Animal welfare is neglected in a particular way: it is fragile

By Engin Arıkan, lauren_mee, Animal Advocacy Careers @ 2024-10-12T10:54 (+47)

Open Philanthropy has generously supported the animal welfare field for an extended period of time, enabling the success of corporate campaigns, the creation of numerous new initiatives unlikely to succeed without this funding, and the establishment of animal advocacy more into the mainstream in the EA. Unfortunately, few other philanthropic donors or foundations have been able or have chosen to provide a similar level of support. 

When considering neglectedness, we tend to focus solely on the quantity of resources allocated to a particular field. However, we want to argue and highlight that it's equally important to examine the composition of these resources and evaluate the associated risks with an overreliance on one or two key donors. Our conclusion will be that allocating significant extra funding in animal welfare can be highly beneficial not only because it will allow (neglected) organisations to use more resources cost effectively, but also because it can allow organisations to remain intact in case of major changes in the funding landscape, thus mitigating fragility. 

Extreme reliance of EAA on Open Philanthropy

Open Philanthropy (OP) is one of the leading funders in effective animal advocacy, and the leading donor for corporate animal welfare campaigns. OP provides a significant portion of The Humane League’s (THL) budget which then subsequently distributes large amounts to multiple organisations across the world via Open Wing Alliance, meaning there is a cascade of reliance on this funding in the corporate campaigns ecosystem. OP is also the leading funder to Mercy for Animals and CIWF for their cage-free corporate campaign work, even if this is a smaller portion of their total budget.  

Open Philanthropy also supports many other organisations directly and covers significant portions of their budgets. If we are not mistaken, OP covers close to %50 of THL’s and Anima International’s budget. For many smaller or newer organisations with less fundraising capacity , OP can cover up to 70-90% (This also includes Open Wing Alliance grants which are also funded by OP). 

(This appears to be less of an issue in alternative protein space since there are more philanthropic donors.)

Potential associated scenarios of overreliance 

To be clear, these are merely speculations about potential outcomes that are meant to highlight the fragility of the space 

This can also be a misrepresentation on behalf of OP, you’re welcome to disagree.. But the point here is that these can happen.

OP can aggressively change its priorities 

This may occur, especially if AGI timelines change or some other existential risk arises, like another pandemic. 

Good Ventures can view animal welfare as a liability 

OP funding decisions are not merely based on funding the most impactful organisations. OP’s chances of achieving high impact also take into consideration its ability to influence other actors. Therefore similar to updating their affiliation with wild animals or insects the entire animal welfare portfolio could also potentially be viewed at some point as a risk to OP and as such is deprioritised. 

OP might lose interest in animal welfare due to (short-term) poor outcomes: 

The progress in farmed and wild animal welfare is slow. Alternative meat sales are stagnant. The number of new welfare commitments is slowing down. Therefore it is not unreasonable and is possible that OP becomes dissatisfied and less patient with results and decides to focus more on other fields - especially if there are other possible priorities like AI. 

OP’s budget may shrink due to external factors, 

Particularly because a significant portion of its funding is tied to stocks, which could lose value during a market downturn. This would greatly impact OP’s funding capacity. We saw during the collapse of FTX that, although the animal welfare space wasn’t heavily funded by FTX, in times of financial scarcity, funds allocated to animal welfare can come under pressure as other cause areas may be prioritised.

It isn’t all speculation - some evidence of this is already occurring

Wild Animal Initiative announced that OP has decided to phase out funding for several areas, including wild animal welfare.

