Hi everyone,

Recently we discovered Sinergia has been making false claims about helping millions of animals. 

We believe this is an important issue because Sinergia receives millions of dollars in grants from EA organizations. Just recently, Open Philanthropy awarded them a $3.3 million grant.

We hope you find time to read our article. 

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First, I want to commend Vetted Causes for doing this. The EA community loves criticism as a concept but rarely likes it when it comes to the object level. This is quite the object level critique and we see how our soldier mindset quickly arose. I'm hesitant to give any pushback on this since I want the cost to doing this work (which is quite hard) to be as low as possible. With that said, I want to 

When it comes to Sinergia, I have quite the strong prior that they would be effective. Sinergia is what you would get if you took THL-style corporate campaigns, put them in the Global South where most of the animals on Earth live, in worse conditions than in the Global North, get way cheaper talent since salaries are lower and put in a kick-ass CEO in Carolina. This is kind of a recipe for an effective charity.

For Vetted Causes, I think your critiques would do better, be more productive for the community and frankly, be better received by the EA community if you would first get feedback from the organization that you are evaluating. You don't even need to change anything based on what they reply. I would recommend you use your judgement in evaluating what they have to say if it corrects any factual errors but the rights to the final wording of the post remain your own. This has three main advantages

  1. It corrects factual errors that might not be public
  2. It gives the organization a chance to give their perspective on things to the public
  3. The community wants this as a norm (for reasons 1&2 and you should want a strong reason to violate a norm) and so your critique will be better accepted if you do this. Again, you don't need to make any changes if the organizations response isn't convincing from your POV.

I again want to commend VettedCauses for doing these. They aren't easy. I'll pre-commit at least $1000 USD to VettedCauses for their next critique (provided it's a serious one) and they run it by the organization in question for feedback.

(I don't really want to engage much on this because I found it pretty emotionally draining last time — I'll just leave this comment and stop here):

I think asking for feedback prior to publishing these seems really important. To be clear, I'm very sympathetic to the overall claim! I suspect that most published estimates of the impact of marginal dollars in the farmed animal space are way too high (maybe even by orders of magnitude)

I also think the items you raise are important questions for Sinergia to answer!

But, I think getting feedback would be really helpful for you:

  • You cite multiple places where Sinergia claims impact, but you cite evidence to the contrary, such as company statements on their sites either existing prior to Sinergia's claimed date, or not existing at all.
    • The experience of corporate campaigners universally is that the degree to which you should take company statements about their animal welfare commitments seriously is relatively low. It's just a regular fact of corporate campaigning in many countries that companies have statements on their websites that they either don't follow or don't intend to follow. Often, companies have weaselly language that lets them get out of a commitment, e.g. "we aspire to do X by Y year," etc.
    • The language in company statements matter a ton — when I ran corporate campaigns, a major US restaurant company I was campaigning on put up a verbatim version of the Better Chicken Commitment with all of the specifics removed (e.g. "reduce stocking density" instead of "reduce stocking density to X lbs/sqft") and did nothing in their supply chain. This allowed them to tell journalists / others that we were just lying that they had not made the commitment. I worry that Google translating pages loses nuance that might matter here. Google Translating Brazilian law also seems like a huge stretch as evidence — and taking the law at face value as a non-Brazilian lawyer (and not evidence about the interpretation and enforcement of the law) seems like a mistake.
    • Getting a commitment on the website is important, but it's only a portion of work. Actually getting the company to make the change is way more work.
    • I know nothing about the JBS case, but can tell you that there are many times where a company has a commitment, then behind the scenes the actual work is several years of getting them to honor it. It seems completely plausible, and even routine, that the actual impact credit should go to an organization working to get a company to act on an existing policy, as opposed to getting them to put up the policy in the first place. I don't know anything about Sinergia's claims here, but seems totally plausible that much of their impact comes from this invisible work that you wouldn't learn about without asking them.

I suspect that in your critique, some of your claims are warranted, but others might have much more complicated stories behind them, such as an organization getting a company to actually follow through on a commitment, or getting a law to be enforced. I think that feedback would help draw out where these critiques are accurate, and where they are missing the mark.

I just want to add some colour as someone from a Western country (Canada) that has lived a couple years in Latin America. The rule of law is simply followed far less and it is a far lower trust society. However much American companies follow corporate commitments, I expect less of Brazilian ones.

