Our Global Impact
FWI's Annual Cost-Effectiveness
Organizational Cost-Effectiveness
1
Fish per dollar
This number considers all expenses since FWI's founding in 2019 and counts all fishes FWI has helped in various countries and programs.
This number is relevant for our marginal cost-effectiveness as an organization. Note however that most additional funding right now supports our R&D work, which will enable us to become more cost-effective in the future.
Farm Program (ARA) Cost-Effectiveness
10
Fishes per dollar
This number considers only ARA program expenses for the past year (2024)—so excluding R&D ones—and counts only fishes helped through interventions at the ARA.
This number is relevant for comparing the ARA to other programs, both at FWI and at other organizations. Note that the ARA is currently our only program aimed at making an immediate impact—our other programs are still in the R&D stage.
See more detailed calculations.
Fishes Potentially Helped
This includes all the fishes we have helped already.
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1.806M
Fishes potentially helped through welfare improvements
Last updated: April 30, 2024
Fishes Potentially Helped
This includes all the fishes we have helped already.
2.9M
Fishes potentially helped through welfare improvements
Last updated: March 5, 2025
How We Define Fishes Potentially Helped
In “fishes potentially helped,” we include all the fishes living in a fish farm where
1) we have implemented a welfare improvement that we believe otherwise would not have been implemented, and
2) we feel ≥80% confident that the welfare improvement made a positive impact on the fishes.
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These criteria are subjective but given the limited welfare indicators and uniqueness of each instance of fishes helped at this stage, we believe that they give us the most conservative and accurate estimates.
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We are working towards a more rigorous welfare assessment system. Until then, we want to be fully transparent about which fishes we count as helped and are thus explaining each instance in detail on our publicly available Total Impact sheet. The explanations on there are written by our ground staff who requested the respective welfare improvements from farmers. They include information on expected intensity and duration of the welfare improvement.
To get the number of fishes helped per dollar, we divide the sum of fishes living in a farm with welfare improvements by the total expenses we have had as a charity so far.
Helping Fishes Through Our Farm Program
Currently, most of the fishes we help result from working with farmers through the Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture (ARA). Specifically, they live on farms where we believe we have been responsible for stocking density and/or water quality improvements.
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Helping Fishes Through Stocking Density Improvements
When joining the ARA, farmers commit to reducing their stocking densities to acceptable limits based on available, welfare-related research. We believe that stocking density limits are an important part of fishes' welfare because they improve overall water quality and can reduce the risk for diseases.
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We only count fishes as helped if the stocking density reduction is 20% or more and verified through a harvest event.
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Helping Fishes Through Water Quality Improvements
We identified water quality as one of the major welfare infringements for fishes on Indian farms. Few farmers conduct adequate water quality assessments, frequently leaving their fishes to live in unsuitable conditions. ARA staff visit farmers for regular water quality assessments to detect potential water quality issues. If a parameter falls outside our required ranges, we request the farmer to implement corrective actions to improve water quality and, ultimately, fish welfare.
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We only count fishes as helped if the corrective actions would not have otherwise been implemented and we are at least 80% confident that the improvement made a positive impact on the fishes' lives.
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​The graph below further explains the process of helping fishes through water quality improvements at the ARA.
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Learn more about our ARA program:
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Impact Dashboard: Explore real-time data and key indicators of the program.
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Pictures from the Field: ​See our farm program in action in this slideshow.
Shrimps Potentially Helped
Note: We are much less certain about the number of shrimps helped and the impact our interventions have on shrimps' lives.
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1.4M
Shrimps potentially helped through welfare improvements
Last updated: March 5, 2025
How we define shrimps potentially helped
In “shrimps potentially helped,” we include all the shrimps living in a farm where we have implemented a welfare improvement that we believe otherwise would not have been implemented. To get the number of shrimps helped per dollar, we divide the sum of shrimps living in a farm with welfare improvements by the total expenses we have had as a charity so far.
All of the shrimps we help results from working with farmers through the Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture. Specifically, they live on farms where we believe we have been responsible for stocking density and/or water quality improvements targeting the fishes in the farm. As such, the impact we have on shrimps is indirect through targeting fishes.
As our programming develops, we are working with progressively fewer shrimp farmers and thus do not expect our number of shrimps helped to increase significantly from current levels.
Areas of Impact
India:
2,870,000 fishes
1,400,000 shrimps
Philippines:
10,000 fishes
Portugal:
56,000 fishes
Note: In India, we primarily help fishes through the Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture.
In Portugal, we worked with one producer to improve welfare.
In the Philippines, we helped fishes through our Farmer Engagement Project.
Limitations of our numbers​
1.
We don’t (currently) assess magnitude. The numbers of fishes potentially helped do not consider the degree to which they were helped.​ While our welfare improvements theoretically should improve fish welfare, given the on-the-ground implementation difficulties and our current lack of a rigorous impact analysis, we are still significantly uncertain about the magnitude of our per-fish impact. Thus, it is unfortunately possible that our improvements are currently only having a trivial impact. In part address this uncertainty, we are planning to develop a welfare assessment protocol in 2024. In the long-run, we aspire that FWI (as well as all animal welfare organizations) move towards a system like that of the Welfare Footprint Project.
2.
We generalize. It is possible that some fishes counted may not have suffered in the absence of our intervention. For example, water quality is dynamic depending on where fish are in the farm. Thus, we do not know with certainty that all individuals would have suffered under water quality levels we deem inadequate.​
3.
We only count the fishes we know of. It is common for there to be fish within a farm that have not been intentionally stocked by the farmer, such as invasive fishes who enter the system through in-flow or fishes that were not successfully removed in previous harvests. We expect that in almost all cases our improvements will also positively improve these fishes’ lives. However, we do not currently have a way to account for our impact on these individuals, so they are excluded.​
4.
We focus primarily on fishes, not shrimps. We work with farmers farming fish or shrimp, or both in polyculture. Thus, our welfare improvements affect both fishes and shrimps. We see the fishes' lives we improve as our primary area of impact because our interventions are targeting fish species. We are even less certain of the impact we have on shrimps, even though farmers stock a lot more shrimps in each farm. ​
5.
We have limited shrimp welfare knowledge. We know much less about shrimp welfare. The focus of our improvements and measurements has been on fishes. As such, we are less confident that shrimps have been significantly positively affected by our interventions than we are for fishes. However, we are relatively confident that the improvements we make that target fish welfare can benefit shrimps, mainly because improving water quality parameters like dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH is essential for shrimp welfare.
Thank you for making this impact possible.