Introduction

This payout report covers the Animal Welfare Fund's grantmaking from October 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024 (3 months). It follows the previous April–October 2024 payout report.

As mentioned in the recently published 2024 review and the previous payout report, the Animal Welfare Fund made a conscious decision to increase transparency and prioritize more frequent communications about our work. As part of those efforts, we've resumed regular publication of detailed payout reports after previously reducing our public reporting to focus fund manager capacity on grant evaluations. With additional support now in place, we've streamlined our reporting process to provide comprehensive information about our grants and their intended impact. Given that these are recent grants, outcome data will not be included in the initial payout reports. We plan to share these reports quarterly to keep the community informed of our grantmaking activities.

• Total funding recommended: $1,328,106
• Total funding paid out: $1,012,822
• Number of grants paid out: 11
• Acceptance rate (excluding desk rejections): 13/49 = 26.5%
• Acceptance rate (including desk rejections): 13/182 = 7.14%

One of our grantees, who received $291,000, requested that we do not include public reports for their grants (you can read our policy on public reporting here). One grant has been approved but not yet paid out.

Highlighted Grants

Highlighted grants correspond to grants that the AWF team rated highly, usually because they thought the grant was very likely to be very cost-effective or the potential upside was likely very high.

Anonymous ($108,000): Creation of local bad-cop “groups” in Asia to drive corporate compliance of 2025 cage-free commitments

In October 2024, the Animal Welfare Fund provided a $108,000 grant to support the creation of local groups in five key countries in Asia to pressure companies to fulfill their 2025 cage-free commitments. Localized, targeted pressure significantly increases compliance with corporate cage-free commitments, but Asia currently lacks an existing mechanism to apply this pressure. Leaders across Asia will initiate these bad-cop groups to conduct consistent outreach and pressure at local and regional offices. These leaders will also collaborate with other regional and international animal welfare groups to initiate campaigns against companies who do not fulfill their commitments. The model used for this system of localized pressure has been historically successful in increasing compliance with cage-free commitments. While the organization establishing these local groups is new, the team involved have strong track records of animal welfare advocacy and a strong plan for implementation. The leadership is well-connected, which will allow them to strategically collaborate and identify supporters to initiate advocacy efforts.

Through these efforts, these groups aim to get 10 companies to announce that they will meet their cage-free commitments and 15 companies to report their progress. The countries involved slaughter nearly 800 million hens per year, so ensuring the fulfillment of these cage-free commitments will improve the wellbeing of vast numbers of hens and will set a strong precedent for other companies to comply with cage-free commitments. Therefore, given the importance of ensuring fulfillment of cage-free commitments, we believe this project has high expected value.

Open Wing Alliance ($200,000): Funding for strategic regranting to drive fulfillment of the 2025 cage-free corporate commitments in key regions

In December 2024, the Animal Welfare Fund provided a grant of $200,000 to Open Wing Alliance (OWA) to support cage-free advocacy efforts through accountability work on existing commitments as well as strategically securing new commitments. This grant is meant to support OWA’s regranting to organizations around the world, especially in the Global South. With many deadlines for cage-free commitments approaching in 2025, this is a particularly critical time to push for implementation, which was one important motivation for this grant. These efforts will directly decrease hen suffering significantly.

This project addresses one of the largest global sources of animal suffering. OWA has a strong track record and an in-depth understanding of the need for additional cage-free work. We assessed that OWA have a room for more funding, so we recommended this grant to support their efforts. This project has a high likelihood of increasing the wellbeing of millions of hens and is especially cost-effective.

Other writings

The following articles or posts published since the last payout report can provide a good overview of the Animal Welfare Fund, or otherwise be very helpful to donors and community members.

• Ask Us Anything
  • The fund managers of the AWF held a week-long Ask Us Anything to provide clarity on any questions related to AWF’s operations, evaluation strategy, priorities, hiring process, and any other topics of interest.

Grants Funded through Partner Organizations

For some applications submitted to the fund, the AWF evaluates the proposal and recommends them to partner organizations to fund the proposal. In these cases, the partner organization completes due diligence, issues a grant agreement, and pays out the grant, but the AWF still receives progress reports from the organization to track the grant’s success. These grants are included in the “total funding recommended” but not the “total funding paid out.” During this period, the AWF recommended two grants to be funded by partner organizations:

• Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği (Farmed Animals Protection Association) ($60,000): General support to cover 15% of our operational budget in 2024
• Sinergia Animal ($218,284): General support for animal welfare corporate policies and institutional meat reduction programs

Other Grants We Made During This Time Period

Below is a list of 8 other grants, totaling nearly $414,000, that the Animal Welfare Fund made during this period to support work on animal welfare in many countries.