People for Animals Uttarakhand and Cage Free Free Range Poultry Producers Association
Training of Trainers (5-day) in India to equip key stakeholders with best practices in cage-free egg farming
$58,650
2025 Q1
FundsAnimal Welfare Fund
Animal Welfare Fund
Reducing animal suffering worldwide by funding the most effective ways to help the most animals.
Featured grants
Recent grants with outstanding outcomes.
The Center for Responsible Seafood
Research & pilot program on humane chill-killing at Indian shrimp farms to inform global certification standards
$117,000
2024 Q4
Animal Welfare League
A budget to support cage-free policy work in Ghana and recruiting cage-free farms in South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco
$130,000
2024 Q4
Fórum Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Animal
Project and staff expenses to work on corporate welfare washing in cage-free accountability in Brazil
$100,000
2024 Q3
Focus areas
The Fund focuses on projects that primarily address farmed animals, as well as projects that could affect other large populations of nonhuman animals.
Examples of projects that the Fund could support:
- Supporting farmed animal advocacy in Asia
- Advocating against the use of cruel practices within the industrial agriculture system, such as battery cages for egg-laying hens
- Policy advocacy to increase government research and development (R&D) budget that goes to alternative protein
- Researching ways to improve the welfare of invertebrates
- Policy advocacy to increase government R&D budget that goes to alternative protein
- Movement building in neglected countries and regions with large-scale animal farming
- Growing the field of welfare biology in order to improve our understanding of different ways to address wild animal suffering
Learn more about scope and limitations of EA Funds.
Impact
The AWF has recommended over 20 million dollars' worth of grants that supported our grantees’ work and their successes, including:
Establishing the field of shrimp welfare and reducing the suffering of billions
In 2019, the suffering of the world’s 440 billion shrimp was largely neglected. AWF's funding of Rethink Priorities’ cause prioritization work revealed this problem, then AWF grants launched the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) and other groups working on shrimp welfare. SWP improved 1.2 billion lives during their first two grant periods and secured commitments from 18 producers across the globe, helping 4 billion shrimp. Thanks to them and other advocacy groups AWF supported, nine retailers committed to humane stunning. The field transformed from nearly nothing to helping billions annually.
Driving cage-free adoption in neglected, high-producing countries
The Global South produces almost 80% of eggs globally. Yet, before 2020, only 24% of cage-free commitments were in the Global South, but after 2020, this jumped to 51%. AWF's grants helped kickstart and scale groups across Brazil, Peru, Ghana, Indonesia, Colombia and other countries, securing commitments and ensuring implementation. For example, Sinergia Animal secured over 170 commitments in Latin America and Asia, while Fórum Animal drove accountability by securing progress reports from 30 Brazilian companies. Thanks to all the groups AWF supported, millions of hens escaped confinement.
Driving policy change and legal protection for the most numerous farmed animals
Policy change establishes lasting protections for billions of animals through legally-binding standards. Organizations AWF supported secured notable victories, including Crustacean Compassion achieving legal recognition of decapod sentience in the UK, which opened doors for 8 UK retailers to commit to pre-slaughter stunning of shrimp. Meanwhile, Animal Enterprise Transparency Project engaged Slovenian policymakers, resulting in legislation requiring analgesia during piglet castration and banning hen cages nationwide, making Slovenia the 5th EU country to ban all cages for hens.
Payout reports
Payout date
Total grants
No. of grantees
Payout report
July 1, 2025
$1,351,867
13
March 31, 2025
$1,209,017
13
December 31, 2024
$1,012,822
11
October 31, 2024
$2,438,266
37
March 31, 2024
$7,079,301
109
Payouts over time
About the fund
Pooled resources
We aggregate donations to create a shared fund that significantly exceeds individual donor capacity, enabling support for both smaller- and larger-scale initiatives.
Global outreach
We actively solicit applications from organizations and individuals worldwide, ensuring a diverse range of high-impact projects for consideration.
Rigorous evaluation
Our team conducts thorough assessments of project proposals to identify and select the most effective interventions.
Continuous improvement
We aim to systematically evaluate the impact of our grants and adapt our grantmaking strategies to maximize our positive influence.
