Thanks for the post, Aaron and Tom. Do you think it would be good to have more organisations helping aquatic animals at the margin (holding animal welfare funding constant), which would require existing organisations becoming smaller (the funding going towards new organisations would not go towards existing ones)? Or are you simply suggeting that it would be good to have more organisations if animal welfare funding increased? I believe funders should only fund new organisations which are expected to be more cost-effective than the ones they are funding at the margin.
Hey Vasco! Yeah I think I’d advocate for more aquatic animal orgs at the margin (though I do think that funding in this space is increasing, so this trade-off might not be super clear cut anyway).
I liked Karolina’s response to a similar question during the recent EA Animal Welfare Funds AMA and I usually give a similar response when people ask me about funding SWP—I think new orgs in this space often have a really high Expected Value, so depending on your risk-tolerance for funding I think they represent a really exciting opportunity.
I think SWP itself might be quite a good example of this—we came out of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program with a seed grant of $100k. We then got a couple of grants from EAAWF ($45k) and ACE Movement Grants ($40k) as well as some smaller donors here and there. I think this got us to the point where we had figured out our main intervention, could secure some Open Philanthropy funding, and start to have impact.
I think it’s very possible SWP has only found a local maximum and that there are other opportunities out there that could help us get closer to the global maximum in this space. So if I was a donor trying to allocate ~$200k, I would put serious effort into looking for new orgs/​opportunities that I thought had a good chance of being more cost-effective than SWP (I think AIM have previously estimated that 20% of their charities could become field-leading—I’m not sure if this is generalisable outside of AIM, but might be a useful baserate for considering opportunities).
I liked Karolina’s response to a similar question during the recent EA Animal Welfare Funds [AWF] AMA and I usually give a similar response when people ask me about funding SWP [Shrimp Welfare Project] - I think new orgs in this space often have a really high Expected Value, so depending on your risk-tolerance for funding I think they represent a really exciting opportunity.
I strongly endorse risk neutrality with respect to total hedonistic welfare, but I am still confused about why Karolina thinks donating to AWF is better than to SWP.
I estimate SWP has been 173 times as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns, but a significant fraction of AWF’s funds go to such campaigns. I guess you [Karolina] think I am greatly overestimating the past cost-effectiveness of SWP, but I do not know why.
Do you think SWP is roughly as cost-effective as the cage-free campaigns funded by AWF for my preferred pain intensities and welfare ranges? How?
I think AIM have previously estimated that 20% of their charities could become field-leading—I’m not sure if this is generalisable outside of AIM, but might be a useful baserate for considering opportunities
I would prefer donating to SWP over an organisation which was certain to become the most cost-effective helping chickens or fish, unless they were going to become way more cost-effective than the field-leading ones. I estimate SWP has been 173 times as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns, and 9.01 k time as cost-effective as Fish Welfare Initiative’s (FWI’s) farm program from January to September 2024 (excluding benefits after this period).
I think the general point still stands that we want to advocate for more aquatic animal charities in the space.
Even if you think shrimps are the most cost-effective donation opportunity currently, a key point we wanted to make was that just because there is a Shrimp Welfare Project doesn’t mean that there isn’t space for more orgs.
Thanks for the post, Aaron and Tom. Do you think it would be good to have more organisations helping aquatic animals at the margin (holding animal welfare funding constant), which would require existing organisations becoming smaller (the funding going towards new organisations would not go towards existing ones)? Or are you simply suggeting that it would be good to have more organisations if animal welfare funding increased? I believe funders should only fund new organisations which are expected to be more cost-effective than the ones they are funding at the margin.
Hey Vasco! Yeah I think I’d advocate for more aquatic animal orgs at the margin (though I do think that funding in this space is increasing, so this trade-off might not be super clear cut anyway).
I liked Karolina’s response to a similar question during the recent EA Animal Welfare Funds AMA and I usually give a similar response when people ask me about funding SWP—I think new orgs in this space often have a really high Expected Value, so depending on your risk-tolerance for funding I think they represent a really exciting opportunity.
I think SWP itself might be quite a good example of this—we came out of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program with a seed grant of $100k. We then got a couple of grants from EAAWF ($45k) and ACE Movement Grants ($40k) as well as some smaller donors here and there. I think this got us to the point where we had figured out our main intervention, could secure some Open Philanthropy funding, and start to have impact.
I think it’s very possible SWP has only found a local maximum and that there are other opportunities out there that could help us get closer to the global maximum in this space. So if I was a donor trying to allocate ~$200k, I would put serious effort into looking for new orgs/​opportunities that I thought had a good chance of being more cost-effective than SWP (I think AIM have previously estimated that 20% of their charities could become field-leading—I’m not sure if this is generalisable outside of AIM, but might be a useful baserate for considering opportunities).
Thanks for clarifying, Aaron!
I strongly endorse risk neutrality with respect to total hedonistic welfare, but I am still confused about why Karolina thinks donating to AWF is better than to SWP.
Do you think SWP is roughly as cost-effective as the cage-free campaigns funded by AWF for my preferred pain intensities and welfare ranges? How?
I would prefer donating to SWP over an organisation which was certain to become the most cost-effective helping chickens or fish, unless they were going to become way more cost-effective than the field-leading ones. I estimate SWP has been 173 times as cost-effective as cage-free campaigns, and 9.01 k time as cost-effective as Fish Welfare Initiative’s (FWI’s) farm program from January to September 2024 (excluding benefits after this period).
I think the general point still stands that we want to advocate for more aquatic animal charities in the space.
Even if you think shrimps are the most cost-effective donation opportunity currently, a key point we wanted to make was that just because there is a Shrimp Welfare Project doesn’t mean that there isn’t space for more orgs.
There are a number of things SWP is not pursuing that could be really impactful, like working on shrimp paste, or brine shrimp, or fish fry.