rather than publishing major reports roughly once per year

Produce an annotated bibliography of the research on at least five commonly used interventions by the time we begin our 2019 charity evaluation process Possible topics include: humane education, documentaries, pledge programs, undercover investigations, and institutional meat reduction campaigns

Complete a fish welfare project; plan and complete a broiler chicken welfare project

Revise our leafleting and protest reports, breaking them down into sections that can be published separately

Foundational research

Revisit our research on the effects of vegetarian and vegan diets, including developing a new estimate of the number of animals spared per vegan year

Submit at least three original papers to academic peer-reviewed journals

Determine which dietary assessment outcome measures we are the most confident in

Develop clear guidelines and a template for all future literature reviews

Add “Why Farmed Chicken?” and “Why Farmed Fish?” sections to our “Why Farmed Animals?” page

Conduct our annual survey of ACE and Top Charity donors, adding a section for donors to our new Effective Animal Advocacy Fund

Create a “work in progress” page for research projects

Grant making

Continue to make bi-annual grants from our Recommended Charity Fund and our Effective Animal Advocacy Fund (EAA Fund)

Revise our EAA Fund grant-making process Hold a retrospective on our first round of EAA Fund grant allotments Conduct a 4-month follow-up survey of our first round of grant recipients; publish the results in a blog post Consult with experts on best practices in grant making Reassess our grant schedule for a better fit with our charity evaluation schedule Consider bringing on a new Program Officer to manage the EAA Fund Develop handbooks (for our Researchers and for our grantees) to document the processes and policies of the EAA Fund Solicit grant applications from those working in important and neglected areas E.g. wild animal suffering, legal and legislative work, and multi-issue work



Complete two rounds of funding through the Animal Advocacy Research Fund (AARF) following our current operating model, which includes conducting regular check-ins with grantees to track progress and to assess the impact of the fund Evaluate the AARF outcomes and identify improvements for the future Identify and promote research priorities so that AARF applicants and other EAA Researchers have a better idea of what we feel are the most pressing research questions Streamline application review process to reduce time invested by the Program Officer



General

Develop a system to track how long each piece of research content has been on our website and to flag pieces for regular updates

Make revisions to our internal review process, especially to solicit external feedback on our project plans (in addition to drafted projects) and to reduce staff time providing feedback such that not all research team members need to provide feedback on every project

Conduct retrospectives within three months of the completion of every major research project to reflect on the project’s impact

Check in on the impact of all published research once per year in order to determine how to use our time most effectively on future projects

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our project prioritization process, perhaps reaching out to other groups to inquire about their processes

Communications

Content Creation

Increase the amount of communications-owned content including through our interview series, roundtable blog post series, and staff op-eds on Medium

Repurpose existing content into more engaging formats like explainer videos, Instagram stories, interactive charts, and audio downloads

Publish our 2019 Guide to Giving

Publish our 2018 Year in Review

Website

Conduct website speed audit and improve through content delivery network (CDN) and caching configuration

Conduct two user experience tests via UserTesting to identify areas where we can improve our website user experience and content organization

Update the presentation and publication timelines of our intervention research

Implement website chatbot

Add “time to read” stamps to our website on select blog posts and pages

Redesign the Animal Advocacy Research Fund website and make improvements to the grant application process

Analytics and Reporting

Migrate to Salesforce CRM and merge data silos into one “source of truth”

Build Google Data Studio dashboards and distribute quarterly reports on communications-related impact metrics

Advertising / Promotional Content

Reduce paid advertising on social media and focus primarily on maximizing monthly spend of Google Ads grant

Increase email marketing fundraising appeals

General

Give at least eight talks at conferences or other events

Refine and reassess ACE’s social media strategy

Philanthropy

Raise $1 million to cover the cost of ACE’s 2019 programs

Influence $7 million in donations to effective animal advocacy charities, including via our Recommended Charity Fund and our Effective Animal Advocacy Fund

Launch an ACE fundraising campaign Increase awareness of other ways to give

Coordinate Giving Tuesday campaign to promote our Top Charity recommendations

Offer end-of-year matching campaign to support our Effective Animal Advocacy Fund

Improve donor retention by 2%

Grow the philanthropy department staff

Operations

Integrate our communications and tracking tools (e.g., Mailchimp) with Salesforce

Host two all-staff retreats and a research retreat

Maintain registrations for soliciting in many U.S. states

Register as a Public Benefit Organization in the Netherlands so that donors there can make tax-deductible donations

Manage the organization’s budget and finances, including an annual financial audit

Review and improve the organization’s human resource (HR) policies and benefits Manage benefits such as the Health Reimbursement Arrangement and paid leave

Investigate and consider HR service options to assist with legal compliance across states and countries in which we have employees

Investigate and consider using the services of an external HR consultant who could be available periodically or on an ongoing basis

Organization-Wide