Strategic collaboration
We partner with leading animal welfare organizations, researchers, and advocates to leverage collective expertise
Transparency and accountability
We are committed to openness in our resource allocation processes, ensuring responsible stewardship of donor funds in advancing animal welfare.
Why donate to this fund?
Our work is focused on four areas which were selected because we think they address key bottlenecks in the community and play to our strengths. These areas will guide the growth and development of our programs.
1. The scale of animal suffering is immense
Annually, hundreds of billions of vertebrate animals are subject to factory farming. Roughly 83 billion terrestrial farmed animals are raised and slaughtered each year, as well as ~124 billion farmed fish. Farmed invertebrate animals (for example, shrimp and insects) number in the trillions.
Experts now agree that numerous species of animals are conscious and capable of feeling pain. Current practices within animal agriculture are likely to cause extreme suffering over the course of animals’ lives. Furthermore, hundreds of trillions of wild animals exist, many of which likely experience significant suffering that could be reduced through human intervention.
2. Funding to address this Issue remains critically limited
Despite the magnitude of this problem, the field of animal advocacy receives only a small percent of total charitable donations, with most of that money going to the comparatively few companion animals in shelters. This leads to some groups of animals being highly neglected in relation to their numbers and capacity for suffering.
3. Our fund maximizes the impact of your contribution
The Animal Welfare Fund holds a unique position to identify and support the most effective opportunities to help animals globally. What makes this possible is:
- Finding the best opportunities
We actively seek out promising projects across the world, from established organizations to new groups. We are also not restricted to donating only to nonprofits, we can also fund individuals, academic institutions, and other entities. Our strong connections within animal advocacy and effective altruism help us discover high-impact opportunities that others might miss. - Rigorous evaluation process
Every grant application undergoes a systematic review, with the depth of investigation scaling with the grant size and uncertainty. Our evaluation includes assessing Theory of Change, scale of the counterfactual impact, likelihood of success, cost-effectiveness, value of funding, and forecasting. You can read more about our evaluation process in the FAQ section. - Tracking impact and improving based on learning from M&E
We systematically track each grant's progress against specific goals, collect progress and learning reports, and compare our predictions against the real outcomes to continuously improve our grantmaking. - Expert Fund management
Our fund managers have good judgment and bring diverse expertise in animal advocacy, research, grantmaking, corporate outreach, entrepreneurship, and movement building. This helps us evaluate projects from different angles and guide our grantees effectively. - Strategic funding approach
We build a balanced portfolio of grants that include both proven interventions and those that are more uncertain but have a very high expected value. This means supporting immediate welfare improvements while also investing in projects that could create systemic change. - Movement coordination
We work with other funders and organizations to strengthen the whole effective giving ecosystem and help ensure resources are allocated where they can have the highest impact.
By contributing to the Animal Welfare Fund, you can be confident that your donation will always be allocated with impact in mind, aiming to make the greatest possible difference in alleviating animal suffering and promoting their welfare.
Why you might choose not to donate to this fund
We think it’s important that donors are well informed when they donate to EA Funds. As such, we think it’s useful to think about the reasons that you might choose to donate elsewhere.
1. You don’t support incremental welfare improvements
Thus far, much of the Fund’s grant money has gone toward work on reducing farmed animal suffering through positive yet incremental changes. This is not an exclusive focus since we have also supported interventions that aim to be more systemic (like policy advocacy) and that reduce demand for animal products (like advocacy to increase investment in alternative protein). However, if you believe that it is wrong to support incremental welfare improvements, some of the Fund’s grants may not be a good match for your worldview.
2. You have a preference for specific interventions or species
The Fund has made a range of grants. If you have a strong preference for supporting a particular intervention type or focusing on a specific animal group (e.g., exclusively supporting corporate outreach for hen welfare or concentrating solely on farmed animals), you may find it more satisfying to donate directly to charities specializing in those areas.
Fund managers
Fund advisors
Lewis Bollard
Fund Advisor
Catherine Low
Fund Advisor
Aurelia Adhiambo
Fund Advisor
Kieran Greig
Fund Advisor