You’re right that farmed animal advocacy has benefited from increased funding in recent years. Interestingly, though, the majority of philanthropic dollars in this space doesn’t come from EA-aligned donors. Perhaps because of this, the overwhelming majority of funding to alleviate farmed animal suffering comes from donors who live in and support projects in North America. On this point alone, by supporting more neglected, important, and tractable interventions particularly in LMICs, the EA Fund has a comparative advantage. Then, in comparison to EA-aligned donors, the EA Fund has an additional comparative advantage in that it funds higher-risk, earlier-stage projects that may lack a track record of success. Larger foundations like Open Phil and some members of Farmed Animal Funders don’t often have the ability to support nascent, higher-risk projects for a variety of reasons, including minimum grant size, struggling to get unproven charities or certain interventions approved by their boards, and lacking the time to find and assess many smaller, higher-risk projects.
On your second question, we’d like to see an EA-aligned donor bet on promising individuals and give them latitude (e.g. giving a few top EA animal welfare advocates $100k each to pursue promising and cool ideas). Most foundations and Donor Advised Funds don’t have the ability to directly fund individuals (without affiliations to charities or universities to accept the funds). You’d need to make sure your donation vehicle legally permits you to directly donate to individuals, and you’d need to trust the individual to act in a values-aligned way.
You’re right that farmed animal advocacy has benefited from increased funding in recent years. Interestingly, though, the majority of philanthropic dollars in this space doesn’t come from EA-aligned donors. Perhaps because of this, the overwhelming majority of funding to alleviate farmed animal suffering comes from donors who live in and support projects in North America. On this point alone, by supporting more neglected, important, and tractable interventions particularly in LMICs, the EA Fund has a comparative advantage. Then, in comparison to EA-aligned donors, the EA Fund has an additional comparative advantage in that it funds higher-risk, earlier-stage projects that may lack a track record of success. Larger foundations like Open Phil and some members of Farmed Animal Funders don’t often have the ability to support nascent, higher-risk projects for a variety of reasons, including minimum grant size, struggling to get unproven charities or certain interventions approved by their boards, and lacking the time to find and assess many smaller, higher-risk projects.
On your second question, we’d like to see an EA-aligned donor bet on promising individuals and give them latitude (e.g. giving a few top EA animal welfare advocates $100k each to pursue promising and cool ideas). Most foundations and Donor Advised Funds don’t have the ability to directly fund individuals (without affiliations to charities or universities to accept the funds). You’d need to make sure your donation vehicle legally permits you to directly donate to individuals, and you’d need to trust the individual to act in a values-aligned way.