Researcher

Job Description

• Application open date: June 1, 2026
• Application close date: June 30, 2026
• Reports To: Charity Evaluations Manager or Research Manager
• Hours: Full-time; 32-40 hours/week
• Salary: $72,358 USD
• Location: Remote but requires routine availability between 8-10 am PT
• Paid leave (vacations and holidays): 6 weeks per year

About Animal Charity Evaluators

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is a registered nonprofit that uses evidence and reason to help people do the most good for animals. We identify where donations can best help animals and award grants to promising projects around the globe. Our three core programs are Charity Evaluation & Recommendations, Movement Grants, and Meta-Fundraising.

Position summary

We are seeking a detail-oriented and strategic-minded individual to join our Programs team. As a researcher, you will keep up to date with developments and empirical literature relevant to effective animal advocacy, assess charities’ programs to find the most promising ones, and help share our thinking with the community to influence funding and decision-making. Leading up to each evaluation season, you’ll engage in literature searches, present and deliberate research findings with other team members with the goal of updating our stances on various interventions and theories of change, and refine our evaluation and grantmaking methods and processes (e.g., by developing quantitative models). During the evaluation season, you’ll apply these methods and models to assess grant applications and the work of charities selected for evaluation.

This position offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to a robust understanding of effective ways to help animals. This includes using tools from a wide range of disciplines, such as economics, philosophy, statistics, and animal welfare science, to help make decisions about where animal advocates should allocate our limited resources. Key benefits of working on ACE’s Programs team include learning about the effective animal advocacy movement, developing a strong network, developing and using a variety of skills, some degree of control over what projects you work on and how you work, and more. The ideal candidate will have strong reasoning and communication skills and bring to ACE a relevant background in quantitative modelling and/or cost-effectiveness analysis, impact evaluation, social change/movement ecology, or a related skill set that complements our team.

Key areas of responsibility

• Find and engage critically with studies and research relevant to effective animal advocacy. We currently view farmed animal advocacy and wild animal welfare as the most effective ways to help the greatest number of animals, but we are actively considering other possibilities. You will be at the forefront of our research, helping investigate new, exciting opportunities for maximizing our impact and defining the direction of our Charity Evaluation and Recommendations and Movement Grants programs.
• Produce written outputs from your research. You will translate research into charity reviews, blog posts, and other publications, and you will contribute to ACE’s research outputs, including our research library, research digest, and Better for Animals resource.
• Contribute to ACE’s research strategy. We are continually learning new information and considering our direction as an organization. You will have the opportunity to provide meaningful feedback in strategic discussions and shape ACE’s future research direction.
• Conduct charity evaluations. In collaboration with our team, you will conduct comprehensive assessments of charities worldwide, learning the intricacies of specific interventions and their implementations
• Contribute to ACE’s Movement Grants program. You will assess grant applications and contribute to granting decisions.
• Engage with external experts and other stakeholders. You will have regular meetings with others in the effective altruism and animal advocacy communities, gather external input on our methods and research, and represent ACE at conferences.
• Identify and implement improvements to ACE’s evaluations and grantmaking. You will help refine the core aspects of our evaluative work; e.g., identify research topics that support charity evaluations, improve the accuracy of our methods, or implement process improvements that streamline our team, our evaluated charities, and our Movement Grant applicants.

Sample projects

• Charity Evaluations. You will participate in charity evaluations, including identifying promising charities, building theory of change and cost-effectiveness models, preparing reviews for publication, and selecting charities for recommendation. (Example review: The Humane League.)
• Research for ACE’s Better for Animals resource. You will research, summarize, and integrate topics relevant to effective animal advocacy to inform ACE’s Charity Evaluations and Movement Grants programs. See our Better for Animals resource here.

Qualifications

Essential skills

• Commitment to ACE’s mission to find and promote the most effective ways to help animals
• Strong quantitative and qualitative reasoning skills
• Excellent understanding of and comfort with methods for quantifying impact and uncertainty (e.g., cost-effectiveness analysis, probability distributions, and expected value calculations)
• Excellent skills in spreadsheet software, especially Google Sheets
• Ability to find, interpret, and critically analyze relevant empirical research
• Shared commitment to increasing representation/diversity, equity, and inclusion in our movement and organization
• High degree of professionalism, including discretion in handling confidential information
• Ability to work remotely as part of a team
• Strong attention to detail, with a commitment to high-quality work
• Excellent written communication skills
• Highly organized and self-motivated

Preferred skills

Note: we do not expect one person to be skilled in all the things listed below

• Prior experience with economic/mathematical modeling: forecasting, modeling price elasticities, growth projections, etc.
• Prior experience with systems-change evaluation and/or systems mapping
• Prior experience with monitoring, evaluation, and learning
• Specialist knowledge or practical experience working in a particular animal advocacy intervention or animal group (e.g., fish welfare, alternative proteins, farmed invertebrates)
• Familiarity with the effective animal advocacy movement and funding landscape
• Excellent oral communication skills
• Demonstrated strategic thinking skills
• Skills in data visualization
• Solid understanding of social movements and social change
• Familiarity with effective altruism and counterfactual thinking
• AI fluency and the ability to use AI tools to enhance work efficiency

Benefits

Our team works hard, but we also make time for our families, animal companions, friends, hobbies, and of course, our own health. Full-time staff are eligible for the following benefits:

• 6 weeks of paid leave, split between PTO and holidays
• Uncapped sick leave
• Flexible scheduling
• A professional development stipend
• Paid parental, family, and medical leave
• Paid sabbaticals every 5 years
• A health reimbursement plan (US employees) or health stipend plan (non-US employees) to offset private insurance costs
• Disability insurance (US employees only)

Commitment to diversity and equal employment opportunities

We believe the best decisions are made when diverse perspectives are included. We want to engage all those who can contribute to our mission and to making an impact for animals.

We strongly encourage Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority, people of all gender identities, LGBTQ+ individuals, persons living with disabilities, caregivers, and people of various socioeconomic backgrounds to apply for this position. A college degree is not required.

Animal Charity Evaluators is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, creed or religion, sex, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, body size, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, family status, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member), ancestry, place of origin, social condition, political belief or activity, conviction of an offense for which a pardon has been granted or in which a record suspension has been ordered, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

Application Process

No cover letters or resumes will be accepted for this role at this stage. We believe that these introduce unnecessary bias as well as requiring candidates to guess which information we’re most interested in seeing. Instead, we will provide you with specific application questions that will allow you to demonstrate how your skills and experience align with what we’re looking for. We believe that this is the most efficient and effective way for you to highlight your qualifications and for us to evaluate them.

Timeline (intended but subject to change):

June 1-30: accepting applications

July 13-14: candidates will be contacted about the status of their application

July 14-19: select candidates will be invited to complete paid work tasks

July 29-Aug 5: interviews conducted

Aug 8: candidates will be informed of final hiring decision

• 6 weeks of paid leave, split between PTO and holidays
• Uncapped sick leave
• Flexible scheduling
• A professional development stipend
• Paid parental, family, and medical leave
• Paid sabbaticals every 5 years
• A health reimbursement plan (US employees) or health stipend plan (non-US employees) to offset private insurance costs
• Disability insurance (US employees only)
• 3% 401(k) or pension match

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