In 2017, we set a fundraising cap for unrestricted donations to ACE, where we pledged that we would only accept donations for ACE until we reached a total of $1 million for the year. Thanks to our generous supporters, we reached that goal at the end of November. At that point, we were able to shift course and focus the entirety of our efforts on raising money for our recommended charities, which included a year-end gift-matching opportunity for our new Recommended Charity Fund.

We think that setting a cap worked well. Many philanthropists communicated to us that they were comfortable donating to ACE earlier in the year knowing that we would only take in as much as we could effectively spend. They were also excited at the prospect of allowing us to spend the entire year-end giving season focused solely on raising money for our recommended charities.

In addition to the components noted above and independently of our budget cap, we will offer opportunities to donors who want to contribute restricted funds for specific research projects in our experimental research work. Quality research can be expensive; increases of funding in this area will not lead to any loss of efficiency from staff, as these funds will be used for materials and to recruit participants.

We are currently working to prioritize the most impactful research projects, so prospective funding may be limited by what we select as promising options.

Read the full article about funding for Animal Charity Evaluator by John Bockman from Animal Charity Evaluators.