Project summary

We can't determine if charitable resources are being used effectively without monitoring and evaluating our programs and learning from the results.. However, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) remains an underutilized practice in the animal advocacy space. This lack of consistent MEL application limits our understanding of whether or how animal and vegan advocacy projects are achieving change for animals. Without these insights, there's a risk of investing time and resources in programs that may be less effective or even net-negative.

The Mission Motor works to increase the adoption of MEL practices within the animal advocacy community. By providing support, training, and resources, we help organizations gather reliable, actionable data, identify areas for improvement, and test different tactics and strategies. We also foster collaboration through a MEL sub-channel on Hive Slack, and host monthly online meetings for advocates interested in MEL. Our goal is to enhance the impact of current projects while building a deeper understanding of what works for animals in the long run.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

We aim to contribute to an animal advocacy movement that is more data driven and in which more cost-effective interventions are being implemented.

We will achieve this goal through training and supporting organizations to use MEL, collaborating with funders and researchers on how to optimize findings from MEL, and community wide sharing of knowledge and best practices.

How will this funding be used?

The funding will be used to develop, implement and test different paths of spreading MEL through the animal community, working with different stakeholders such as implementing organizations, funders, research organizations, and animal advocates interested in MEL.

Our draft budget for 2025 is between 285k and 360k USD. With the minimum budget we can continue our current training and support work for organizations, including sharing our knowledge through Hive Slack and online monthly meetings for animal advocates. With the upper budget we can test additional, potentially impactful paths, such as working with funders, working with groups of organizations working on similar programs and collaborating with research organizations.

Through the Manifund EA Community Project, we aim to raise 9.5k USD. This will give us an important initial runway in 2025, providing greater security to continue our work while we fundraise to cover the remainder of our budget.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

• Nicoll Peracha, Director with one year of experience of working with organizations on MEL, and over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, primarily on management and organizational development.

• Sophie Gulliver, MEL advisor and evaluation expert with over seven years of MEL experience in the global health and development sector and the animal movement.

• Jamie Spurgeon, MEL Associate with five years experience in evaluating animal charities and researching the impact of interventions.

• Koushik Raghavan, MEL Associate with experience as MEL officer within FIAPO, and a research and teaching background.

• Tom Billington, MEL Associate with two years of experience as a MEL consultant for animal organizations, and co-founder of FWI with a broad array of responsibilities, from research to high level strategy.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

We would identify two primary failure modes for The Mission Motor:

1. Organizations do not engage sufficiently with the MEL training and resources created. This is a key point in our theory of change, as good monitoring and evaluation requires a level of investment from the practicing organization. We aim to mitigate this through high levels of direct contact and by focusing resources on organizations that showcase a willingness to practice MEL.

2. Organizations are not willing to make substantive changes to their programming. Sometimes, good MEL practice can show that fundamental change is needed in a program. This can be a hard but important step for an organization. If they are unwilling to make large scale changes, The Mission Motor’s guidance will fail to make as large an impact. We aim to mitigate this by only continuing work with organizations that have shown a high openness to change.

What other funding are you or your project getting?

Our funding for 2024 is allocated by Craigslist Foundation, EA Animal Welfare Fund, Effectiv Spenden and some private donors. We are now seeking funding for our 2025 activities.