Also, companies in Western countries don't follow the law all the time. In Latin America, the law is a bit of a joke and there is more corruption. The fact that it was already illegal updates me ~0 on what a factory farm in Brazil is doing.

Serious question: doesn't that cut against the efficacy of corporate campaigns? How would an organization ever know if the company was respecting their promise?

Yeah, this is a big challenge in the corporate campaign space, especially in places with weak legal systems and low enforcement. But this links to why corporate campaigns can be more effective than policy campaigns. Getting policy commitments on paper in a country with poor rule of law might have very limited impact because no-one's incentivised to uphold the laws, but there's a decent chance that an international, or niche company with high reputational awareness is incentivised to try and maintain a higher welfare supply chain. 

So you might get a high-end hotel chain in a lower-income country that genuinely wants to shift to cage-free eggs after a campaign. They make a commitment, you arrange meetings with them and their suppliers to help them meet these commitments, and track whether their numbers match up. This can work even if the legal system functions poorly.

People in the Bharat Initiative for Accountability (BIA) and Global Food Partners (GFP) are doing stuff like this in India and Southeast Asia. It takes loads of work on both the supply and demand side, as you might expect, which might cut against the higher-end effectiveness estimates, but it's definitely something people have in mind.  

People from these teams spoke about this recently on the How I Learned To Love Shrimp podcast (here and here).

I think the problem of entities lying about what they're doing (especially in low trust regions) is wider than just corporate campaigns. Ultimately charities have to make some sort of decision on how and if to audit whether the outcomes they're expecting are the ones they're getting. 

Asking whether Sinergia had any way to evaluate whether companies were complying (before or after their intervention) is I think the main reason that it would have been good for VettedCauses to share their initial findings before publication. Sinergia appear to have Brazilian staff focused on this specific issue so they shouldn't have been ignorant of the relevant law, but it's possible they intentionally targeted companies they suspected were noncompliant (this is the whole theory of change behind Legal Impact for Chickens) and had some success. It is also possible they targeted companies they suspected were noncompliant and simply believed what the companies said in response. It is also possible there are loopholes and exemptions in the law. But I'd still have to agree that taking 70% of the credit for campaigning against something already made illegal is a bold claim, and some of the other claims Sinergia made don't seem justifiable either.

Hi David, thank you for taking the time to read our article. You make some interesting points.

In terms of the work Sinergia did to claim credit for helping millions of pigs, it is listed in Column W of this spreadsheet

For example, in Cell W5: "After the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and dozen of meetings, Aurora published in 2023 the commitment to banning surgical castration in pigs. Alianima engaged positively with the company."

Most of the descriptions are quite similar to this. Note that "Pigs in Focus" is an annual report that Sinergia began publishing in 2022. 

Hi Marcus, thank you for your reply. We agree with you on a lot of what you've said. However, we would like to clarify something.

However much American companies follow corporate commitments, I expect less of Brazilian ones.

As we noted in our review, Sinergia allegedly secured a teeth clipping commitment from Pif Paf Alimentos (PPA). 

Sinergia estimates that this commitment has helped over 1,000,000 piglets per year since 2023.  Sinergia cites a source for their estimate, but the source states PPA slaughters only 750,000 pigs per year.[1] This makes it questionable if PPA even has 1,000,000 piglets that could be teeth clipped each year.

Thus, Sinergia's estimate appears to rely on the assumption that without this commitment, PPA would have immediately started using teeth clipping on 100% of their piglets, but that with the commitment they will use teeth clipping on 0% of their piglets. 

Sinergia appears to make this same assumption for all of the piglet/sow welfare commitments they allegedly secured. 

Note: teeth clipping was also illegal in Brazil (PPA's country) prior to the alleged commitment[2], and an archived version of the web page Sinergia cites for the commitment shows that the alleged commitment was already on PPA's website prior to when the commitment was allegedly published[3].

 

  1. ^

    This information can be found in Row 12 of Sinergia's spreadsheet. Please let us know if there is anything we can clarify. 

  2. ^

    See Article 38Section 2 and Article 54 of Normative Instruction 113/2020.

  3. ^

    Archived web page from PPA's website from October 24, 2022. 

Regarding this point:

Sinergia estimates that this commitment has helped over 1,000,000 piglets per year since 2023.  Sinergia cites a source for their estimate, but the source states PPA slaughters only 750,000 pigs per year.[1] This makes it questionable if PPA even has 1,000,000 piglets that could be teeth clipped each year.

