Wild Animal Initiative named ACE Top Charity
We are honored to announce that Animal Charity Evaluators named Wild Animal Initiative a Top Charity for the first time.
Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is an independent research organization that assesses nonprofits for their effectiveness at improving animal welfare. They aim to identify the top giving opportunities for donors who want each dollar to do as much good for animals as possible. ACE evaluates charities’ cost-effectiveness, adaptability, and need for more funding.
“We find WAI to be an excellent giving opportunity because of their strong, cost-effective programs and their thorough strategy.”
Top Charity is ACE’s highest award. This year, only four organizations qualified, and Wild Animal Initiative was the only one to receive the honor for the first time. You can read ACE’s full review here.
Wild Animal Initiative also broke ground by being the first wildlife organization to ever win the award. Historically, ACE has focused on charities that reduce the harms of industrialized animal agriculture, such as by improving farm welfare standards, advocating for plant-based diets, or accelerating the growth of the alternative protein industry. While we are far from the first organization concerned about wildlife, ACE highlighted our strategic and welfare-focused approach:
“WAI is working in an important and relatively neglected area: conducting and promoting research to help [improve the welfare of] wild animals. We believe that building an academic field is an ambitious but promising avenue for creating change for wild animals in the long term. There are few charities working in this area, and WAI seems to have a responsible and thorough approach to building a collaborative community of researchers and advocates as well as a strong strategy and healthy organizational culture.”
We thank ACE for thoroughly assessing our strengths and weaknesses. Most of all, we are grateful to everyone who has supported our work to understand and improve the lives of as many wild animals as possible.