Open Philanthropy donations made to Mercy For Animals

This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of July 2024. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.

Table of contents

Basic donor information

ItemValue
Country United States
Affiliated organizations (current or former; restricted to potential donees or others relevant to donation decisions)GiveWell Good Ventures
Best overview URLhttps://causeprioritization.org/Open%20Philanthropy%20Project
Facebook username openphilanthropy
Websitehttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/
Donations URLhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants
Twitter usernameopen_phil
PredictionBook usernameOpenPhilUnofficial
Page on philosophy informing donationshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/vision-and-values
Grant application process pagehttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/guide-for-grant-seekers
Regularity with which donor updates donations datacontinuous updates
Regularity with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update)continuous updates
Lag with which donor updates donations datamonths
Lag with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update)days
Data entry method on Donations List WebsiteManual (no scripts used)
Org Watch pagehttps://orgwatch.issarice.com/?organization=Open+Philanthropy

Brief history: Open Philanthropy (Open Phil for short) spun off from GiveWell, starting as GiveWell Labs in 2011, beginning to make strong progress in 2013, and formally separating from GiveWell as the "Open Philanthropy Project" in June 2017. In 2020, it started going by "Open Philanthropy" dropping the "Project" word.

Brief notes on broad donor philosophy and major focus areas: Open Philanthropy is focused on openness in two ways: open to ideas about cause selection, and open in explaining what they are doing. It has endorsed "hits-based giving" and is working on areas of AI risk, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, and other global catastrophic risks, criminal justice reform (United States), animal welfare, and some other areas.

Notes on grant decision logistics: See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/our-grantmaking-so-far-approach-and-process for the general grantmaking process and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/questions-we-ask-ourselves-making-grant for more questions that grant investigators are encouraged to consider. Every grant has a grant investigator that we call the influencer here on Donations List Website; for focus areas that have Program Officers, the grant investigator is usually the Program Officer. The grant investigator has been included in grants published since around July 2017. Grants usually need approval from an executive; however, some grant investigators have leeway to make "discretionary grants" where the approval process is short-circuited; see https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/discretionary-grants for more. Note that the term "discretionary grant" means something different for them compared to government agencies, see https://www.facebook.com/vipulnaik.r/posts/10213483361534364 for more.

Notes on grant publication logistics: Every publicly disclosed grant has a writeup published at the time of public disclosure, but the writeups vary significantly in length. Grant writeups are usually written by somebody other than the grant investigator, but approved by the grant investigator as well as the grantee. Grants have three dates associated with them: an internal grant decision date (that is not publicly revealed but is used in some statistics on total grant amounts decided by year), a grant date (which we call donation date; this is the date of the formal grant commitment, which is the published grant date), and a grant announcement date (which we call donation announcement date; the date the grant is announced to the mailing list and the grant page made publicly visible). Lags are a few months between decision and grant, and a few months between grant and announcement, due to time spent with grant writeup approval.

Notes on grant financing: See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/guide-for-grant-seekers or https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/who-we-are for more information. Grants generally come from the Open Philanthropy Fund, a donor-advised fund managed by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, with most of its money coming from Good Ventures. Some grants are made directly by Good Ventures, and political grants may be made by the Open Philanthropy Action Fund. At least one grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/criminal-justice-reform/working-families-party-prosecutor-reforms-new-york was made by Cari Tuna personally. The majority of grants are financed by the Open Philanthropy Project Fund; however, the source of financing of a grant is not always explicitly specified, so it cannot be confidently assumed that a grant with no explicit listed financing is financed through the Open Philanthropy Project Fund; see the comment https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/october-2017-open-thread?page=2#comment-462 for more information. Funding for multi-year grants is usually disbursed annually, and the amounts are often equal across years, but not always. The fact that a grant is multi-year, or the distribution of the grant amount across years, are not always explicitly stated on the grant page; see https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/october-2017-open-thread?page=2#comment-462 for more information. Some grants to universities are labeled "gifts" but this is a donee classification, based on different levels of bureaucratic overhead and funder control between grants and gifts; see https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/october-2017-open-thread?page=2#comment-462 for more information.