Potential disproportionately bad consequences to the EAA space

For GHD, organisations are not highly dependent on one single donor, and major funding cuts don’t typically result in the discontinuation of certain potentially impactful services. However in the EAA movement a major funding cut would be disproportionately bad in animal welfare:

Some examples include:

• Organisations would be forced to make significant cuts in their staff and reduce salaries, impacting their ability to achieve programme goals, and retain and attract the talent it so desperately needs.
• Many organisations might have to close down altogether, not due to merely not having impact but because they aren’t able to quickly find that other funding.
• Some might experience inner conflicts and unstable leadership changes.
• Many organisations may need to change or pivot their programs and choose to pursue much less cost-effective programs to receive funding from non-EA funders.
• This may result in the undoing of many years of hard work as corporations drop their welfare commitments if there is a lack of accountability from EAA orgs.
• Accumulated experience, talent and cohesion can be lost due to high talent people leaving the movement. Note that these are the primary inputs of advocacy organisations and it takes years to accumulate.
• Meta- long term effects would also be very bad: animal advocacy would not be seen as a viable and stable career. Even many highly talented people who “survived” the initial funding cuts may still look for alternative career options due to fear about their future.
• Other major funders can also follow OP, seeing the leading funder exiting the field as a bad market signal.

Again, these examples have disproportionately bad outcomes due to the fragility of funding in the animal space being much more extreme than in GHD, not only due to “less funding”.

Some ideas on how we can make effective animal advocacy more robust

The obvious way of fixing this problem is of course channelling more funds into the field and reducing the share and burden of OP in EAA funding. But “just donating more to the field” may not be a simple solution. The field also needs to be more consolidated in order to be less fragile. Donors, as well as grant managers, can play a role in this.. 

If donors spread out their donations to a very large number of organisations, then it may be too hard to sustain them all in case of a significant funding cut. But if donors channel their donations together and focus on fewer organisations, it may be enough to constitute at least one other important source of funding for the organisations. Funds like EAAWF and ACE are a good solution for this coordination problem. 

The downside of this approach is that consolidation would lead to less experimentation in our movement and new and small organisations would have even less funding options. Finding the right balance is another question. Hopefully funds (like EAAWF and ACE) would be more likely to find the right balance, since they have more expertise, information and can manage related coordination problems. However, success in this case is dependent on the quality of the grant managers, of course. 

Organisations can also consider taking steps to mitigate this problem: spend their funds responsibly, grow sustainably, hire only when needed, save reserves, coordinate well with other organisations, avoid duplications and try to diversify funding.

Counterpoints

There are multiple ways to disagree with this argument. 

Firstly, one can disagree with its starting point: it can be argued that animal welfare is not that fragile. The risk of OP dropping out could be extremely low. In addition, OP typically provides “exit grants” in order to mitigate at least some of the potential harms mentioned above. The field may also not be that dependent on OP after all. For example, thanks to the entry of Navigation Fund, funding prospects now seem much better - including wild animal welfare. There might also be many other (anonymous) donors in the field who can step up if OP decides to step back. However a counter counter point could be that due to the mere existence of the Navigation Fund this might increase the likelihood the OP can exit the EAA movement and then we are again back to the problem of reliance on 1 major donor.

Secondly, one might disagree with the proposed solutions. Some may argue that fragility isn't a significant concern and that hits-based opportunities should not be overlooked, or at the very least, evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There could also be concerns regarding the expertise and performance of the given suggested funds or fund managers.

Thirdly, one might disagree with the conclusion. It could be argued that if animal welfare is indeed that fragile, it may not be cost-effective in the long run if potential risks materialise. Some might interpret this as a reason to be more cautious and avoid supporting a risky field, rather than doubling down to mitigate the risk. This is especially relevant if one believes that alternative donors would fail or be unable to coordinate effectively to fill funding gaps. A more prudent approach might be to focus on more robust, cost-effective cause areas, or to wait until the animal welfare field matures. As argued a long time ago, a field can also be “too neglected”.

Giving For Animals

Finally, if you want to support individual animal advocacy organisations and join a new community trying to effect change in this area either by donating directly to the funds discussed above or by discussing where we can most effectively donate our 10% 's to help animals most, you can check out Animal Advocacy Careers’ Giving For Animals program.