Our farm animal welfare grantmaking is, by total spend, 37% in Europe, 29% in the US, 24% in Asia, and 9% everywhere else. This represents a tradeoff between scale and tractability. In general we have a much lower bar for funding work outside Europe and the US, especially in the largest Asian countries, because we think their scale justifies long-term investments. But because those countries are currently much harder to achieve change in, that work actually looks less cost-effective than our EU and US funding, which has proven much more tractable. We’re still committed to funding a lot of work internationally, and my hope is that our early investments in these countries can in time help generate more cost-effective opportunities to fund.
Thanks for sharing, Lewis! By “farm animal welfare grantmaking”, I guess you mean spending which in Open Philanthropy’s (OP’s) grants database falls under the focus areas “Alternatives to Animal Products”, “Broiler Chicken Welfare”, “Cage-Free Reforms” or “Farm Animal Welfare”. Do you have data on how many M$ OP spent on these 4 areas together in China in 2023? How about the total philanthropic spending to help farmed animals in China including all sources (not just OP)?
Update on 20 June 2024. I estimate the philanthropic spending to help farmed animals in 2023 was 304 M$, with China accounting for 6.69 M$.
In your recent 80k podcast almost all the work referenced seems to be targeted at the US and EU (except the Farm animal welfare in Asia section).
What is the actual geographic target of the work that’s being funded?
Is there work being done/planed to look at animal welfare funding opportunities more globally?
Our farm animal welfare grantmaking is, by total spend, 37% in Europe, 29% in the US, 24% in Asia, and 9% everywhere else. This represents a tradeoff between scale and tractability. In general we have a much lower bar for funding work outside Europe and the US, especially in the largest Asian countries, because we think their scale justifies long-term investments. But because those countries are currently much harder to achieve change in, that work actually looks less cost-effective than our EU and US funding, which has proven much more tractable. We’re still committed to funding a lot of work internationally, and my hope is that our early investments in these countries can in time help generate more cost-effective opportunities to fund.
Thanks for sharing, Lewis! By “farm animal welfare grantmaking”, I guess you mean spending which in Open Philanthropy’s (OP’s) grants database falls under the focus areas “Alternatives to Animal Products”, “Broiler Chicken Welfare”, “Cage-Free Reforms” or “Farm Animal Welfare”. Do you have data on how many M$ OP spent on these 4 areas together in China in 2023? How about the total philanthropic spending to help farmed animals in China including all sources (not just OP)?
Update on 20 June 2024. I estimate the philanthropic spending to help farmed animals in 2023 was 304 M$, with China accounting for 6.69 M$.
Hi DanteTheAbstract,
You may want to check Open Philanthropy’s grants to support farmed animal welfare in Asia.