I agree people donating to the best global health and development (GHD) interventions should be donating more to the best effective giving initiatives, like Giving What We Can (GWWC). However, apart from FarmKind, effective giving initiatives are very focussed on GHD, so they are much less attractive to people donating to animal welfare (AW) interventions. To illustrate, if GWWC’s marginal multiplier is 13 as CEARCH estimated, people should only donate to GWWC with the goal of increasing their donations to AW if at least 7.69 % (= 1⁄13) of the additionally attracted funds go to AW. This is similar to the 7 % of the donations recorded by GWWC from 2020 to 2022 which went to AW, so there is not a clear case for people donating to GWWC over AW interventions.
I also think the case for people donating to GHD donating to GWWC is much stronger than that for people donating to AW donating to FarmKind. I guess the altruistic market is much more efficient in GHD, such that there are larger differences in cost-effectiveness in AW. I estimatedShrimp Welfare Project’s (SWP’s) Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI) is 173 times as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns (and 64.3 k times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities). So, if the additional funds attracted by FarmKind are going to AW interventions as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns, it would need a marginal multiplier of at least 173 for me to donate to it.
I very much agree with this analysis. It would be great to have some more numbers from different organisations with their multiplier and their distribution of funds between cause areas.
Thanks, Cyrill. I only received an email notification about your comment now for some reason. I no longer think AW interventions are more cost-effective than GHD ones, or that SWP’s HSI is more cost-effective than cage-free corporate campaigns. I am very uncertain about whether any of these interventions increase or decrease welfare in expectation due to very uncertain dominanteffects on soil animals and microorganisms. Here is an illustration of why I believe electrically stunning farmed shrimps may decrease or increase welfare, even if I was certain it increased the welfare of shrimps conditional on these being sentient.
Nice post, Luke.
I agree people donating to the best global health and development (GHD) interventions should be donating more to the best effective giving initiatives, like Giving What We Can (GWWC). However, apart from FarmKind, effective giving initiatives are very focussed on GHD, so they are much less attractive to people donating to animal welfare (AW) interventions. To illustrate, if GWWC’s marginal multiplier is 13 as CEARCH estimated, people should only donate to GWWC with the goal of increasing their donations to AW if at least 7.69 % (= 1⁄13) of the additionally attracted funds go to AW. This is similar to the 7 % of the donations recorded by GWWC from 2020 to 2022 which went to AW, so there is not a clear case for people donating to GWWC over AW interventions.
I also think the case for people donating to GHD donating to GWWC is much stronger than that for people donating to AW donating to FarmKind. I guess the altruistic market is much more efficient in GHD, such that there are larger differences in cost-effectiveness in AW. I estimated Shrimp Welfare Project’s (SWP’s) Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI) is 173 times as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns (and 64.3 k times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities). So, if the additional funds attracted by FarmKind are going to AW interventions as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns, it would need a marginal multiplier of at least 173 for me to donate to it.
I very much agree with this analysis. It would be great to have some more numbers from different organisations with their multiplier and their distribution of funds between cause areas.
Thanks, Cyrill. I only received an email notification about your comment now for some reason. I no longer think AW interventions are more cost-effective than GHD ones, or that SWP’s HSI is more cost-effective than cage-free corporate campaigns. I am very uncertain about whether any of these interventions increase or decrease welfare in expectation due to very uncertain dominant effects on soil animals and microorganisms. Here is an illustration of why I believe electrically stunning farmed shrimps may decrease or increase welfare, even if I was certain it increased the welfare of shrimps conditional on these being sentient.