I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming. [E.g. Pre-weaning piglet mortality varies largely between farms and ranges from 5 % to 35 %. European Parliament, The EU Pig Meat Sector, Sep 2020] This means it’s entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.

Therefore, Sinergia’s estimate that 1,000,000 piglets per year benefit from teeth clipping could still be accurate. The 1,000,000 figure likely refers to the total number of piglets born, all of whom could potentially have their teeth clipped, rather than the number that survive to slaughter.

Thank you for your response Johannes! We really appreciate it when people take the time to read our analysis, and question specific points. We encourage everyone to do the same. 

I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming. 

We actually did account for pre-slaughter mortality rates in our analysis, but we used data specific to Brazil since that is where PPA is located. According to the study Swine Mortality and Productivity in Brazil – Benchmarks and Nutritional Solutions, the average pre-weaning mortality percentage is 8.91%, and the average growing-finishing mortality percentage is 3%. 

This means it’s entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.

We acknowledge it is possible over 1,000,000 piglets could be teeth clipped each year at PPA. However, based on the available data, we think it is questionable (as we stated above). 

Our main point in bringing up the slaughter numbers was to show that Sinergia’s estimate for the alleged commitment’s impact appears to rely on the assumption that without this commitment, PPA would have immediately started using teeth clipping on 100% of their piglets, but that with the commitment they will use teeth clipping on 0% of their piglets. This seems implausible given that PPA had already stated they don’t use teeth clipping prior to the alleged commitment, and teeth clipping was already illegal in Brazil prior to the alleged commitment.    

We’d also like to note that there are cases where Sinergia’s estimates are likely more than 100% of the pigs that could be affected. In the JBS example we used in our article, Sinergia estimates that a commitment to not use gestation crates in new projects impacts 290,000 sows per year (see Cell L10). To justify this, Sinergia cites Alianima's 2023 report, which states JBS has total 290,000 sows (see Cell P10). However, it seems very unlikely that JBS has 290,000 sows that are a part of new projects. We also checked the Alianima's 2024 report, and it states JBS has 297,000 sows. This leads us to believe JBS is starting new projects at a much lower rate than Sinergia estimated. 

With that being said, as we noted in our review, "the gestation crate policy that the alleged commitment references was already listed on JBS's website in 2020, and has been in effect since that point." In spite of this, Sinergia claims that JBS published a commitment for this in 2023 with a "Transition deadline" of 2023 (see Row 10). 

We can provide other examples of estimates from Sinergia that we suspect are inflated if you’d like. The critique we published contains only a small fraction of our full analysis, because brevity is a top priority in our reviews. 

Thanks for the clarification! 

Hi Abraham, thank you for taking the time to read our article and reply to this thread. We’re sorry for engaging with you negatively on our previous thread. 

I worry that Google translating pages loses nuance that might matter here. Google Translating Brazilian law also seems like a huge stretch as evidence

The only thing we’d like to say for this thread is that we spent several hundred hours working on this review, and we can assure you that we did a lot of work to verify that what we said is true. We did not just Google translate documents and accept the translations as factual. For the "Brazilian law" you reference, Sinergia themselves stated in their 2023 report that “teeth clipping is prohibited” under Normative Instruction 113/2020

If you'd like, we can provide additional sources stating this (one of our other sources cited in our article actually already does state this). However, the original writing of Normative Instruction 113/2020 is in  only in Portuguese, so we are unable to provide an English version. 

Hi everyone,

I’m Carolina, International Executive Director of Sinergia Animal.

I want to acknowledge that members of this community have shared this post with us, and we truly appreciate your engagement and interest in our work. A deep commitment to create real change, transparency and honesty have always been central to our approach, and we will address all concerns accordingly.

To clarify in advance, we have never taken credit for pre-existing or non-existent policies, and we will explain this in our response. We always strive to estimate our impact in good faith and will carefully review our methodology based on this feedback to address any concerns, if valid.

This discussion comes at a particularly busy time for us, as we have been attending EA Global while continuing our critical work across eight countries. We appreciate your patience as we prepare a thorough response.

As a best practice, we believe organizations mentioned by others in posts should have the chance to respond before content is published. We take the principle of the right to reply so seriously that we even extend it to companies targeted in our campaigns or enforcement programs. In that spirit, we will share our response with Vetted Causes via the email provided on their website 24 hours (or as much time as Vetted Causes prefers) before publishing it on the Forum.