Miscellaneous notes: Most GiveWell-recommended grants made by Good Ventures and listed in the Open Philanthropy database are not listed on Donations List Website as being under Open Philanthropy. Specifically, GiveWell Incubation Grants are not included (these are listed at https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=GiveWell+Incubation+Grants with donor GiveWell Incubation Grants), and grants made by Good Ventures to GiveWell top and standout charities are also not included (these are listed at https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=Good+Ventures%2FGiveWell+top+and+standout+charities with donor Good Ventures/GiveWell top and standout charities). Grants to support GiveWell operations are not included here; they can be found at https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=Good+Ventures%2FGiveWell+support with donor "Good Ventures/GiveWell support".The investment https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/impossible-foods in Impossible Foods is not included because it does not fit our criteria for a donation, and also because no amount was included. All other grants publicly disclosed by open philanthropy that are not GiveWell Incubation Grants or GiveWell top and standout charity grants should be included. Grants disclosed by grantees but not yet disclosed by Open Philanthropy are not included; some of them may be listed at https://issarice.com/open-philanthropy-project-non-grant-funding

Full donor page for donor Open Philanthropy

Basic donee information

ItemValue
Country United States
Facebook page mercyforanimals
Websitehttp://www.mercyforanimals.org/
Donate pagehttp://www.mercyforanimals.org/donate
Twitter usernameMercyForAnimals
Wikipedia pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_for_Animals
Instagram usernamemercyforanimals
Timelines wiki pagehttps://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_Mercy_For_Animals
Org Watch pagehttps://orgwatch.issarice.com/?organization=Mercy+For+Animals
Key peopleNathan Runkle
Launch date1999

Full donee page for donee Mercy For Animals

Donor–donee relationship

Item Value

Donor–donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 8 1,000,000 1,721,750 261,000 261,000 375,000 500,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 3,000,000 6,638,000 6,638,000
Animal welfare 8 1,000,000 1,721,750 261,000 261,000 375,000 500,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 3,000,000 6,638,000 6,638,000

Donation amounts by cause area and year

If you hover over a cell for a given cause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.

Note: Cause area classification used here may not match that used by donor for all cases.

Cause area Number of donations Total 2021 2019 2018 2017 2016
Animal welfare (filter this donor) 8 13,774,000.00 3,000,000.00 6,899,000.00 375,000.00 500,000.00 3,000,000.00
Total 8 13,774,000.00 3,000,000.00 6,899,000.00 375,000.00 500,000.00 3,000,000.00

Graph of spending by cause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)

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Graph of spending by cause area and year (cumulative)

