The Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) is one of my top recommendations too. Do you have any thoughts on my estimate that the cost-effectiveness of Fish Welfare Initiativeâs (FWIâs) farm program from January to September 2024 was only 0.0111 % of SWPâs past cost-effectiveness? I guess FWI will become more cost-effective in the future, but I do not see how they would come close to SWP.
I am surprised you are recommending the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) without doing any cost-effectiveness analysis of their work. Here is a quick illustration of why I think they are much less cost-effective than SWP:
You say that, âsince 2021, ALDF has had average annual expenditures of $16,189,282â. So they would have to have helped 24.3 billion animals per year (= 1.50*10^3*16.2*10^6) to have helped as many animals per year per $ as SWP.
9.91 billion land animals were slaughtered for meat in the United States (US) in 2023. So ALDF would have to have helped 2.45 (= 24.3*10^9/â(9.91*10^9)) times as many animals per year as those slaughtered for meat in the US in 2023 to have helped as many animals per year per $ as SWP. This seems way too much to be feasible considering their interventions do not target aquatic animals, or land invertebrates.
I understand impact is not directly proportional to the number of animals helped, but I believe the impact per animal helped may well be larger for SWP than ALDF. I estimate SWP averts the equivalent of 0.0426 DALYs per shrimp helped, which I think is as good as preventing the existence of 0.463 broilers (= 0.0426/â(0.754*0.122)) in a conventional scenario.
Our goal at Vetted Causes is to provide unbiased, accurate information to help readers make their own donation decisions. While we include cost-effectiveness estimates when feasible, we hope that donors consider other factors, such as:
How much the animals are helped: Stunning improves a shrimpâs experience for a few minutes, while improving water quality may help a fish every day of their life. Which matters more, and to what degree?
Species: How much (if at all) do we prioritize the suffering of larger or more cognitively complex animalsâsuch as pigs, cows, or fishâover that of shrimp?
Helping future animals vs. current ones: Animals are suffering today, and itâs valuable to relieve that suffering. But should we focus on immediate change (which may just be a temporary fix), or prioritize long-term structural improvements?
We see cost-effectiveness analysis as a valuable tool, but in some cases, it requires so many uncertain assumptions that it risks obscuring more than it reveals. In certain cases, two reasonable models can differ so much that one suggests a massive impact, and the other little to no impact.
Our hope is that donors to use cost-effectiveness estimates as one input, rather than treating them as final scores. Our goal isnât to say which charity is âbest,â but to offer high-quality information that empowers donors to make informed decisions.
We see cost-effectiveness analysis as a valuable tool, but in some cases, it requires so many uncertain assumptions that it risks obscuring more than it reveals. In certain cases, two reasonable models can differ so much that one suggests a massive impact, and the other little to no impact.
Our hope is that donors to use cost-effectiveness estimates as one input, rather than treating them as final scores. Our goal isnât to say which charity is âbest,â but to offer high-quality information that empowers donors to make informed decisions.
You estimated the animals helped per $ for the Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI), and SWP. I think your analyses would be more valuable if you got estimates for the increase in welfare per $. I know one needs to make contentious assumptions to compute these, but I still think producing them is valuable such that people can see which organisations increase welfare the most per $ under their preferred assumptions. Making calibrated adjustments is harder without an underlying model. Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) estimated the cost-effectiveness of some charities in terms of suffering averted per $, which I believe is quite similar to welfare increased per $[1].
Our goal isnât to say which charity is âbest,â but to offer high-quality information that empowers donors to make informed decisions.
I encourage you to clarify which are your criteria for recommending a charity. I think impact-focussed evaluators avoid large differences in cost-effectiveness among their recommendations[2]. So people may infer you do not think there are large differences in cost-effectiveness among your recommendations.
Vince Mak, ACEâs charity evaluations manager, said âWe do not recommend charities if there is a large enough gap between their expected marginal cost-effectiveness and that of our other charitiesâ. GiveWellâs top charities save a life for 3.5 k to 5.5 k$.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, Vascoâitâs very much appreciated!
To clarify a few things:
We looked at a lot of charities, and in our opinion, these three were the best. That said, we donât want readers to donate just because we called them âtopâ charities. Our goal is for people to read our reviews, understand what each charity is doing, and make their own decision based on their values and priorities.
Itâs possible there are large differences in cost-effectiveness between our recommendations, but we donât know if this is true, and we also donât have a strong intuition as to what the ranking between the three would be. We also think that trying to rank the three in terms of cost-effectiveness would be somewhat misleading (like trying to say a banana is more cost-effective than a hammer). Each solves a different problem, and which one is âbetterâ depends heavily on what the donor values.
We only estimated total cost-effectiveness for SWP. For FWI, we cited their historical cost-effectiveness calculation, but didnât attempt to calculate their total cost-effectiveness. Itâs entirely possible FWI is the most (or least) cost-effective of the three. For example, FWI is currently attempting to use satellites to monitor water quality. If this succeeds, this could make it much cheaper to monitor water quality on fish farms. However, it remains speculative whether or not this will happen.
