2. CEās charities working on animal welfare have mostly not been very good, and listening to external feedback prior to launching them would have told them this would happen.
[...] doesnāt do CEās original proposed idea anymore
On the point of the charities not doing CEās originally proposed idea anymore, I want to clarify that we donāt see charities tweaking an idea as a failure but rather as the expected course of action we encourage. We are aware of the limitations of desktop research (however in-depth), and we encourage organizations to quickly update based on country visits, interactions with stakeholders, and pilot programs they run. There are just some informations that a researcher wouldnāt be able to get, and they need input from someone working on the ground. For example, when Rethink Priorities was writing their report on shrimp welfare, they consulted SWP extensively to gain that perspective. Because CE charities operate in extremely neglected cause areas, there is often no other āimplementerā our research team can rely on. Therefore, organizations are usually expected to change the idea as they learn in their first months of operations. I see this as a success in ingraining the values of changing oneās mind in the face of new evidence, seeking this evidence, and making good decisions on the side of co-founders with the support of their CE mentors, and we are happy when we see it happen. There is a complex trade-off to be made when balancing the learning value from more in-depth desktop research vs. more time spent on learning as one implements, and I donāt think CE always gets it right, but the latter perspective is often misunderstood and underappreciated in the EA space.
Regarding charities specifically, in general, we expect about a 2ā5 āhit rateā (rarely because of the broad idea being bad, more often because the implementation is challenging for one reason or another), and many people, including external charity evaluators and funders, have a different assessment of some of the charities you list. That being said, if you have any specific feedback about the incubated organizationās strategies or ideas, please reach out to them. As you mentioned, they are open to hearing input and feedback. Similarly, if you have specific suggestions about how CE can improve its recommendations, please get in touch with our Director of Research at sam@charityentrepreneurship.com; we appreciate specific feedback and conversation about how we can improve. Thank you for your support of multiple CE charities so far!
I definitely agree that organizations should pivot as they learn about how an intervention works in practice. I think the errors I refer to are more things of the type: a cursory glance from an animal welfare scientist could have told you your research was missing key considerations, and the charity would have not wasted time on the recommended intervention. These seem cheap to prevent and preventable issues.
Thanks for clarifying! We always have an expert view section in the report, and often consult animal science specialists, but it is possible we missed something. Could you tell me where specifically we made a mistake regarding animal science that could have changed the recommendation? I want to look into it, to fact-check it, and if it is right not to make this mistake in the future.
It looks like the report has been taken down, but I think the degree to which you pushed dissolved water oxygenation for fish welfare before launching Fish Welfare Initiative is an especially strong example of this. At the time I heard skepticism from many experts. You can see a reference to that report in this post. This report is another example of something that I think would not have passed any kind of rigorous external review.
Thanks! Can you tell me more about why you think improving dissolved oxygen is not a good idea? I still consider poor dissolved oxygen to be a major welfare problem for fish in the setting where the charity is expected to operate, and improving it through various means (assuming we also keep stocking density constant or decreasing it) would be good for their welfare. This has been validated in the field by FWI in this assessment and studied by others, so Iām a bit surprised. Unless you are referring to specific interventions to improve dissolved oxygen, of which I have high uncertainty about their cost-effectiveness.
And about the report you link, I broadly agree and have written about it below.
On the point of the charities not doing CEās originally proposed idea anymore, I want to clarify that we donāt see charities tweaking an idea as a failure but rather as the expected course of action we encourage. We are aware of the limitations of desktop research (however in-depth), and we encourage organizations to quickly update based on country visits, interactions with stakeholders, and pilot programs they run. There are just some informations that a researcher wouldnāt be able to get, and they need input from someone working on the ground. For example, when Rethink Priorities was writing their report on shrimp welfare, they consulted SWP extensively to gain that perspective. Because CE charities operate in extremely neglected cause areas, there is often no other āimplementerā our research team can rely on. Therefore, organizations are usually expected to change the idea as they learn in their first months of operations. I see this as a success in ingraining the values of changing oneās mind in the face of new evidence, seeking this evidence, and making good decisions on the side of co-founders with the support of their CE mentors, and we are happy when we see it happen.
There is a complex trade-off to be made when balancing the learning value from more in-depth desktop research vs. more time spent on learning as one implements, and I donāt think CE always gets it right, but the latter perspective is often misunderstood and underappreciated in the EA space.
Regarding charities specifically, in general, we expect about a 2ā5 āhit rateā (rarely because of the broad idea being bad, more often because the implementation is challenging for one reason or another), and many people, including external charity evaluators and funders, have a different assessment of some of the charities you list. That being said, if you have any specific feedback about the incubated organizationās strategies or ideas, please reach out to them. As you mentioned, they are open to hearing input and feedback. Similarly, if you have specific suggestions about how CE can improve its recommendations, please get in touch with our Director of Research at sam@charityentrepreneurship.com; we appreciate specific feedback and conversation about how we can improve. Thank you for your support of multiple CE charities so far!
I definitely agree that organizations should pivot as they learn about how an intervention works in practice. I think the errors I refer to are more things of the type: a cursory glance from an animal welfare scientist could have told you your research was missing key considerations, and the charity would have not wasted time on the recommended intervention. These seem cheap to prevent and preventable issues.
Thanks for clarifying! We always have an expert view section in the report, and often consult animal science specialists, but it is possible we missed something. Could you tell me where specifically we made a mistake regarding animal science that could have changed the recommendation? I want to look into it, to fact-check it, and if it is right not to make this mistake in the future.
It looks like the report has been taken down, but I think the degree to which you pushed dissolved water oxygenation for fish welfare before launching Fish Welfare Initiative is an especially strong example of this. At the time I heard skepticism from many experts. You can see a reference to that report in this post. This report is another example of something that I think would not have passed any kind of rigorous external review.
Thanks! Can you tell me more about why you think improving dissolved oxygen is not a good idea? I still consider poor dissolved oxygen to be a major welfare problem for fish in the setting where the charity is expected to operate, and improving it through various means (assuming we also keep stocking density constant or decreasing it) would be good for their welfare. This has been validated in the field by FWI in this assessment and studied by others, so Iām a bit surprised. Unless you are referring to specific interventions to improve dissolved oxygen, of which I have high uncertainty about their cost-effectiveness.
And about the report you link, I broadly agree and have written about it below.