Thanks so much for your question and interest in our work!
Is there a way of supporting RP’s wild animal welfare research without any unrestricted funds currently supporting it moving to other work (including research on farmed animals)?
Yes, absolutely. Since we do not currently have any unrestricted funds allocated to wild animal welfare, a restricted donation to this area would not cause funding shifts between departments, or animal welfare sub-causes. Instead, it would directly increase our capacity for wild animal welfare work. In fact, wild animal welfare is the least funded area of our animal welfare portfolio, despite its importance and potential for impact.
Our animal welfare work is primarily funded through restricted donations for specific projects or sub-causes, with most directed toward non-invertebrate and non-wild animal priorities. Only ~11% of RP’s overall funding is unrestricted, and based on our current plans, donating to the Animal Welfare Department would not result in unrestricted funds being redirected elsewhere.
We take donor preferences very seriously. For larger donations, we’re happy to explicitly increase the budget for a department, sub-cause, or project by the exact amount of your contribution, eliminating any potential fungibility concerns entirely. For small donations (relative to project costs), there may be practical limitations if a project requires significantly more funding to proceed, but we’ll inform you if this is the case and will always work to honor donor preferences.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
It is interesting RP’s work on wild animal welfare is not supported by unrestricted funds. It suggests the people at RP responsible for allocating the unrestricted funds think there is other work from RP which is more cost-effective at the margin. How are unrestricted funds allocated? I think it would be great for RP to be transparent about this considering donations become unrestricted funds by default.
Will donations restricted to RP’s work on invertebrate welfare (including farmed, wild, and other invertebrates) also not go towards vertebrate welfare (including humans, and vertebrate animals)? Which fraction of the funds supporting invertebrate welfare are unrestricted? I asked these questions about wild animal welfare, but I am actually specially interested in invertebrate welfare.
Thank you for your follow-up questions about our funding allocation.
You noted it’s interesting that wild animal welfare isn’t supported by unrestricted funds, suggesting this might imply we believe other work is more cost-effective at the margin. In fact, this allocation isn’t a reflection of our views on the comparative cost-effectiveness of wild animal or invertebrate welfare work. Rather, it stems from the practical reality of having a very limited pool of truly unrestricted funding.
Even when donations are technically unrestricted, donors often express strong preferences for the areas they’d like their gifts to support. This means that, in practice, an even smaller percentage of our funds are treated as fully discretionary. Of that small portion, we have to prioritize operational stability—especially core infrastructure such as finance and operations which supports all research areas. This currently accounts for over 90% of this year’s unrestricted funds.
The remainder is allocated strategically based on a mix of considerations beyond just cost-effectiveness, including urgent needs, time-sensitive opportunities, fundraising challenges in different departments, and more.
On invertebrate welfare and wild animal welfare specifically: Increasing our capacity in both areas remains a priority. While we’re not currently able to allocate unrestricted funds to them, there are valuable opportunities where targeted donations can still make a marginal difference without displacing existing funds.
Our funding situation evolves year to year though. In stronger years, we’ve allocated close to $500K in unrestricted funding to animal welfare. For example, the Moral Weight Project was only made possible because of that flexibility.
With greater unrestricted support in future, we could potentially distribute more to historically underfunded areas like invertebrate and wild animal welfare, while still meeting our essential operational needs.
I hope this clarifies our approach. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have further questions.
Thanks for clarifying, Hannah! As a result, I plan to recommend donating to RP’s work on invertebrate welfare going forward together with my other top recommendations.
Hi Vasco,
Thanks so much for your question and interest in our work!
Is there a way of supporting RP’s wild animal welfare research without any unrestricted funds currently supporting it moving to other work (including research on farmed animals)?
Yes, absolutely. Since we do not currently have any unrestricted funds allocated to wild animal welfare, a restricted donation to this area would not cause funding shifts between departments, or animal welfare sub-causes. Instead, it would directly increase our capacity for wild animal welfare work. In fact, wild animal welfare is the least funded area of our animal welfare portfolio, despite its importance and potential for impact.
Our animal welfare work is primarily funded through restricted donations for specific projects or sub-causes, with most directed toward non-invertebrate and non-wild animal priorities. Only ~11% of RP’s overall funding is unrestricted, and based on our current plans, donating to the Animal Welfare Department would not result in unrestricted funds being redirected elsewhere.
We take donor preferences very seriously. For larger donations, we’re happy to explicitly increase the budget for a department, sub-cause, or project by the exact amount of your contribution, eliminating any potential fungibility concerns entirely. For small donations (relative to project costs), there may be practical limitations if a project requires significantly more funding to proceed, but we’ll inform you if this is the case and will always work to honor donor preferences.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks for the great clarifications, @Daniela Waldhorn!
It is interesting RP’s work on wild animal welfare is not supported by unrestricted funds. It suggests the people at RP responsible for allocating the unrestricted funds think there is other work from RP which is more cost-effective at the margin. How are unrestricted funds allocated? I think it would be great for RP to be transparent about this considering donations become unrestricted funds by default.
Will donations restricted to RP’s work on invertebrate welfare (including farmed, wild, and other invertebrates) also not go towards vertebrate welfare (including humans, and vertebrate animals)? Which fraction of the funds supporting invertebrate welfare are unrestricted? I asked these questions about wild animal welfare, but I am actually specially interested in invertebrate welfare.
Hi Vasco,
Thank you for your follow-up questions about our funding allocation.
You noted it’s interesting that wild animal welfare isn’t supported by unrestricted funds, suggesting this might imply we believe other work is more cost-effective at the margin. In fact, this allocation isn’t a reflection of our views on the comparative cost-effectiveness of wild animal or invertebrate welfare work. Rather, it stems from the practical reality of having a very limited pool of truly unrestricted funding.
Even when donations are technically unrestricted, donors often express strong preferences for the areas they’d like their gifts to support. This means that, in practice, an even smaller percentage of our funds are treated as fully discretionary. Of that small portion, we have to prioritize operational stability—especially core infrastructure such as finance and operations which supports all research areas. This currently accounts for over 90% of this year’s unrestricted funds.
The remainder is allocated strategically based on a mix of considerations beyond just cost-effectiveness, including urgent needs, time-sensitive opportunities, fundraising challenges in different departments, and more.
On invertebrate welfare and wild animal welfare specifically: Increasing our capacity in both areas remains a priority. While we’re not currently able to allocate unrestricted funds to them, there are valuable opportunities where targeted donations can still make a marginal difference without displacing existing funds.
Our funding situation evolves year to year though. In stronger years, we’ve allocated close to $500K in unrestricted funding to animal welfare. For example, the Moral Weight Project was only made possible because of that flexibility.
With greater unrestricted support in future, we could potentially distribute more to historically underfunded areas like invertebrate and wild animal welfare, while still meeting our essential operational needs.
I hope this clarifies our approach. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have further questions.
Hannah Tookey (Development Officer, Rethink Priorities)
Thanks for clarifying, Hannah! As a result, I plan to recommend donating to RP’s work on invertebrate welfare going forward together with my other top recommendations.
You’re welcome! And thank you for recommending our invertebrate welfare work—it’s much appreciated :)