lauren_mee
Thanks Vasco – I really appreciate the thoughtful engagement. I think there are a few different things getting a bit mixed together here, so I’d love to tease them apart and explain where I still see things differently.
You mentioned that the key is the difference in impact, not concern about animals. But I’d argue that this concern does in fact translate to impact, especially when we’re thinking in terms of counterfactuals and replaceability. For example, if someone applies for a role at SWP, their counterfactual impact is likely just the difference between them and the next-best candidate—who is almost certainly also deeply concerned about shrimp welfare. But in an EC role, the counterfactual is likely that the position goes to someone who wouldn’t raise animal issues at all. So the marginal impact is potentially much greater, even in junior positions.
We’ve already seen specific examples, particularly in the UK, where junior staff inside government have been able to push for progress on animal welfare that would never have happened through lobbying alone. These aren’t abstract hypotheticals. Another specific i found out yesterday, someone was able to pass something through their local gov that led to 400 million animals being spared that wasn’t even on the radar before they entered. It seems extremely unlikely that this kind of leverage and counterfactual would be the case for the best vs. next best candidate in an NGO.
2. Hierarchy matters, but so does initiative, positioning, and timing.
Yes, the Commission is large and hierarchical. But so is almost every institution with leverage over major policy. What we’ve seen that once someone is in, they can navigate toward departments and roles where they’re better positioned to influence change. That’s part of what this program is about: helping people enter the system with the long game in mind.
It’s not a passive process—it requires individuals to actively find their leverage points and pockets of influence. A lot depends on the individual’s initiative and ability to spot opportunities—but that’s true in any sector, whether in NGOs or in policy. I would say though if that doesnt appeal its a sign working in civil service is not a good fit.
You noted that lobbyists can reach many policymakers, which is true. But that doesn’t mean they’re more impactful than internal actors—it’s highly dependent on context. And critically, lobbyists themselves will tell you (and did on our programme) that what they need most are credible insiders who understand the system, have networks, and can champion ideas from within.
3. External lobbying vs. insider influence is a false binary.
We often hear people argue for becoming a lobbyist instead of going into the system. But I think this skips a vital step: the most effective lobbyists often were insiders first. Without that institutional knowledge, they lack the credibility and relational capital that drives real traction on issues that aren’t already politically salient—like shrimp welfare, for example.
So to me, the idea that someone without any government experience should just jump into policy advocacy seems less plausible than a pathway that starts inside the system, builds knowledge, and later leverages that from a lobbying or NGO position if that’s where personal fit leads.
So overall, I’d say the value of this programme comes not from comparing against some hypothetical “random” NGO role, but from offering people a realistic path into a system that’s historically been quite closed off to animal advocates and an opportunity to build essential career capital to be a more effective advocate in the future.
Thanks for writing this up, Joris! :)
One of the areas AAC is most excited to further develop is support for individuals who want to pursue impactful careers for animals outside of the nonprofit sector and particularly in policy, an area that seems significantly neglected in animal advocacy career support.
There are three primary reasons for this focus:
The number of high-impact nonprofit roles is limited, meaning there aren’t enough opportunities to absorb the existing talent pool.
The roles where we see the greatest potential for heavy-tailed impact, such as fundraising, leadership, founding charities, and campaigning, aren’t necessarily the right fit for every talented, mission-aligned individual. Some may have greater potential for impact in roles outside the nonprofit space.
Policy change is a critical area that can have the most significant and lasting improvements for animals, and having dedicated advocates working within these structures, if they are a good fit, seems absolutely crucial to accelerating change for animals. Our research also identified it can additionally be hugely beneficial for the non profits working on lobbying for change from the outside.
That said, we still have a high degree of uncertainty about how to assess the impact of an individual in these adjacent roles compared to nonprofit positions. We feel more confident about policy roles, given past success stories within AAC and the broader EA community, as well as the career capital the roles can build for those working within the system. This year, a key focus for AAC will be deepening our understanding of the impact potential in these adjacent career paths, particularly within policy.
Thanks, Vasco!
I completely agree that for many people, earning more in another sector and donating to the most effective animal welfare organizations could be the most impactful path—especially if they’re comfortable working outside a like-minded community and have the resilience to avoid value drift. That’s no small ask, but for the right person, it can be highly effective.
