Very much second the thoughtful commentary by Marcus. As a professional fundraiser, I would also argue that even if this money becomes available, there is no indication that it would be likely to be funneled into high-impact causes. Speaking quite frankly, I have generally found the EA space to be suboptimal at fundraising—largely because fundraising is fundamentally relationship-driven, while EA is focused on numbers and impact. I might argue that EA needs to ramp up it’s traditional fundraising acumen if it would like to acquire some of these dollars.
P.S. For clarity: I’m not arguing that EA should toss out numbers and impact—that’s the whole point of what we’re doing! I’m simply saying that we have a long way to go in implementing classic fundraising best practices, and that without that, it may be difficult to secure funding from non-EA sources.
Strong agree with this post—it’s one of the reasons I was so drawn to FarmKind (and have since become a monthly donor). This post represents so many of my thoughts, and I would dare say it represents many others who will probably never comment for fear of being excoriated by the vegan movement within EA. Thank you lincolnq for thoughtfully posting!
As many other comments have said, I think the framing of making vegan a curse word or not talking about it at all is maybe a bit intense, but my guess is that’s a semi-inflammatory approach to get people engaging with the post and talking about the larger topic in a thoughtful way. I think far more can be done to engage non-vegans who are passionate about animal welfare, especially with the post’s point that ~3% of the world’s population might be vegan.