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Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (6 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
Some thoughts on recent Effective Altruism funding announcements. It's been a big week in Effective Altruism2022-03-03James Ozden Open Philanthropy FTX Future Fund FTX Community Fund FTX Climate Fund Mercy For Animals Charity Entrepreneurship Miscellaneous commentaryLongtermism|Animal welfare|Global health and development|AI safety|Climate changeIn this blog post, cross-posted at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Wpr5ssnNW5JPDDPvd/some-thoughts-on-recent-effective-altruism-funding (GW, IR) to the EA Forum, James Ozden discusses recent increases in funding by donors aligned with effective altruism (EA) and makes forecasts for the amount of annual money moved by 2025. Highlights of the post: 1. The entry of the FTX Future Fund is expected to increase the proportion of funds allocated to longtermist causes to increase to become more in line with what EA leaders think it should be (based on the data that https://80000hours.org/2021/08/effective-altruism-allocation-resources-cause-areas/ compiles). 2. Grantmaking capacity needs to be scaled up to match the increase in available funds. 3. The EA movement may need to shift from marginal thinking to coordination dynamics, as their funding amounts are no longer as marginal. 4. Entrepreneurs, founders, and incubators are needed. 6. We need to be more ambitious.
Staff Members’ Personal Donations for Giving Season 20172017-12-18Holden Karnofsky Open PhilanthropyHolden Karnofsky Alexander Berger Nick Beckstead Helen Toner Claire Zabel Lewis Bollard Ajeya Cotra Morgan Davis Michael Levine GiveWell top charities GiveWell GiveDirectly EA Giving Group Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative Effective Altruism Funds Sentience Institute Encompass The Humane League The Good Food Institute Mercy For Animals Compassion in World Farming USA Animal Equality Donor lottery Against Malaria Foundation GiveDirectly Periodic donation list documentationOpen Philanthropy Project staff members describe where they are donating this year, and the considerations that went into the donation decision. By policy, amounts are not disclosed. This is the first standalone blog post of this sort by the Open Philanthropy Project; in previous years, the corresponding donations were documented in the GiveWell staff members donation post.
How to end animal agriculture as soon as possible2017-09-27Robert Wiblin Lewis Bollard 80,000 HoursOpen Philanthropy Mercy For Animals Compassion in World Farming The Humane League The Humane Society of the United States Humane Society International The Good Food Institute Animal Equality Animal Charity Evaluators Broad donor strategyAnimal welfare/factory farmingPodcast with interview of Lewis Bollard (Farm Animal Welfare Program Officer at the Open Philanthropy Project) by Robert Wiblin of 80000 Hours, along with transcript. The podcast covers the strategy of the Open Philanthropy Project. 80000 Hours is an Open Philanthropy Project grant recipient and Wiblin was also on the board of Animal Charity Evaluators, an animal welfare-focused grant recipient that is discussed in the podcast.
Why Are the US Corporate Cage-Free Campaigns Succeeding?2017-04-11Lewis Bollard Open PhilanthropyOpen Philanthropy The Humane League Mercy For Animals The Humane Society of the United States Compassion in World Farming USA Review of current state of cause areaAnimal welfare/factory farming/cage-free campaignLewis Bollard, Open Philanthropy Project Program Officer for Animal Welfare, who brought passion about cage-free campaigns to the organization when he joined, provides a timeline of cage-free campaigns and an assessment of the success of these campaigns, and the role of the Open Philanthropy Project as a funder.
Grisly Undercover Video Shows Chickens Being Starved To Produce More Eggs2016-10-11Nico Pitney Huffington PostOpen Philanthropy Humane Society International Mercy For Animals Animal Equality People for Animals The Humane League Third-party coverage of donor strategyAnimal welfare/factory farming/chicken/cage-free campaign/internationalProvides some context for the move by the Open Philanthropy Project in mid-2016 to expand its cage-free campaign funding internationally.
Initial Grants to Support Corporate Cage-free Reforms2016-03-31Lewis Bollard Open PhilanthropyOpen Philanthropy The Humane League Mercy For Animals The Humane Society of the United States Broad donor strategyAnimal welfare/factory farming/chicken/cage-free campaign/internationalWritten to explain a bunch of grants already made in 2016-02 to support cage-free reforms in the United States for egg-laying chicken. The blog post had a heated comment section, potentially influencing future Open Phil communication on the subject.

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (8 donations)

Graph of all donations (with known year of donation), showing the timeframe of donations

Graph of donations and their timeframes
Amount (current USD)Amount rank (out of 8)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
3,000,000.0022021-06Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/broiler chicken/cage-fre/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-campaigns-2021Lewis Bollard Amanda Hungerford Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support corporate engagement on animal welfare. MFA plans to use this funding to continue its cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campaigns in Latin America and the United States, respectively."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant follows up on several past grants for similar uses, and reasons for past grants, including strong track record, probably apply. Nothing is explicitly mentioned on the grant page.

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): No explicit reason is given for the amount, but the amount is about half the amount of the previous two-year grant. The smaller grant amount may reflect a shorter timeframe of this grant.

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant is made around the end of the two-year timeframe of the previous grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-campaigns-2019 (2019-07) that had a very similar intended use of funds. It is likely motivated by the end of the previous grant.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States|Latin America.
6,638,000.0012019-07Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/broiler chicken/cage-free/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-campaigns-2019Lewis Bollard Donation process: This larger grant appears to have been under consideration at the time of https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-us-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaigns (May 2018) that said: "We expect to evaluate the merits of a longer renewal of our support to MFA closer to the end of 2018."

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support corporate engagement on animal welfare and capacity building. MFA plans to continue its broiler chicken campaigns and cage-free egg enforcement work in the U.S. and Canada and its cage-free egg campaigns in Brazil and Mexico."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant follows up on several past grants for similar uses, and reasons for past grants, including strong track record, probably apply. Nothing is explicitly mentioned on the grant page.

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): No explicit reason for the amount is provided; this is a much larger grant than any past grant to MFA. The grant page says: "The grant amount was updated in February, March, and July 2020, and in March 2021."