The EA community has been a vital supporter of our work, and we hope this serves as an constructive opportunity to provide further insight into our efforts and approach.

Best,
Carolina

To echo some of the other comments, I also think this kind of detailed, external "red teaming" of cost-effectiveness calculations is great in general, and I'd like to see more of it. As someone who has supported Sinergia in the past, I was concerned about some of the claims, and took a few hours to do some shallow research of my own. Tl;dr, my personal opinion of Sinergia hasn't changed much, pending their response.

To address the specific criticisms:

I

Sinergia claims that "JBS published in 2023 the commitment to banning ear notching by 2023." As evidence for this claim, Sinergia provided a link to one of JBS's animal welfare pages.[12] However, the link does not state JBS committed to this. We also checked every archived version of the link and could not find this commitment. Further, in 2024, JBS stated that they still use ear notching due to "Difficulty in finding alternatives that ensure process traceability."

Sinergia's claim in Committed Companies 2023:

After the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and dozen of meetings, JBS published in 2023 the commitment to banning ear notching by 2023

Subsequent calculations assume that this commitment went into effect in 2023, well in advance of Brazil's legal deadline of 2030. However, Pig Watch 2023 states that JBS intended for this commitment to take effect in 2027, and Pig Watch 2024 updates this to "no longer has a defined deadline".

Depending on the timing, this could tell a consistent story in which JBS committed to the 2023 deadline, then changed it to 2027/undefined after Sinergia published the Committed Companies 2023 sheet. However, I would have expected the 2024 edition of Pigs in Focus to reduce JBS's ear notching ranking, but they still receive the full three points (which may suggest that Sinergia is not closely monitoring all of their existing commitments).

II

Sinergia claims that in 2023, JBS published a commitment to not use gestation crates in all new projects, with a "Transition deadline" of 2023. As evidence for this claim, Sinergia provided a link to one of the JBS's animal welfare pages. However, the gestation crate policy that the alleged commitment references was already listed on JBS's website in 2020, and has been in effect since that point.

Sinergia's claim in Committed Companies 2023:

JBS already had the commitment to banning the continuous use of gestation crates in all units and adopt mixed system by 2025 and after the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and dozen of meetings, JBS published in 2023 the commitment to adopt crate-free system for the new units.

From the (translated) link to JBS's 2020 policy:

In 2015, Seara made a commitment to carry out the transition from individual to collective gestation in its pig production. Even before 2015, the company already had females in collective gestation. However, since formally assuming the commitment, it has invested in new initiatives and adjustments. New projects or extensions are already built according to this standard and, in addition, the company has supported its integrated suppliers in fulfilling this commitment, so that its entire chain is adapted to the collective gestation system, progressively, until 2025.

I admit to not totally understanding the nuances here, but I read this as: Sinergia acknowledges that JBS already had a commitment to transition from individual to collective gestation (they refer to this as a "mixed system", I think because it still involves some use of gestation crates?) by 2025, and is not taking credit for this change. They do claim partial responsibility for JBS's commitment to adopt crate-free systems for all new units starting in 2023.

While this does sound like a distinct policy, I don't understand exactly how it relates to the "Para novos Projetos de Unidades de Produção de Leitões" (For new Piglet Production Unit Projects) section on JBS's current animal welfare page.

III

Sinergia claims credit for getting Alegra, Alibem, Master Agroindustrial, and Pif Paf Alimentos (all Brazilian meat processors) to end their use of teeth clipping on pigs. However, teeth clipping pigs was already illegal in Brazil prior to the alleged commitments.

In Committed Companies 2023, Sinergia does include claims about teeth clipping from these four companies, usually as part of a broader list of "Multilations banned" (including surgical castration and ear notching).

Re: Alegra specifically, from Pig Watch 2022:

Regarding the teeth of piglets, it is more important to confirm that clipping is already prohibited by the NI 113, and that grinding is allowed only when necessary. Alegra reported that it has not yet banned the procedure and that it has not set a deadline for it, in order to avoid injuries to the sows’ teats. Aurora pointed out that they do not recommend this handling as a routine practice on the farms, only in cases of extreme need, such as in cases of injuries to the sows and piglets, which compromises their welfare.

Alegra's rating in Pigs in Focus changed from one to three points between 2022 and 2023, so it seems at least plausible that Sinergia helped persuade them to end grinding. And indeed Pig Watch 2023 confirms:

In the 2022 edition, only BRF, JBS (Seara) and Pamplona had reported the end of teeth grinding. This year, Alegra also claimed to have banned the practice.

