Hi Avi,
Thanks for your comment!
I think you’re right that some corporations do name organizations in their press releases, and it seems more likely that groups will be named if they are using a more collaborative approach. For what it’s worth, in the paragraph you quoted, I now think that I anchored too heavily on my impression that groups such as THL, Mercy For Animals, and Animal Equality are quite rarely (if ever) named in the news or press releases associated with the welfare policy statements, or in the welfare policy statements themselves. As the majority of the organizations we evaluate usually use a less collaborative approach, I think the paragraph you quote will usually hold for the groups that we evaluate.
Still, even in those cases, I think that you’re also right and there should often still be some indirect evidence available from the timeline. That is, evidence of an organization campaigning at t1 and then, usually a short time later, at t2 evidence of a corporation making a commitment to the related welfare standards. For particularly important commitments we do look at this evidence but for the majority of commitments we don’t.
I think that your comment helps provide some important nuance to this discussion and I have left a link to this comment in the piece itself. Thank you again for the comment!
Best, Toni
Hi Jc,
1- Yes, our criteria are different from GiveWell’s. As John alluded to in his original post, our work is quite different from GiveWell’s in a number of ways. For one thing, there is generally much less evidence available about the cost-effectiveness of animal advocacy interventions than about the cost-effectiveness of direct health interventions. As a result, our models of average cost-effectiveness are much less certain than GiveWell’s, which is one reason why we rely more heavily on other indicators of marginal cost-effectiveness. It’s possible that GiveWell could also benefit from considering some of the other criteria we consider, but I’m not enough of an expert on their work to be comfortable drawing that conclusion.
2- We look for charities that emphasize effectively reducing suffering in their mission statement so that we can be confident that their future activities will still align with that goal. Suppose a charity does outstanding work influencing diet change/meat reduction, but they do it with the goal of improving human health. We would be concerned that such a charity could dramatically shift their activities if something caused their mission to be less aligned with ours (for instance, if new research suggested that meat is good for human health). This concern wouldn’t necessarily prevent us from recommending the charity, but it would factor into our decision.
3- As above, this is a concern that would factor into our decision but it wouldn’t necessarily prevent us from recommending a charity.
Best, Toni