Hi Heather, thank you for everything that you do. I would say that there isn’t a “magic number” at which extra money stops being valuable and you should directly switch to direct work.
First of all, unfortunately the movement is still seriously under‑funded. The entire farmed‑animal‑advocacy sector spent only about US $200 million in 2020 (https://faunalytics.org/funding-dynamics-in-farmed-animal-advocacy/) That is orders of magnitude less than is spent on companion‑animal charities. Until that budget rises dramatically, every additional highly targeted dollar remains important.
Second of all, in general the best charities still produce large welfare gains per dollar. A recent synthesis of Animal Charity Evaluators’ data on cage‑free corporate campaigns estimated that each U.S. dollar affects 9 – 120 chicken‑years of life (https://animalcharityevaluators.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/what-is-the-effect-of-cage-free-corporate-outreach-on-egg-laying-hens-welfare.pdf) On such numbers, your current US $40 000 annual giving could be improving conditions for hundreds of thousands (and up to a few million) animals each year.
Overall, I would say that earning‑to‑give is recommended so long as you 1) can earn unusually well and 2) do not have an alternative where your skills are clearly harder to replace.
Considering the above points, the “enough” threshold is not a money total, but rather the point where the next hour of consulting or the next dollar you donate does less good than an hour of direct work you that could sustainably perform.
I think that continuing to donate would be a good route for you that has likely already done a lot of good for farmed animals already. However, consider that board‑certified veterinarians are not easy to find and are generally scarce on farm‑animal welfare standard committees. If you were to join such a body, one hour of your time could unlock significant improvements; plus, you could still be donating as you’ve done in the past.
Hi Paul,
I think it’s admirable that you want to apply your tech skills to help animals. In general, from my experience having now advised 138 people I can say that very few have strong IT backgrounds, although charities do need them. In fact, as AI, data, and online tools grow in importance, animal‑protection groups (especially those linked to Effective Altruism) are keen to hire people like you. I will answer your questions one at a time.
Am I correct in this assessment, that it is harder to find roles in this sector as a software developer?
Yes, mostly because most animal advocacy non-profits run on tight budgets and keep their tech teams small. This in turn means that openings appear less often than in mainstream industry. This doesn’t mean however that these roles don’t exist. For example, The Good Food Institute employs full‑time engineers like Patrick Landy to maintain and extend its web properties (https://gfi.org/team/patrick-landy/). Also, there are entire charities built around IT skills and their use to help animals, such as Vegan Hacktivists. So yes, the pipeline is narrower but not empty, and you simply have to monitor the right channels and be ready when vacancies surface.
What recommendations would you have in terms of networking and potentially partnering with similarly ambitious people in this field, so that I get in contact with others that are using tech to improve animal welfare?
I would bring up Vegan Hacktivists and their community again: they connect many volunteer engineers and designers that build tools for the movement, and several paid hires have come through that route. I would suggest you have a look at the community run by The Good Food Institute, which hosts many scientists and technologists and runs monthly online meet‑ups. Finally, follow careers pages at Berlin‑based organisations such as ProVeg International and the Albert‑Schweitzer‑Stiftung (I think they’re looking for someone with a background in IT right now); they advertise remote‑friendly digital roles when funding allows.
What would be some recommendations in terms of how I should develop my skillset in tech, in order to best align with the needs of pro-animal companies/non-profits/projects?
I would say that non-profits most often seek developers who can run and secure cloud infrastructure (e.g. manage public sites and internal tools), build data dashboards and automation (to track progress and mobilise supporters), and handle privacy‑sensitive content (such as undercover footage, so familiarity with secure upload portals and basic infosec practices).
I think that if you sharpen those areas and contribute to an open‑source project at Vegan Hacktivists, you’ll automatically have movement‑specific code to show when a role in Berlin/Germany appears. Good luck!