Note: the company appears to have backtracked on this commitment in 2024, which (unlike #1 above) is reflected in the latest Pigs in Focus (though I'm not sure what happened with the 2022 column).

IV

Sinergia claims credit for getting Aurora to end their use of surgical castration on pigs, but the company's website already indicated they don't use the surgical castration on pigs prior to the alleged commitment.

Sinergia says:

After the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and dozen of meetings, Aurora published in 2023 the commitment to banning surgical castration in pigs

Sinergia's criteria for full points on its "Criterion 4: Banning surgical castration" Pigs in Focus metric:

Instead of surgical castration, which involves cutting the scrotum and removing the testicles without the use of anesthesia or analgesia, companies can commit to adopting, for example, immunocastration, which involves the injection of a vaccine, thereby significantly reducing the pain and stress of the animals. If surgical castration is chosen, it must always be performed with proper pain management, meaning the use of anesthesia and analgesia.

In the 2022 version of Pigs in Focus, Sinergia says of Aurora:

Aurora states that immunological castration (vaccine) is recommended, but there is no deadline to adapt 100% of operations. The company also states that when surgical castration is performed, it must be done with anesthetic. However, there is no plan to include analgesics before 2030, an excessively long timeline.

And then in the 2023 edition:

Aurora meets the criteria for the end of surgical castration

So the way I read this, Aurora already had a policy recommending immunocastration prior to 2022, but still allowed surgical castration with anesthesia (but not analgesia) to be performed in some cases. I'm not clear what Sinergia claims changed in Aurora's 2023 commitment, but it plausibly could be either a complete ban on surgical castration, or the introduction of analgesia?

V

Sinergia claims credit for getting BRF to end their use of gestation crates in new projects, but BRF had already implemented a policy requiring this prior to the alleged commitment.

From Sinergia in Committed Companies 2023:

BRF already had the commitment to banning the continuous use of gestation crates in all units and adopt group housing systems by 2026. After the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and a dozen of meetings, JBS [sic] published in 2023 the commitment to adopt crate-free systems for all the new units.

Note: assuming "JBS" here is just a copy-paste error, but it could be something more fundamental.

From Pigs in Focus 2023:

BRF has evolved in its commitment to the gestation crates criterion with a transition deadline to a group housing system by 2026. The company recently announced its commitment to implementing the 'crate-free' system for all new projects starting in 2023. However, the company has not yet set a deadline for the complete phasing out of gestation crates in all its operations.

Like #2 above, Sinergia seems to be making a more limited claim that BRF is transitioning to crate-free (not just group housing or collective gestation) for new units starting in 2023. This at least seems consistent with BRF's 2019 commitments (prior to Sinergia's involvement), translated:

  1. We have made a public commitment to transition from the traditional sow housing system to the collective gestation system where animals are kept in pens with larger spaces and have group living. Since 2013, the collective gestation system has been mandatory in all Company expansion projects.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your comment. We will look at your analysis too.

I want to acknowledge that members of this community have shared this post with us, and we truly appreciate your engagement and interest in our work. A deep commitment to create real change, transparency and honesty have always been central to our approach, and we will address all concerns accordingly.

To clarify in advance, we have never taken credit for pre-existing or non-existent policies, and we will explain this in our response. We always strive to estimate our impact in good faith and will carefully review our methodology based on this feedback to address any concerns, if valid.

This discussion comes at a particularly busy time for us, as we have been attending EA Global while continuing our critical work across eight countries. We appreciate your patience as we prepare a thorough response.

As a best practice, we believe organizations mentioned by others in posts should have the chance to respond before content is published. We take the principle of the right to reply so seriously that we even extend it to companies targeted in our campaigns or enforcement programs. In that spirit, we will share our response with Vetted Causes via the email provided on their website 24 hours (or as much time as Vetted Causes prefers) before publishing it on the Forum.

The EA community has been a vital supporter of our work, and we hope this serves as an constructive opportunity to provide further insight into our efforts and approach.

Best,
Carolina

Hi,

When do you plan to publish your response?

Hi Dan, thank you for your reply.

