Agree on all counts, Aidan!

Thanks for writing this, Aidan! As a fundraiser, this take resonates. One of the strategies we use to acquire new donors is encouraging our existing supporters to engage in relational fundraising, whether that's a peer-to-peer birthday fundraiser as you suggest, or a larger time investments (and potentially $, as hosts will also sometimes offer matching gifts to incentivize their friends) like hosting a fundraising event in your home or leading a giving circle. (I've also participated in non-EA giving circles that do political education as part of the gift allocation process, which EAs could emulate, but that's an aside.) Your network likely shares many of your values, and educating them about effective giving opportunities is super helpful to charities. 

That said, it is difficult to convince people who don't care about a particular cause area to care. For those in the farmed animal advocacy space, consider how difficult it can be to get people to reduce or eliminate their animal product consumption. It's more about presenting values-aligned people with opportunities to enact those values, rather than changing people's values altogether, in my experience. 

Hi there, writing on behalf of The Humane League!

THL is grateful to GWWC for their support of our corporate campaigns to reduce farmed animal suffering, previously as a recommended program and moving forward as a supported program. GWWC provides an important service to the philanthropic community, and the funds they have directed to THL have driven highly impactful victories to reduce animal suffering, including a recent groundbreaking victory that will spare 700,000 hens from immense suffering annually once implemented and kickstart the cage-free supply in Asia, a neglected yet highly important region for corporate campaigns.

While we are disappointed that our corporate campaigns to reduce farmed animal suffering will no longer be listed as a recommended program, we understand GWWC’s decision to limit the scope of their recommendations in line with their evaluating evaluators project. We hope that donors will continue to support our corporate campaigns and the Open Wing Alliance as highly impactful giving opportunities to reduce the suffering of millions of sentient beings and build an effective global animal advocacy movement, given the strong marginal impact of our supported regranting programs in neglected regions. We are grateful that GWWC will continue accepting gifts on THL’s behalf; in addition gifts can be made directly to THL, or through our other international charity partners for donors outside the US seeking tax deductions. 

If you have any questions about THL’s programs or high-impact funding opportunities, please reach out to Caroline Mills at cmills@thehumaneleague.org.

With gratitude,

The THL team

omg, I did! Thank you for the correction :)

Thanks for the question and feedback Jason, that's a point well taken! I think my main response is that this is less of a dispute, and more of simply a strategy that, from my perspective, lacks awareness and understanding across the effective animal advocacy movements, and I imagine across other movements as well though I'd love to hear from folks in EA but non-EAA movements.

We do see a mix of behaviors from grantmakers - some who solely fund grants, and some who fund both grants and the associated program support. For those who only fund grants, I think it's a mix of rationale. Some grantmakers have specific grantmaking priorities to, say, direct funding to a particular region of the world, and they find our grants to be an efficient way to do that. We're definitely still grateful for that support, and it is highly impactful. Some grantmakers who solely fund grants I think are simply not aware of all that goes into making those grants successful, and those are conversations we try to have with funders when we're able. But your comment is a good reminder to me as a fundraiser to gain a deeper understanding of that behavior. 

I think this post was aimed less at our existing funders who may or may not be funding grant program support, and more at other funders who might be looking for ways to create efficiencies in their funding strategy and maximize impact. But that may not have totally come across, so again thanks for the points here!

It looks like you don't fund in the animal welfare space, but I wanted to let you know that your post sparked some thinking from my colleague and I here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/srZEX2r9upbwfnRKw/giving-season-2024-announcement

Perhaps things like this exist within your funding priorities?

Thanks for this work, it's great to see! I'm curious how much room for funding you believe this fund / field has?

Thanks for this question! And hi Klara, thanks for your answer on behalf of THL UK! I also wanted to chime in from the perspective of THL. 

If THL were to receive more significant additional funding, we have developed a robust expansion plan for the OWA through 2030. The goal of this expansion is to free one billion hens from cages by 2030 and achieve a critical tipping point in the OWA’s mission to eliminate battery cages from the planet. Campaigns against global companies have worked well, but to phase out battery cages across the globe, we must have a robust and high-functioning alliance in every major country. 

Our success in building an effective global alliance is outpacing the operational support THL is able to provide, given our own resource constraints. Our current model of having a single regional OWA coordinator to support upwards of 20 member groups with differing needs across an entire continent is no longer sustainable. As the OWA is one of the only international movement building resources available, our constraints mean that groups are unable to get the training and support that they need, alongside the strategic guidance and leadership development. We also see a huge appetite from groups to expand what the OWA is offering so that we can be an even more effective global coalition. 

To achieve the current need and anticipated growth, we need to create small teams in key regions around the world that can then support the differing needs of groups in their respective regions. To scale this up, we estimate this will cost a minimum of $2.5M in 2024, with capacity to increase our OWA grants by an additional $1M, and closer to $8.5M in 2025.

Another program that is primed for expansion is the Animal Policy Alliance—already 14 member groups strong, and we have a goal to reach at least 30 active alliance members by 2025. THL launched the APA in 2022 to organize, unite, and empower local and state-level animal advocacy groups that are involved in issue-based advocacy and implementing legislative strategies for animals with policy agendas that include animals raised for food. These groups harness and channel the grassroots power of a significant base of animal protection advocates in the United States that they then use to create relationships with legislators at the city, state and federal level, and advocate for policies that benefit animals. Over time, through its leadership role in this alliance and through its grant-making capacity, THL will also influence local groups to focus more on farmed animal and food system issues. 

THL could effectively use up to $2M to expand the APA team and provide grants to member organizations in 2024. We distributed $500K in grants in 2022 and were unable to continue the grants program in 2023 due to funding constraints. But through this process, we know the need for funding policy work in the US is strong, and that there are dozens of groups eager to expand their advocacy for farmed animals.

Both of these alliances have significant room to scale. We have detailed plans to use 2-3x funding for these programs, but we could scale even further and achieve our desired impact more quickly with additional funding.

For full details of THL’s room for more funding, check out this post!