However, I’d push back on this part:
“The direct (expected counterfactual) impact of working in a random role in Animal Charity Evaluators’ (ACE’s) recommended charities is larger than that of a random APA, and this is larger than that of a random role in the Commission.”
One of the key reasons we ran this program is the very limited number of roles in high-impact nonprofits. Additionally, unless someone is in one of the hardest-to-hire-for positions, such as fundraising, leadership, founding a nonprofit, or campaigning, they are often more replaceable in these roles than they would be in an APA position and their impact is limited only to the difference between their skills and the next best candidate which for many roles is not that much. Additionally, most participants in our program don’t have the specific skill set for those high-impact roles but to to excel in a policy role inside the system, which is a very important consideration.
I suspect the crux of the disagreement might be a skepticism about the potential impact of working within the system, which I’d love to discuss further. But to be fair, I also think the counterfactual impact of working in a “random role” at an ACE-recommended charity is much harder to quantify than you’re assuming.
I disagree quite strongly with this! But I think as discussed during this week it is because you have the need for greater certainty over direct impact and policy in general has a much messier theory of change and over a longer time period.
I also think this missed the point entirely of personal fit, which as a multiplier for every person’s impact should be heavily weighted. It is unlikely that the people who were selected for the programme would get a random role at an ACE recommended charity at this current point, in fact many have tried and not succeeded.
Therefore offering them opportunities for potential impact and career capital through this programme should be compared against no role in the movement at all, not another hypothetical role at an ACE recommended charity.
I think it’s important to remember these are Joris’ takeaways for his career path 🙂 I think many others from the programme declared they are excited to work in the European Commission and will follow this path
<<Also, I was curious: was there a particular reason you didn’t mention think tank or NGO work (outside influence) as much? Do you see that as less impactful, or were there other reasons for not focusing on it?>>Just on this point the recommendation from our research and also from the SMEs were that 1) it was much more neglected and less replaceable to have someone working inside the system than an extra person applying for an NGO or think tank 2) people are much more likely to be more valuable to think tanks and NGOs after being in the system for a few years and building connections and understanding of how the system works 3) most NGOs are looking for people with experience from inside the system for their lobbying roles because of 2)
Of course this depends on relative fit for working inside the system but all else equal it seems one can add more value to the movement working inside first.
<<Same question for potential paths to impact via the Council or member states, any thoughts on those?>>There are definitely people from the programme who were sceptical about the value of this before and left feeling much more clear that these paths were their best path to impact in future ☺️
I just want to say thank you for highlighting this Vasco!
I am a big fan of SMA but my largest concern is their quit your job tag line. Firstly, I can only speak for the animal advocacy space but there are a very limited number of high impact roles for people to pivot into…. secondly, if it’s in the non profit world they are directing them to it will take some time to pivot (so try to not be unemployed first) thirdly, many of these people are in great companies where they could potentially do much more if they were activated or ETG.
Anecdotally I’ve had a handful of people come from them asking for career advise who had quit their job and tbh my first thought is can you get your job back….
I understand this feeling, and I myself certainly felt that way previously.
I think the way that I reconciled this was weighing up how important neglectedness of a cause area was to me vs. certainty of impact. And I landed on neglectedness being the most important because it can facilitate and accelerate change not just for one organisation but often have second order effects for the entire cause area.
I think there is an issue cross comparing global health with animal welfare which seems really unfair. Global health and development has orders of magnitude more money but yet we compare it like for like with the animal space but that seems incorrect to me. it’s really easy to underestimate how much the lack of funding can have on the infrastructure of a space and therefore a charities ability to do good. How can they attract the best talent without funding that then drives how effective the organisation is? They often have significantly less staff in their team to do the same amount of good as a well funded charity but also just like how corporate campaign results are a combined victory, many global health and development organisation benefit massively from Givewell, 80,000 hours etc. that historically have helped them to get to the stage they are now.
So I guess my point is what is driving you to want to donate to animals in the first place? Because it might be that just the top recommended charities aren’t the right solution and it also might just help you answer comparing across very different cause areas.
Animal society
The ones I voted for, I thought this showed up in the comments, but obviously not. I voted SWP, EAAWF and THL.
