Hi Pablo! I wanted to offer two thoughts that are admittedly not answers to your questions, but complicate how I think about questions like this.
1. I don’t typically think of questions like this as either/or questions, but “to what degree” questions. A movement that successfully eliminates animal suffering, ends factory farming, or however you might frame the goal of organizations like THL and GFI will likely require both approaches. The question then is to what degree should each intervention be funded to create an optimal movement ecosystem.
2. One consideration that I wanted to offer, which may not fit neatly into a model like what you’re looking for, is the role of philanthropy as a funding source for that intervention type. From what I understand, an organization like GFI is able to attract non-philanthropic sources of funding, like venture capital and perhaps government funding, as you suggest. An advocacy organization like THL, due to its adversarial role, is not. This increases the importance of philanthropic funding for an organization like THL.
Hi Caroline, thanks for the reply. I think you are very right in that both approaches are complementary and we should support both. There’s even a chance that advocacy campaigns may end up creating momentum from which alternative proteins could benefit. It is also true that alternative proteins may be able to access funds that are not available to corporate advocacy campaigns or similar, not just VC but also government support. That may also be the reason why GFI is highlighting the environmental aspect which is an easier sell outside of EA or animal welfare circles. Still, GFI is itself only charity funding (as far as I know) so we may argue donations to them act as a catalyst. In any case, I posed this question because I think we lack a formal model to make decisions on what types of interventions make more sense. It is as if in the area of Global Health people did not have models that allowed them to compare setting up water infrastructure vs water chlorination or wells. I think parametric models could shed some light on the optimal capital allocation between interventions, or at least make decision making more clear.
Based on your analysis, if GFI functions as a catalyst for venture capital and government investments, each dollar donated to GFI would likely generate multiplier effects through leveraged funding. This suggests that donations to GFI may be more cost-effective than direct-impact donations to THL.
I think GFI has claimed this in the past, and given their role of large coordinator of the area I’m inclined to believe their conterfactual importance. However the problem is that without a downstream model of how dollars convert into averted animal suffering, it is quite hard to prioritise between theories of change.
Hi Pablo! I wanted to offer two thoughts that are admittedly not answers to your questions, but complicate how I think about questions like this.
1. I don’t typically think of questions like this as either/or questions, but “to what degree” questions. A movement that successfully eliminates animal suffering, ends factory farming, or however you might frame the goal of organizations like THL and GFI will likely require both approaches. The question then is to what degree should each intervention be funded to create an optimal movement ecosystem.
2. One consideration that I wanted to offer, which may not fit neatly into a model like what you’re looking for, is the role of philanthropy as a funding source for that intervention type. From what I understand, an organization like GFI is able to attract non-philanthropic sources of funding, like venture capital and perhaps government funding, as you suggest. An advocacy organization like THL, due to its adversarial role, is not. This increases the importance of philanthropic funding for an organization like THL.
Hi Caroline, thanks for the reply. I think you are very right in that both approaches are complementary and we should support both. There’s even a chance that advocacy campaigns may end up creating momentum from which alternative proteins could benefit. It is also true that alternative proteins may be able to access funds that are not available to corporate advocacy campaigns or similar, not just VC but also government support. That may also be the reason why GFI is highlighting the environmental aspect which is an easier sell outside of EA or animal welfare circles. Still, GFI is itself only charity funding (as far as I know) so we may argue donations to them act as a catalyst. In any case, I posed this question because I think we lack a formal model to make decisions on what types of interventions make more sense. It is as if in the area of Global Health people did not have models that allowed them to compare setting up water infrastructure vs water chlorination or wells. I think parametric models could shed some light on the optimal capital allocation between interventions, or at least make decision making more clear.
I wholeheartedly agree :) Thanks, Pablo!
Based on your analysis, if GFI functions as a catalyst for venture capital and government investments, each dollar donated to GFI would likely generate multiplier effects through leveraged funding. This suggests that donations to GFI may be more cost-effective than direct-impact donations to THL.
I think GFI has claimed this in the past, and given their role of large coordinator of the area I’m inclined to believe their conterfactual importance. However the problem is that without a downstream model of how dollars convert into averted animal suffering, it is quite hard to prioritise between theories of change.