Thanks again for engaging with our workâwe really value this kind of discussion
Thanks for sharing!
The Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) is one of my top recommendations too. Do you have any thoughts on my estimate that the cost-effectiveness of Fish Welfare Initiativeâs (FWIâs) farm program from January to September 2024 was only 0.0111 % of SWPâs past cost-effectiveness? I guess FWI will become more cost-effective in the future, but I do not see how they would come close to SWP.
I am surprised you are recommending the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) without doing any cost-effectiveness analysis of their work. Here is a quick illustration of why I think they are much less cost-effective than SWP:
SWP has helped 1.50 k shrimp/âyear/â$.
You say that, âsince 2021, ALDF has had average annual expenditures of $16,189,282â. So they would have to have helped 24.3 billion animals per year (= 1.50*10^3*16.2*10^6) to have helped as many animals per year per $ as SWP.
9.91 billion land animals were slaughtered for meat in the United States (US) in 2023. So ALDF would have to have helped 2.45 (= 24.3*10^9/â(9.91*10^9)) times as many animals per year as those slaughtered for meat in the US in 2023 to have helped as many animals per year per $ as SWP. This seems way too much to be feasible considering their interventions do not target aquatic animals, or land invertebrates.
I understand impact is not directly proportional to the number of animals helped, but I believe the impact per animal helped may well be larger for SWP than ALDF. I estimate SWP averts the equivalent of 0.0426 DALYs per shrimp helped, which I think is as good as preventing the existence of 0.463 broilers (= 0.0426/â(0.754*0.122)) in a conventional scenario.
Thank you for your comment, Vasco.
Our goal at Vetted Causes is to provide unbiased, accurate information to help readers make their own donation decisions. While we include cost-effectiveness estimates when feasible, we hope that donors consider other factors, such as:
How much the animals are helped: Stunning improves a shrimpâs experience for a few minutes, while improving water quality may help a fish every day of their life. Which matters more, and to what degree?
Species: How much (if at all) do we prioritize the suffering of larger or more cognitively complex animalsâsuch as pigs, cows, or fishâover that of shrimp?
Helping future animals vs. current ones: Animals are suffering today, and itâs valuable to relieve that suffering. But should we focus on immediate change (which may just be a temporary fix), or prioritize long-term structural improvements?
We see cost-effectiveness analysis as a valuable tool, but in some cases, it requires so many uncertain assumptions that it risks obscuring more than it reveals. In certain cases, two reasonable models can differ so much that one suggests a massive impact, and the other little to no impact.
Our hope is that donors to use cost-effectiveness estimates as one input, rather than treating them as final scores. Our goal isnât to say which charity is âbest,â but to offer high-quality information that empowers donors to make informed decisions.
Thanks for the clarifications.
You estimated the animals helped per $ for the Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI), and SWP. I think your analyses would be more valuable if you got estimates for the increase in welfare per $. I know one needs to make contentious assumptions to compute these, but I still think producing them is valuable such that people can see which organisations increase welfare the most per $ under their preferred assumptions. Making calibrated adjustments is harder without an underlying model. Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) estimated the cost-effectiveness of some charities in terms of suffering averted per $, which I believe is quite similar to welfare increased per $[1].
I encourage you to clarify which are your criteria for recommending a charity. I think impact-focussed evaluators avoid large differences in cost-effectiveness among their recommendations[2]. So people may infer you do not think there are large differences in cost-effectiveness among your recommendations.
I think the impact of the interventions ACE assessed mostly comes from decreasing suffering, not increasing happiness.
Vince Mak, ACEâs charity evaluations manager, said âWe do not recommend charities if there is a large enough gap between their expected marginal cost-effectiveness and that of our other charitiesâ. GiveWellâs top charities save a life for 3.5 k to 5.5 k$.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, Vascoâitâs very much appreciated!
To clarify a few things:
We looked at a lot of charities, and in our opinion, these three were the best. That said, we donât want readers to donate just because we called them âtopâ charities. Our goal is for people to read our reviews, understand what each charity is doing, and make their own decision based on their values and priorities.
Itâs possible there are large differences in cost-effectiveness between our recommendations, but we donât know if this is true, and we also donât have a strong intuition as to what the ranking between the three would be. We also think that trying to rank the three in terms of cost-effectiveness would be somewhat misleading (like trying to say a banana is more cost-effective than a hammer). Each solves a different problem, and which one is âbetterâ depends heavily on what the donor values.
We only estimated total cost-effectiveness for SWP. For FWI, we cited their historical cost-effectiveness calculation, but didnât attempt to calculate their total cost-effectiveness. Itâs entirely possible FWI is the most (or least) cost-effective of the three. For example, FWI is currently attempting to use satellites to monitor water quality. If this succeeds, this could make it much cheaper to monitor water quality on fish farms. However, it remains speculative whether or not this will happen.
Thanks again for engaging with our workâwe really value this kind of discussion