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): This larger grant appears to have been under consideration at the time of https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-us-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaigns (May 2018) that said: "We expect to evaluate the merits of a longer renewal of our support to MFA closer to the end of 2018." The timing of the grant is likely determined by the evaluation being completed.
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor retrospective of the donation: The followup grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-campaigns-2021 (2021-06) for a very similar intended use of funds suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States|Canada|Brazil|Mexico.
261,000.0082019-01Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/broiler chicken/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-broiler-welfare-campaignsLewis Bollard Donation process: This seems like a followup grant to https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-us-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaigns and is likely informed by considerations affecting that and earlier grants, and also by the progress since then.

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support corporate campaigns to improve the welfare of broiler chickens. [...] Their welfare is impacted by genetics, overcrowding, inhumane slaughter, and environmental factors like chronic sleep deprivation due to lighting schedules optimized for growth. Broiler welfare campaigns seek to address these causes of suffering."
375,000.0072018-05Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/broiler chicken/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-us-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaignsLewis Bollard Donation process: Discretionary grant

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support its broiler chicken welfare corporate campaigns in the U.S."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page links the grant to two past grants https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaigns (broiler chicken welfare) and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaigns (cage-free egg campaign).

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant happens around two years after the linked previous two-year grants https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaigns (broiler chicken welfare) and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaigns (cage-free egg campaign) suggesting that its timing is related to their expiration.

Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: The grant page says: "We expect to evaluate the merits of a longer renewal of our support to MFA closer to the end of 2018."

Donor retrospective of the donation: Followup grants from Open Phil to Mercy For Animals (including https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-broiler-welfare-campaigns in January 2019 with a similar scope) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States; announced: 2018-06-14.
500,000.0062017-05Animal welfare/factory farminghttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-india-animal-welfare-reformLewis Bollard Donation process: The grant is one of five grants made around the same time supporting farm animal welfare work in India. A budget https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/Mercy_For_Animals/Mercy_For_Animals_India_Farmed_Animal_Advocacy_Budget.pdf is included.

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support new farm animal welfare work in India. The grant will help support undercover investigations, corporate campaigns, research, and policy-related campaign activities over the next two years." The budget https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/Mercy_For_Animals/Mercy_For_Animals_India_Farmed_Animal_Advocacy_Budget.pdf has a breakdown per year is: $135,000 for investigation costs, $40,000 for investigations-related research costs, $50,000 for compensation for two corporate campaign staffers, $25,000 for compensation for one policy advocate staffer/lobbyist.

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "We are excited about the grant primarily because of Mercy For Animals’ track record of successful undercover investigations in the U.S.; our Program Officer for Farm Animal Welfare, Lewis Bollard’s, confidence in Mercy For Animals’ relevant leadership staff; and the potential opportunity we see in India—one of the world’s largest producers of eggs, fish, and chicken—to encourage farm animal welfare reforms and advocacy."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The budget https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/Mercy_For_Animals/Mercy_For_Animals_India_Farmed_Animal_Advocacy_Budget.pdf has a breakdown per year is: $135,000 for investigation costs, $40,000 for investigations-related research costs, $50,000 for copmensation for two corporate campaign staffers, $25,000 for compensation for one policy advocate staffer/lobbyist.

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant is one of five grants made around the same time supporting farm animal welfare work in India.
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor retrospective of the donation: Several followup grants from Open Phil to Mercy For Animals suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee.

Other notes: Affected countries: India; announced: 2017-08-03.
1,000,000.0032016-11Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/broiler chicken/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-broiler-chicken-welfare-corporate-campaignsLewis Bollard Donation process: A budget proposal https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/Mercy_For_Animals/Final_MFA_Broiler_Welfare_Campaign_Proposal_for_the_Open_Philanthropy_Project.pdf was sought. The grant page lacks further detail.

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support corporate campaigns to promote the welfare of broiler chickens."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant is part of a strategy focus on broiler chicken welfare in late 2016, though no overarching document on this has been posted. See https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAnimalActivism/search/?query=broiler%20chicken for more.