Alegra's rating in Pigs in Focus changed from one to three points between 2022 and 2023, so it seems at least plausible that Sinergia helped persuade them to end grinding

Page 40-41 of Pig Watch 2024 indicates Alegra has not banned teeth grinding, and plans to follow Normative Instruction 113 (which allows teeth grinding in certain circumstances). Alegra is legally required to follow Normative Instruction 113

Additionally, we noticed that you reference Sinergia’s Pigs in Focus quite a lot, and wanted to caution you that from what we’ve found, Pigs in Focus is not a reliable source

For example, on page 30 of Alibem’s Sustainability Report, Alibem states they will “Maintain immunocastration instead of surgical castration – a procedure that was voluntarily eliminated from the Company’s protocols in 2010.”

However, on page 20 of Pigs in Focus 2023, Sinergia indicates that in 2022 Alibem had not banned surgical castration, but in 2023 Alibem had banned surgical castration. Further, Sinergia took credit for getting Alibem to ban surgical castration “by 2023” (see Cell K4).  

As was mentioned by several commenters on your last article, I think it would be valuable to share your article with ACE or Sinergia Animal before publishing it here.

Sharing evaluations with the evaluated org before publishing would likely make your analyses both more useful and more accurate, I'm curious to know why you decided against this.

Thank you for your comment, Lorenzo. 

We chose not to share the article with Sinergia or ACE before publishing it because:

  1. The claims we critique were publicly made—we are evaluating what Sinergia has already presented to donors, not private internal data.
  2. The evidence is verifiable—our conclusions are based on independently verifiable sources (archived web pages, legal regulations, etc.) that are cited throughout the article.
  3. Independent analysis is critical—allowing organizations to review critiques before publication can introduce biases that weaken accountability.

With that being said, we’re open to engagement. If Sinergia, ACE or anyone else believes any specific fact is incorrect, we’d be happy to review their evidence.

Do you think Sinergia and ACE almost certainly have no information you don't that could lead to different conclusions or interpretations of claims, in ways more favourable to Sinergia and/or ACE? Do you think there's no room for reasonable disagreement about whether the claims you call false are actually false?

E.g. see Abraham's comment.

Hi Michael, thank you for your reply. We definitely agree with you that there are potential benefits to reaching out to a charity before writing a review on them; our answer to both of your questions is "no." 

We have provided more information regarding the thought process behind our decision here

While I think reasons (1) and (2) are relevant to the degree of importance/value in advance notification is necessary, I just don't see any legitimate reason to rush to press here. If Singeria had just dropped new claims (especially during/just before the end of year fundraising period), or was in the public spotlight for some related reasons, then there would be a stronger argument for appreciable costs to delaying publication by a week. I don't see any justifications like that offered. I think you need some meaningful alleged harm from delay or advance notification before mitigating factors like (1) and (2) could come into play.

Reason (3) is unexplained -- why do you think hearing from the charity "can introduce biases"? Moreover, even if you believe that, I don't see why you couldn't at least send an advance copy to Singeria a week in advance with a pre-commitment that you were not going to change the text absent proof of a clear factual error. That would allow Singeria to prepare a response for submission concurrently with your critique, and for the reader to see both sides of the dispute at once. Choosing not to do so means that a decent number of readers who see your charges will not see Singeria's response, a state of affairs that does not further truth discovery.

As for myself, I am increasingly inclined not to read substantive critiques of this sort absent either good cause for not providing an advance copy or the passage of enough time for the organization to respond. If my Forum viewing habits mean I don't see the response (and don't remember to reopen the post after a week or so), then that's OK. I think the downside of missing some critiques is likely outweighed by avoiding the cognitive biases that can come with delayed presentation of the other side of the story and/or the risk of missing the other side when it comes out.  

Hi Jason, thank you for your reply.

We believe we have addressed your questions here. Please let us know if there is anything we missed. 

Very interesting.

I'd prefer if you pasted the post's content directly into the forum so I could avoid an unnecessary click (plus, the post isn't that long).

However, the post makes compelling arguments, and at least based on your data, it seems Sinergia makes overblown claims. Worth digging into.

I'd love to see how ACE and Sinergia respond to this.

Update: Several people have contacted us asking about our intentions regarding this review

To be clear, we release negative reviews not because we enjoy calling people out, but because we want problems to be fixed. Everyone makes mistakes, and most mistakes can be recovered from. If every charity shut down after they made a major mistake, there would be very few charities left. 

We hope the charities we’ve reviewed address the problems we’ve detailed. In the future, we may review them again, and hope that we are able to recommend them for doing great work.

We acknowledge that we may have not gone about this in the best manner. Still, we hope all of the concerns we have raised are properly addressed. 

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