FundsAnimal Welfare Fund

Animal Welfare Fund

We identify and fund the highest-impact opportunities to help animals, so your donations go furthest.

Impact

The Animal Welfare Fund 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

Establishing the field of shrimp welfare and reducing the suffering of billions

Driving cage-free adoption in neglected, high-producing countries

Driving cage-free adoption in neglected, high-producing countries

Driving policy change and legal protection for the most numerous farmed animals

Driving policy change and legal protection for the most numerous farmed animals

About the fund

We aggregate donations to create a shared fund that significantly exceeds individual donor capacity, enabling support for both smaller- and larger-scale initiatives.

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

Payout reports

Payout date
Total grants
No. of grantees
Payout report

Payouts over time

Applications

Stats for the last 1000 applications received

Why donate to this fund?

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.

Why you might choose not to donate to this fund

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.

Fund managers

Karolina Sarek

Karolina Sarek

EA Animal Welfare Fund
Fund Chair
Zoë Sigle

Zoë Sigle

Farmed Animal Funders
Fund Manager
Renata Scarellis

Renata Scarellis

EA Animal Welfare Fund
Fund Manager
Neil Dullaghan

Neil Dullaghan

EA Animal Welfare Fund
Fund Manager

Fund advisors


Frequently asked questions

How do I make a donation to an EA Fund?

What is the risk profile of the Animal Welfare Fund?

How often does the Animal Welfare Fund make grants?

How Does the EA Animal Welfare Fund Make Grant Decisions?

What other donation opportunities exist in this space? How is the Animal Welfare Fund different from a donation to Animal Charity Evaluators’ Recommended Charities or Movement Building Grants?

Can I apply for funding to the Animal Welfare Fund?

Rigorous grantmaking for high-impact projects