I believe these are the most effective organisations and will use the money wisely
Well i think that’s the point of the post to debate this! And i think there are relevant trade offs in regards to maintaining the impact of the organisations which are seeking to diversify funds that aren’t usually considered so maybe “far more counterfactually” seems too strong.
I think there’s an important nuance here regarding what truly constitutes a ‘healthy sanity check’ when it comes to funding. Simply having a non-EA funder interested in your project doesn’t necessarily validate its impact. For instance, if a funder’s motivation is based on personal affinity, like finding the team charming or being impressed by the organization for non-impact reasons, this might not confirm that the project is the best use of resources.
To me, a real sanity check comes from the support of funders who prioritize impact and apply a high bar to their investments. If a highly discerning funder with a strong emphasis on impact independently chooses to support the project, regardless of whether you accept their funding or not, that’s a stronger endorsement than diversification for its own sake.
Great post!
I think one other major complications of funder diversification is managing multiple competing interests. So in some ways it’s great to have more funders so you aren’t reliant on them to agree with all of your strategic choices but you can just do the most impactful thing and get one of the funders to back it but sometimes that also works in the opposite way with funding diversity. I think this is less the case for AIM as you are more established, but in the early stages of funding diversification there aren’t actually that many EAA funders to chose from, people often argue that its a higher counterfactual to have non EA funders but on the flip side you then have to manage those funders priorities and if they are less EA they often want you to invest more in a less impactful thing in order to fund you. So being that the funding options are so small in the EAA movement I’m not sure that funder diversification nets out as positive for all organisations or that we should all strive for it.
<< Needing more than one funder provides a healthy sanity check on if the project is really the best use of funds>> Also to this point… doesn’t it heavily depend on the funder? If the funder isn’t impact driven I’m not sure it’s a great sign they want to fund you?
Additionally less important but it also takes up much more time to report and communicate with non EA donors. For us for example they don’t care or understand ICAPs (fair enough) so then you have to spend time translating your work to what they care about. I think this is fine but it’s a bit more of a time sink when they care about things that you don’t actually think are important to track in regards to impact eg vanity metrics.
I do however firmly agree with this your point on increasing funding in itself not being an aspirational goal and wish more organisations would be firmer with capping their funding goals if they will likely decrease their impact per dollar significantly consistently in the future, particularly in contrast to other organisations. So I agree with the conclusion but perhaps not that funding diversification is a prerequisite for it. Is it not possible that organisations can just reject funding over a certain amount regardless of funding diversification?
Thanks for writing this!
I’ve really struggled with this when writing AAC’s mission and vision statements. Historically our vision and mission statements have been much more pragmatic and realistic like speeding up the end of animal suffering through increasing talent density etc etc. and I agree with Emres point on the difficulty of communicating what we are doing to a broader audience. These kind of static vision statements whilst being pragmatic seem to be less inspirational to external stakeholders, staff and smaller donors.
So I’m leaning towards changing AAC to have a more broad directional vision statement because I think this is more likely to inspire actions and isn’t that the point of visions? So I guess my question is, do you think that organisations are really genuinely aiming for this goal with the thought that we should strive to achieve it in our lifetime and in their plans or do you think we are just trying to inspire action and that really our theories of change are more in line with the things we do have power over. If AAC was able to increase talent density in the movement and fix the talent bottlenecks I’d be pretty happy with us an organisation and think we’ve done “our bit” but I don’t think that would inspire my staff.
No it’s helpful thank you for flagging I can update accordingly ☺️
2024-2030 may be a unique “make or break” period for animal welfare
Animal welfare is neglected in a particular way: it is fragile
Thank you Jessica 💚 I guess the next challenge will be can we maintain the good outputs over time and if our team grows!
It’s nice to know other people are also excited about our work.
I would love more people to share progress updates on what their orgs are up to too.
Thank you Vaidehi, this means a lot, it’s always such a trade-off between the amount of time it takes to write a post that is understandable to other vs. using our time on something else, so this was really nice to hear.
Would be curious to hear what intuitions you have that resonated the most with this post? And any that you have that weren’t mentioned 👀
Thank you 💚 it was a team effort and I appreciate all the advice and feedback you have given. It would be hard to do this in a silo.
The world is burning 🔥 happy to contribute where we can to putting a little of it out
Will reply properly later