Not all animal welfare donations have equal impact. Evidence-based approaches to giving help donors maximize welfare improvement per dollar, directing resources toward the most neglected and tractable problems.
The question "where can I do the most good for animals?" deserves the same rigorous analytical attention we would apply to any important decision. The answer from evidence-based giving analysis is consistent: the greatest welfare improvement per dollar comes from organizations working on the most numerous and neglected populations of suffering animals — primarily farmed animals — through the most effective mechanisms — primarily corporate campaigns and alternative protein development. Individual consumer choices and companion animal welfare are meaningful but affect smaller populations with more resources already devoted to them. Effective animal welfare donors combine personal choices that reduce their individual contribution to animal suffering with strategic giving to organizations working on the largest-scale, most neglected welfare problems.