Welcome to Effective Animal Activism

(NOTE: This post was made under Animal Charity Evaluators’ previous name, Effective Animal Activism.)

Welcome to the Effective Animal Activism blog!

Effective Animal Activism is an online resource and international community for people who are dedicated to reducing the suffering of animals. Our members come from many different walks of life, but are united in the belief that animal suffering is one of the most important problems in the world today, and in the desire to do something about it. We see that our actions can prevent a significant amount of suffering if only we allow them to be effective, and thus we have each made the declaration: we will devote a significant proportion of our time or resources to helping others, and do so as effectively as possible.

We are thus a society of concerned people, who have made a commitment to act effectively on behalf of those much less fortunate than ourselves. Together:

1. We examine the effectiveness of different animal charities.
2. We present the strong arguments in favor of helping animals.
3. We explore how to make effective animal activism part of one’s life.

Effective Animal Activism is a project of 80,000 Hours. All 80,000 hours members pledge to use the time or resources we give as effectively as possible in helping others. The animal cause is one plausible option for doing the most good; mostly, because of the magnitudes involved: a staggering 60 billion non-human land animals are killed every year for food. A large proportion of those animals are factory farmed, living in extreme suffering. Luckily, it turns out there are some very effective ways to reduce this suffering. (Even greater magnitudes lie in the tens of trillions of fish, birds, and other land animals living in the wild and experiencing large amounts of suffering as well –opportunities for reducing animal suffering are therefore plentiful).

So since helping animals is clearly a plausible candidate for an avenue to do the most good in giving our time or money, it is crucial to evaluate which are the best ways to go about doing so. EAA was launched for this purpose: investigate the best ways to help non-human animals and provide a forum for the community to discuss these issues with one another. And similarly to the area of developing world charities, our research has found that by giving to some charities over others we can do hundreds or even thousands of times more good in reducing animal suffering.

Among the resources we offer are:

1. Charity evaluation, including top charity recommendations, and thorough analysis of other candidates.
2. Career Paths to help animals. Advice, information, and opportunities to network with and receive mentorship from other EAA members who are further along in their careers.
3. Optimal volunteering opportunities.
4. A blog featuring new Effective Altruism content relating to the animal cause.
5. Further resources and results of our original research on effective giving to animals.
6. A community forum to discuss all of the above.

We hope you will join our community!