Support highly-impactful, evidence-based solutions to reduce animal suffering on a global scale. 

## The Founders Pledge Perspective

At least 75 billion farmed land animals and more than a trillion fish are slaughtered each year. That is more than 2000 land animals and 25,000 fish are killed every second. This is possible due to the mechanization and intensification of factory farming, driven by global increase in demand for meat.

Although this situation seems bleak - and the numbers almost too large to comprehend - there are reasons to be hopeful. Recent years have seen rapid progress in the animal welfare movement. Many large companies have pledged to phase out or drastically reduce some of their industry’s most harmful practices. Governments have banned some of these practices outright. And companies working to commercialize alternative proteins, such as plant-based meats, have raised billions of dollars from investors. 

Yet farm animal welfare remains highly neglected, with just 0.03% of US philanthropic funding going to this cause in 2017. By giving to the Founders Pledge Animal Welfare Index, you can spread your donation across several highly-impactful and neglected global initiatives to alleviate suffering and improve the conditions of factory-farmed animals. By pooling your donations, this Index fund allows you to make larger grants and thereby maximize your impact.

## Our Approach to Grantmaking

When evaluating potential grants, we consider several key points:

- **Counterfactual impact**. Our grants are designed to create a meaningful outcome that would not otherwise have happened. In particular, we aim to make grants that otherwise wouldn’t have been made, rather than those which just take the place of other philanthropists’ donations. This means that you can rely on the Funds to create meaningful, real change, rather than just maintaining the status quo.
- **The grant’s potential outcomes**. We focus on outcomes (e.g. how many lives were saved), rather than outputs (e.g. how many products were delivered). We review all the available evidence and take into account cost-effectiveness to assess whether the grant money could produce more good if donated elsewhere.
- **The organization’s funding gap**. Not all organizations are set up to scale up their programming and many can’t productively absorb large amounts of unsolicited funding. We evaluate all potential grantees’ capacity for growth and consider how much money they could put to good use.
- **Organizational strength**. Particularly with unrestricted funding, it’s important to have trust in the leadership and capacity of the organizations we support. We look at their track record of success and their transparency about failures as well as successes, and we only support those organizations which are exceptionally well run. We also look for organizations that demonstrate a strong commitment to measuring outcomes and evaluating the impact of their programs.

Animal Welfare Index

One of GiveWell's top charities for the past several years, AMF provides anti-malarial bednets to people in need. 

From Givewell: 
What do they do? AMF (againstmalaria.com) provides funding for long-lasting insecticide-treated net (LLIN) distributions (for protection against malaria) in developing countries. (More)

Does it work? There is strong evidence that distributing LLINs reduces child mortality and malaria cases. AMF conducts post-distribution surveys of completed distributions to determine whether LLINs have reached their intended destinations and how long they remain in good condition. AMF's post-distribution surveys have generally found positive results but have some methodological limitations. (More)

What do you get for your dollar? We estimate that the cost to purchase and distribute an AMF-funded net is $4.95, or $4.65 excluding in-kind contributions from governments. The numbers of deaths averted and other benefits of distributing LLINs are a function of a number of difficult-to-estimate factors, which we discuss in detail below. (More)

Is there room for more funding? We believe that AMF is likely to be constrained by funding. We estimate that AMF could use up to an additional $37.8 million to support LLIN distributions that will occur between now and late 2023. 

AMF is recommended because of its:

Focus on a program with excellent evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.
Processes for ensuring that nets reach their intended recipients and monitoring whether they remain in homes and in good condition over the long-term.
Room for more funding – we believe AMF will be able to use additional funds to deliver additional nets.
Transparency – AMF shares significant information about its work with us and we are able to closely follow and understand its work.

The Against Malaria Foundation

Our research-based matching system motivates people to donate to highly effective charities at givingmultiplier.org.

Giving Multiplier is a Harvard University research project that matches donations to any charity of your choice and promotes the world's most effective charities.

To make a donation that gets matched, go to http://givingmultiplier.org. To become a matching funder, go to http://givingmultiplier.org/matching. (If you donate on this page here, your donation will also go into our matching system.)

Giving Multiplier

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Ex-cofounder and Head of Engineering at Every.org. I work so others can receive the level of support I've personally benefited from.

Effective Altruism Movement. 10% Pledge at Giving What We Can. Together we can make a change. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/

Effective Altruism movement. 10% Pledge at Giving What We Can. Let's make a humongous change together. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/

I'm committing to giving at least 10% of my income to effective charities. I hope many more will join!