Giving Compass' Take:

• This Open Philanthropy Project post lists several farm animal welfare organizations for individual donors to consider, based on past successes and measurable impact.

• How might these suggestions guide your giving journey in the next year? Farm animal welfare is often an overlooked area of philanthropy, as compared to other conservation causes.

• Learn more about effective animal advocacy strategies.

Compassion in World Farming USA

What is it? Compassion in World Farming USA is one of four groups responsible for the major recent US corporate wins for layer hens and broiler chickens. (The others are The Humane League, the Humane Society of the US Farm Animal Protection campaign, and Mercy for Animals.) Its focus is on winning further corporate reforms for broiler chickens and ensuring that corporate cage-free pledges are implemented.

Why I suggest it: CIWF has a strong track record of success: most recently it helped secure new broiler chicken welfare pledges from Nestle, Unilever, and Moe’s, and launched EggTrack to push companies to fulfill their cage-free pledges.

It also has a talented leader in Leah Garces, and solely focuses on what I believe to be one of the most cost-effective interventions: corporate outreach for layers and broilers.

But it remains a ~$600K/year group. At this size, I think that small donors can make a bigger marginal difference in the group’s future — especially since CIWF USA needs a broader donor base to grow sustainably.

Wild-Animal Suffering Research

What is it? WAS - Research is a new initiative of the Effective Altruism Foundation to fund the research of Ozy Brennan, Persis Eskander, and Georgia Ray. They’re seeking to found a new research field focused on understanding and improving the well-being of wild animals.

Why I suggest it: I think that wild animal welfare is a very important and neglected issue — there are trillions of wild animals alive at any time, yet almost no funding goes to evaluating and improving their welfare (as distinct from conserving their species or habitat). I’m not sure if there are any opportunities for improvements that are both clearly beneficial and tractable, but think the magnitude of suffering argues for doing more research to see if there could be.

Read the full article on farm animal welfare by Lewis Bollard at Open Philanthropy Project.