Announcing the Strategic Animal Funding Circle!

By JamesÖz @ 2024-08-29T11:35 (+93)

(Yes, yet another funding circle. Thank Ambitious Impact.)

I’m excited to announce the launch of the Strategic Animal Funding Circle, a new group of donors looking to support cost-effective and high-impact farmed animal welfare nonprofits during a critical growth phase where targeted funding can have an immense impact.

We’ve just launched our first Request For Proposals which you can see in this document, as well as being outlined below. 

Apply here by September 20th to be considered for our first funding round. We aim for applicants to hear back on a decision by early November. 

If there are any donors (either currently giving or willing to give upwards of $100-250k to farmed animals per year) interested in joining, feel free to email me at jozden[at]mobius.life. We expect the funding circle will expose donors to more high-impact opportunities, create the space for important discussions and reduce vetting inefficiencies.

Request for Proposals

About this Funding Opportunity

We are a group of donors looking to support cost-effective and high-impact farmed animal welfare and protection nonprofits during a critical growth phase where targeted funding can have an immense impact.

Grants will initially be one-off support, though renewals may be possible in some cases at the discretion of individual donors. In this round, we expect up to $1,000,000 will be available for funding across all grants - though this depends on the funder-applicant fit.

Eligibility Criteria:

• The intervention is focused on improving outcomes in farmed animal welfare or protection which could include reducing the suffering of farmed animals, promoting the development of alternative proteins or reducing the consumption of animal products.
• The intervention can be service delivery, policy work, or any other intervention type that delivers measurable impact in improving animal welfare outcomes.
• You are a registered not-for-profit entity or are partnering with one as a fiscal agent.
• Has the potential and willingness to scale; and
• Preference is given towards organizations with less than 4 years of operating history, or less than 500k USD in annual budget. 

Selection Criteria: What Makes a Competitive Application?

Competitive applications will have the following qualities:

• A Great Idea: The applicant is proposing an innovative program where funding can catalyze progress.
• Demonstrated Funding Gap: Support will enable work which wouldn't otherwise happen. We are most excited about areas that are neglected by other major farmed animal funders.
• Indications of Impact: The applicant can demonstrate results through metrics, internal data, or models backed by external data. Especially strong applicants state a “north star” metric by which they want to be held accountable in ~5 years.
• Scalability: The applicant has concrete expansion plans to scale and achieve significantly more impact.
• Continuity/Sustainability Plan: The applicant explains clearly how they will build on this grant.
• Cost Effectiveness: We are looking to support interventions that are highly cost-effective in achieving positive outcomes for animals. 
• Quality of Evidence: What studies, data, or information exists to indicate that the program is or will be successful?

How to Apply:

Apply here by September 20th to be considered for our first funding round. We aim for applicants to hear back on a decision by the end of October 30th.

Future Rounds:

We plan to invite and review applications twice per year, one round in Fall and another in Spring.

About the Strategic Animal Funding Circle:

We are a group of donors who support promising farmed animal welfare and animal protection nonprofits during the critical growth phase where targeted funding can have immense impact. By coordinating funding during this inflection point, we help elevate the next generation of farmed animal welfare and animal protection innovators. See here for an explanation of why farmed animals are a particularly promising group of animals to focus on.

There are several programs helping early-stage groups start up. And later on, a select few highly-effective nonprofits attract substantial attention from major funders. But between these stages lies a gap - a time when organizations lack the track record to attract major donations yet have demonstrated initial success and have the capacity and willingness to scale. We seek to bridge this gap by identifying and propelling organizations poised to maximize impact for animal populations in need.