[Question] Does anyone have up to date estimates on the most effective charities helping chickens?

[Omnizoid]

How effective are the best chicken charities per dollar? I know that there have been different estimates over time—anyone know the most current ones.

[LChamberlain]

Hi there! I work for Sinergia Animal. Sinergia was just recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators for the seventh year in a row, and as part of that assessment, ACE supplied the following figures:

Every $1 donated to Sinergia Animal =

• 53.5 hens freed from cages, or

• 21 mother pigs (or 354 piglets) spared from brutal confinement and painful procedures, or

• Three animal-based meals replaced with plant-based options.

I believe this is the first year since 2019 that ACE has supplied quantitative cost effectiveness estimates like these as a part of their reviews. So only charities that were evaluated in 2024 have these figures. Of the 2024-reviewed charities, Sinergia appears to help the highest number of hens per dollar spent. But that cohort doesn’t include THL or other charities that were last evaluated in 2023.

It’s also worth mentioning that, of course, cost-effectiveness can be highly influenced by many factors, like different costs of living in different countries, countries where there is more momentum and a stronger movement, etc. I am saying this because there might be charities doing outstanding work who have lower cost-effectiveness than Sinergia, and we truly admire their efforts and don’t want to position ourselves as being more effective /​ ‘better’ than they are.

More information on Sinergia Animal can be found here if you’re interested.

I’m sure someone from ACE can provide a more thorough response to your question, but I hope what I’ve written is helpful.

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Hi LChamberlain,

You may be interested in my quick analysis of the estimates you mentioned from Animal Charity Evaluators. I estimate your cage-free program is more than 935 times (= 0.00107) as cost-effective as your meal replacement program.

[LChamberlain]

Thanks so much for this Vasco. FYI, I shared your comment with the team this week; we’re working on a response for you :)

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Thanks, LChamberlain! It has now been a month, so I am sending this kind reminder.

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Hi Omnizoid,

I have recently posted a cost-effectiveness analysis on corporate campaigns for chicken welfare. I used Saulius Šimčikas’ estimates from 2019, Open Philanthropy’s adjustment from 2023, and some others I added in my own analysis. I conclude broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns are:

• 168 and 462 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities, i.e., way more.

• 0.261 % and 0.718 % as cost-effective as Shrimp Welfare Project’s Humane Slaughter Initiative, i.e., way less.

[Mo Putera]

I thought it’d be helpful to improve comparability with LChamberlain’s answer on Sinergia Animal by being a bit more object-level:

• Saulius previously estimated that a dollar donated to support corporate cage-free commitments historically helped free somewhere between 9 to 120 hens from cages, with a mean of 42 hens; since their average lifespan is 1.1–1.5 years that’s 54 years of improved life per dollar. Vasco then discounts this by −80% going forward to incorporate Open Phil’s thinking that “we’ve covered many of the strongest opportunities in this space, and we think that current marginal opportunities are considerably weaker” to get ~8.4 hens freed per dollar donated

• From LChamberlain’s answer, ACE estimates Sinergia’s work to free 53.5 hens per dollar, which is >6x Vasco’s estimate for (presumably) cage-free campaigns in general and slightly above Saulius’ average

I’d be curious to understand how much of this ~6x difference is a ‘best charity implementing an intervention’ thing (which I’m guessing is what Omnizoid asked for? Akin to how cost per person treated is the most important consideration for MH treatment interventions), and how much is due to differences in methodology, considerations included/​excluded (e.g. OP’s “current marginal opportunities are considerably weaker”), inputs, etc.

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Thanks, Mo! I had actually made that comparison, but had not yet seen LChamberlain’s answer.

Trusting these [Animal Charity Evaluator’s] numbers, your [Sinergia’s] cage-free campaigns are very cost-effective. Each hen lives for “60 to 80 weeks”, i.e. 1.34 years (= (60 + 80)/​2*7/​365.25), so your cage-free campaigns improve 71.0 hen-yeas per $ (= 53*1.34). This is 6.57 (= 71.0/​10.8) times the 10.8 hen-years per $ implied by Open Philanthropy’s adjustment of Saulius Šimčikas’ estimate, and respects a cost-effectiveness of 24.2 DALY/​$ (= 6.57*3.69).

[Mo Putera]

I missed that, thanks for pointing it out Vasco! And always appreciate the thoroughness and transparency of your estimates.