RP is looking for project founders in neglected animal areas

By Rethink Priorities @ 2026-07-02T16:31 (+44)

TLDR; To help the effective animal advocacy movement cost-effectively absorb greater amounts of funding in the near future, we are seeking expressions of interest from people who could found a new organization focused on:

• Highly neglected animals: insects, wild animals, shrimp, fish, etc, or
• AI and animals: AI alignment and governance for animal welfare, strategic actions considering transformative AI, AI for wild animals, etc.
• Tech for animals: welfare tech, precision welfare tech, breeding for welfare, etc.

We are looking for both founders with a specific idea and those motivated to develop or execute on one. Depending on fit, Rethink Priorities can offer 3-6 months of funded runway and various operational set-ups for you to pursue your work, such as a Special Project, hiring you as an Entrepreneur in Residence, or helping you incubate into an independent organization.

To express interest, please fill out the short form (15-20min) here by the end of the day on July 19, 2026.

Background

At Rethink Priorities, we work on some of the most neglected problems in animal welfare: from insect welfare to wild animals to the implications of AI for alternative proteins.

Neglected animals represent the vast majority of the world's sentient animals, yet they receive only a tiny fraction of animal advocacy resources and attention. Meanwhile, rapid AI development has the potential to change the world with implications for all animals. These areas remain under-addressed, not because there's no tractable path forward, but because far fewer organizations are working on them than the scale of the problem warrants. You can help change that.

This post is an expression of interest. We want to understand who's out there with the motivation and potential to found something new in this space.

Which animal topics are we focused on?

We are looking for founders for “frontier” issues – issues that are potentially important and tractable but currently underexplored relative to mainstream animal advocacy. 

Neglected animal issues. Examples include:

• Wild animal welfare – reducing large-scale suffering experienced by animals in natural environments
• Invertebrate welfare – insects, crustaceans, and other animals whose sentience and moral status are poorly understood
• Aquatic animal welfare – fish, shrimp, and other aquatic species in farming, wild capture, and related contexts

AI, technology, and animals. Examples include:

• AI and Animals – Rapid AI development has the potential to change the world with implications for all animals. We want people to help steer the animal movement through an AI-transformed future towards the best world for animals. This could include AI alignment and governance for animal welfare, strategic actions that consider transformative AI for animals, AI for wild animals, etc.
• Novel technologies and interventions – Welfare technology, when approached with caution, can be widely adopted and improve the lives of animals at scale. This could be precision welfare tech, breeding methods, genetic tools, or other emerging approaches.

Other

• This list isn't exhaustive. If you have a different angle in mind that doesn’t quite match the above list, we are interested.
• We are also keen to find founders focused on neglected geographies: regions with intensive farming but less existing advocacy infrastructure.

Small teams are already getting outsized results

The case for founding in this space is not theoretical. Organizations founded in the last few years in these spaces are already having a significant impact:

• The Shrimp Welfare Project (founded in 2021, not through Rethink Priorities but using our research) has secured electrical stunning commitments, expected to reduce the suffering of around 4.5 billion shrimps per year, with a credible path to helping 100 billion shrimps annually. It is now an ACE Recommended Charity.
• The Insect Institute (launched in 2023 as a Rethink Priorities Special Project) has become a leading evidence-based voice on insect farming, with its research shaping the insect industry and being covered in The Guardian, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Vox.
• Shared Roads, an initiative launched this year by Sentient Futures, is already engaging with governments on how driverless vehicle policy should account for animals.
• The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (launched in late 2025 and supported as an RP Special Project) has secured pro-wild animal welfare debate and tabled amendments in the UK Parliament and secured national media coverage within months of starting.

A few motivated people with a tractable idea and modest funding can move an entire neglected field. We want to help start the next organization on this list.

Who are we looking for?

The qualities we care most about are:

• Impact focus – You want to help as many animals as possible, and you're willing to follow the evidence on how best to do that, even when it points somewhere unglamorous.
• Experience – Our ideal candidate has a track record of delivery. They are someone who can set ambitious goals and achieve them. Backgrounds in leadership, research, advocacy, policy, operations, or building things are all useful. Note that animal-specific knowledge is helpful but not required, and strong generalists without an animal welfare background have founded excellent organizations in this space.
• Entrepreneurial mind-set – You are self-motivated, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to drive things forward without much existing structure. You don't need to have founded anything before.

