I think your list undercounts the number of animal-focused EAs. For example, it excludes Sentience Politics, which provided updates through the EA newsletter in September 2016, January 2017, and July 2017. It also excludes the Good Food Institute, an organization which describes itself as “founded to apply the principles of effective altruism (EA) to change our food system.” While GFI does not provide updates through the EA newsletter, its job openings are mentioned in the December 2017, January 2018, and March 2018 newsletters. Additionally, it excludes organizations like the Humane League, which while not explicitly EA, have been described as having a “largely utilitarian worldview.” Though the Humane League does not provide updates through the EA newsletter, its job openings are mentioned in the April 2017 newsletters, February 2018, and March 2018.
Perhaps the argument for excluding GFI and the Humane League (while including direct work organizations in the long term future space) is that relatively few people in direct work animal organizations identify as EAs (while most people in direct work long term future organizations identify as EA). If this is the reason, I think it’d be good for someone to provide evidence for it. Also, if the idea behind this method of counting is to look at the revealed preference of EAs, then I think people earning to give have to be included, especially since earning to give appears to be more useful for farm animal welfare than for long term future causes.
(Most of the above also applies to global health organizations.)
I picked the ‘updates’ purely in the interests of time (easier to skim), that it gives some sense of what orgs are considered ‘EA orgs’ rather than ‘orgs doing EA work’ (a distinction which I accept is imprecise: would a GW top charity ‘count’?), and I (forlornly) hoped pointing to a method, however brief, would forestall suspicion about cherry-picking.
I meant the quick-and-dirty data gathering to be more an indicative sample than a census. I’d therefore expect significant margin of error (but not so significant as to change the bottom line). Other relevant candidate groups are also left out: BERI, Charity Science, Founder’s Pledge, ?ALLFED. I’d expect there are more.
I think your list undercounts the number of animal-focused EAs. For example, it excludes Sentience Politics, which provided updates through the EA newsletter in September 2016, January 2017, and July 2017. It also excludes the Good Food Institute, an organization which describes itself as “founded to apply the principles of effective altruism (EA) to change our food system.” While GFI does not provide updates through the EA newsletter, its job openings are mentioned in the December 2017, January 2018, and March 2018 newsletters. Additionally, it excludes organizations like the Humane League, which while not explicitly EA, have been described as having a “largely utilitarian worldview.” Though the Humane League does not provide updates through the EA newsletter, its job openings are mentioned in the April 2017 newsletters, February 2018, and March 2018.
Perhaps the argument for excluding GFI and the Humane League (while including direct work organizations in the long term future space) is that relatively few people in direct work animal organizations identify as EAs (while most people in direct work long term future organizations identify as EA). If this is the reason, I think it’d be good for someone to provide evidence for it. Also, if the idea behind this method of counting is to look at the revealed preference of EAs, then I think people earning to give have to be included, especially since earning to give appears to be more useful for farm animal welfare than for long term future causes.
(Most of the above also applies to global health organizations.)
I picked the ‘updates’ purely in the interests of time (easier to skim), that it gives some sense of what orgs are considered ‘EA orgs’ rather than ‘orgs doing EA work’ (a distinction which I accept is imprecise: would a GW top charity ‘count’?), and I (forlornly) hoped pointing to a method, however brief, would forestall suspicion about cherry-picking.
I meant the quick-and-dirty data gathering to be more an indicative sample than a census. I’d therefore expect significant margin of error (but not so significant as to change the bottom line). Other relevant candidate groups are also left out: BERI, Charity Science, Founder’s Pledge, ?ALLFED. I’d expect there are more.