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The budget proposal gives total annual campaign costs of $500,000 / year for two years. The breakdown is as follows: six broiler welfare corporate outreach staff positions ($300,000), broiler welfare corporate campaign expenses ($150,000), public relations to secure media coverage on broiler welfare issues and campaigns ($25,000), and campaign volunteer recruitment to increase number of active broiler welfare campaign volunteers ($25,000).

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant is part of a strategy focus on broiler chicken welfare in late 2016, though no overarching document on this has been posted. See https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAnimalActivism/search/?query=broiler%20chicken for more.
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor retrospective of the donation: Several followup grants from Open Phil to Mercy For Animals suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States|Canada; announced: 2017-01-10.
1,000,000.0032016-08Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/cage-free/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-international-cage-free-advocacyLewis Bollard Donation process: The donation is part of a bunch of corporate cage-free campaign spending. See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/initial-grants-support-corporate-cage-free-reforms for more background. For this specific grant, a budget https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/Mercy_For_Animals/MFA_Budget_International_Cage-Free_Campaigns_Expansion_8-1-16.pdf was obtained from the grantee.

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant to "end the confinement of hens in battery cages. [...] [The grant will] support Mercy For Animals’ work in Latin America and Asia." A simplified budget ($500,000/year) is at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Grants/Mercy_For_Animals/MFA_Budget_International_Cage-Free_Campaigns_Expansion_8-1-16.pdf with breakdown of $212,500 for Brazil, $192,500 for Mexico, $40,000 for Asia, and $55,000 for international campaign coordination from the United States.

Donor reason for selecting the donee: No reasons specific to the grantee are listed, but https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/initial-grants-support-corporate-cage-free-reforms lists several reasons for the general focus on cage-free reforms, and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chickens-animal-abuse-video_us_57fac5c5e4b0e655eab5485d describes the reasons for the internationalization phase.

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing matches the timing of other grants in this second phase (internationalization) of corporate cage-free campaign spending.
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor retrospective of the donation: Several further grants from Open Philanthropy to Mercy For Animals suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee.

Other notes: Affected countries: Brazil|Mexico; announced: 2016-10-03.
1,000,000.0032016-02Animal welfare/factory farming/chicken/cage-free/corporate campaignhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaignsLewis Bollard Donation process: This donation is part of a bunch of corporate cage-free campaign spending. See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/initial-grants-support-corporate-cage-free-reforms for more. The grant page https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaigns#Our_process says: "As MFA is one of the main organizations running corporate animal welfare campaigns, we contacted MFA to discuss the possibility of funding the organization for corporate cage-free campaigns."

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaigns#Proposed_activities says: "MFA will use this grant to build a corporate cage-free egg campaigning team. Now that advocates have gotten almost all major fast food and food service chains to go cage-free, MFA’s goal is to get the rest of the grocery industry to go cage-free as well."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaigns#Case_for_the_grant says: "We believe corporate cage-free egg campaigns are a particularly cost-effective approach for reducing farm animal suffering [...] [MFA] seems well-positioned to campaign for corporate cage-free reforms, particularly given its past experience with campaigns in the grocery sector. [...] more than two million Facebook followers, 200,000+ member email list, celebrity contacts, network news connections, top investigations unit, and grassroots network [...] We believe the most likely outcome [...] slightly worse than the estimate of 120 hens spared per dollar that we gave previously. [...] Even if returns are sublinear, we believe cage-free egg campaigns would still be relatively cost-effective; if, for example, our $1 million grant to MFA only generates one major grocer victory over two years [...] 25 hens spared per dollar."

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): This donation is part of a bunch of corporate cage-free campaign spending. See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/initial-grants-support-corporate-cage-free-reforms for more.
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/mercy-animals-corporate-cage-free-campaigns#Follow-up_expectations says: "We expect to have a conversation with MFA staff every 3-6 months for the next two years, with public notes if the conversation warrants it. At the one-year mark, we expect to provide an update on this grant, either by publishing public notes or by producing a brief write-up. Towards the end of the grant, we plan to attempt a more holistic and detailed evaluation of the grant’s performance."

Donor retrospective of the donation: A followup conversation with Nick Cooney of grantee organization at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/Nick_Cooney_08-01-16_%28public%29.pdf would happen on 2016-08-01. Several followup grants from Open Phil to MFA suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States; announced: 2016-03-10.