You might be in one of two situations:

1. You have an existing idea or area of expertise. Maybe you've been developing a specific project or have some expertise in a neglected area that you want to turn into impact. You want support to pursue that avenue, such as funding, operational support, research capacity, mentorship, or strategic support.
2. You're motivated but haven't settled on an idea. You'd seriously consider founding or co-founding a new organization focused on a frontier animal issue if the conditions were right.

Our key question is: would you be willing to make the switch to working on this full-time if you had 3–6 months of funded runway? 

What we can offer

Depending on fit, support could take several forms.

We are keen and ready to offer the following:

• Funding – we can offer 3-6 months of funded runway, at a level that lets you step away from your current role and gives you the space to explore, develop, and launch.
• Research support – Rethink Priorities is among the world's most experienced research teams on neglected animal issues. Our research team will be able to support your decision-making at every step of developing your idea and project.
• Operational support – Rethink Priorities’ Special Project team has supported numerous organizations with operations, finance, and HR to help them get off the ground quickly.
• Entrepreneur-in-Residence role – You could become our in-house entrepreneur who can get things done, drive change, and help new projects get off the ground.

If there is demand, we are also exploring offering the following:

• Executive coaching to help you leave your current position – it can be hard for top talent to wind down their current work and create the space to start something new. Coaching and support to help wrap up existing projects can be useful here.
• Incubation into an independent organization – structured support to help you build and spin out as a standalone organization (this could be via Rethink Priorities, or we could support you via other programs such as Ambitious Impact).
• Ongoing coaching and mentorship – to help you drive your project to succeed.

We're at an early stage here. This is a genuine expression of interest, not a structured program with fixed slots. We want to understand what's out there before deciding how best to support it.

How to respond

To express interest, please fill out the short form (15-20min) here. Tell us about yourself, what you're considering, and what kind of support would be most useful. No polished proposal is needed.

If you're unsure whether to respond, please err on the side of doing so. Completing the form is not a commitment; it simply helps us understand who might be interested. Note also that there is no fixed start date. Even if you cannot start until sometime next year, we would love to hear from you now.

Please respond by the end of the day on July 19, 2026. We'll read every response and aim to follow up with those where there's a potential fit by end of July.

Your response goes to a small team at Rethink Priorities, and we'll only share it further with your permission.

Please share this post with anyone you think might be a good fit.

Questions? Contact Samuel Hilton (samuel@rethinkpriorities.org) at Rethink Priorities.

Please note that from 4 July to 12 July, Rethink Priorities is on mid-year break, and we will be unable to respond to emails during that time.

About Rethink Priorities

Rethink Priorities is a think-and-do tank dedicated to informing decisions made by high-impact organizations, funders, and policymakers across various cause areas. We aim to identify emerging areas – such as invertebrate welfare and digital consciousness – before they become crowded, and to influence trajectories while fields are still being shaped.

Within animal welfare, our recent work includes:

• Pioneering research comparing welfare across species through our Moral Weight Project
• Bringing to light the important and neglected area of invertebrate welfare
• Strategic work on EU farmed animal welfare advocacy in 2025, influencing $10m of grants
• Building a coordinated roadmap for fish welfare in Europe with 18 leading organizations,
• Developing a prioritized research agenda on insecticide welfare impacts in partnership with the Wild Animal Initiative
• Supporting nine early-stage organizations through our Special Projects program

You can review our public work here, as well as our 2025 results and 2026 plans.

We're supported by funders including Coefficient Giving and individual donors.

Rethink Priorities is committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and supportive community. Please don’t hesitate to apply regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, personal preferences, physical abilities, veteran status, neurodiversity or any other background. We invite you to reach out to careers@rethinkpriorities.org with any accessibility requests. (Please note that from 4 July to 12 July is Rethink Priorities' mid-year break, and we will be unable to answer emails during that time.)