Society for the Protection of Insects (SPI) is a charity that was founded in 2023. SPI claims to do litigation work and have "pending cases," but says that this work is confidential for "operational reasons."
In reality, SPI has never filed a lawsuit, never litigated a case, and legally—never had a "pending case."
SPI publicly claims that its litigation work must remain confidential due to "operational reasons." Specifically, SPI claims that sharing information would "compromise pending cases."
This creates the false impression that SPI is litigating ongoing cases that require confidentiality. In reality, SPI has never litigated a case.
There is nothing confidential about filing zero lawsuits and litigating zero cases.
Prior to publishing our first review of SPI, we shared a draft with SPI, and SPI told us that they didn't want us to mention that SPI's work is confidential since it could raise suspicion from industry.
We accommodated SPI's request by removing all mentions of SPI's work being confidential from our review, including a section that said: "There is nothing inherently wrong with keeping information confidential. In many cases, confidentiality is appropriate or even necessary."
SPI then publicly responded to our review stating: "Much of our current efforts involve policy advocacy and litigation, which we keep confidential for operational reasons - sharing details publicly would compromise pending cases and policy advocacy strategies."
In other words, SPI stopped us from mentioning confidentiality, and then raised confidentiality as a defense. This made it look like Vetted Causes was intentionally omitting relevant information, and also made it look like Vetted Causes was lying, as we DM'd a commenter to inform them of SPI's desire to not have it publicly stated that their work is confidential.
SPI says they "spent $0 in [their] entire first fiscal year (2024-2025)," but in January 2025 SPI's website already stated that they reform pesticide use, protect endangered insects, and challenge insect factory farming. SPI further describes their work as "three core initiatives [that] strengthen and reinforce each other, forming a powerful foundation for lasting change."
It is impossible to reform pesticide use with $0.
There is nothing wrong with a new charity having limited or no accomplishments—every organization has to start somewhere. However, honesty is essential.
SPI has never litigated a case, has never filed a lawsuit, and spent $0 in its first fiscal year. In spite of this, SPI presents itself as an active litigation and policy organization that reforms pesticide use. Rather than being transparent about its progress, SPI invoked confidentiality to create the false impression of ongoing cases—while simultaneously asking us to remove references to that same confidentiality.
This is especially concerning because SPI is competing with other new charities that are honest about their work, even when it means acknowledging slow progress or a lack of early results. Many of these charities are struggling to raise funding, while SPI secures donations with inaccurate claims. This kind of dishonesty doesn't just hurt donor trust—it undermines the entire field. We do not recommend donating to SPI.
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References were last checked on June 26, 2025.