Animal Welfare Charities and Evaluation

Giving effectively to animal welfare requires understanding how organizations spend donations and which interventions deliver the greatest welfare improvement per dollar.

Key Facts

Animal Charity Evaluators estimates orders-of-magnitude variation in cost-effectiveness between animal welfare organizations
Farm animal welfare organizations are estimated to be among the most cost-effective causes for welfare improvement due to the scale of farmed animal suffering
Corporate campaigns targeting specific practices have achieved welfare improvements affecting millions of animals at relatively low cost
Organizations that measure and report welfare outcomes provide better accountability than those reporting only activities

Welfare Considerations

The animal welfare funding landscape includes organizations varying enormously in impact per dollar. The difference between a highly effective welfare organization and an average one — in terms of animals helped per dollar donated — may be 100-fold or more. Treating charitable giving as an evidence-driven exercise rather than an emotional response dramatically increases welfare impact at the individual donor level.

What You Can Do

Consult Animal Charity Evaluators top charity recommendations before making significant donations
Ask organizations you consider donating to how they measure welfare outcomes from their programs
Prioritize farm animal welfare organizations given the scale of farm animal suffering and evidence for cost-effectiveness
Support organizations that invest in evaluation and publish outcome data alongside activity reports
Engage with the effective altruism community working on animal welfare cause prioritization and research