“Is EA underfunding animal advocacy according to our own preferences?” by ElliotTep

<p> TL;DR</p><ul> <li> When surveyed, the EA community and leaders think ~18-24% of resources should go towards animal advocacy. The actual figure is about 7%.</li><li> We as the EA ecosystem are putting less resources (money and time) into animal advocacy than the movement thinks we should when surveyed.</li><li> This disparity could be because of loss of message fidelity, it's a harder cause area to pitch donors, or the role of large funders, but I'm honestly not too sure.</li></ul><p> My job at Senterra Funders involves making the case to EA/EA adjacent prospective donors that they can do a tonne of good by donating to animal advocacy charities. As part of this work I’ve noticed a certain level of inconsistency in the EA ecosystem: I encounter a lot more people who want the animal advocacy movement to 'win' than people working in or donating to the space.</p><h4 data-internal-id="The_numbers">The numbers</h4><p data-internal-id="The_numbers">It turns out this intuition is backed up by survey data.</p><p> Sources (see Appendix for extra details):</p><ul> <li> Meta Coordination Forum (MCF; 2024) / Talent Need Survey&nbsp;on ideal allocation of financial resources</li><li> EA Community survey data from 2023 on jobs by cause area I obtained in private correspondence with David Moss.</li><li> Historical EA [...]</li></ul> <p>---</p><p><strong>Outline:</strong></p><p>(01:07) The numbers</p><p>(02:37) Accounting for the disparity</p><p>(05:04) Appendix 1. Data Sources</p> <p>---</p> <p><b>First published:</b><br/> January 13th, 2026 </p> <p><b>Source:</b><br/> <a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FxZdQJXs45fTFnMEe/is-ea-underfunding-animal-advocacy-according-to-our-own?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Source+URL+in+episode+description&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FxZdQJXs45fTFnMEe/is-ea-underfunding-animal-advocacy-according-to-our-own</a> </p> <p>---</p> <p>Narrated by <a href="https://type3.audio/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Narrated+by+TYPE+III+AUDIO&utm_term=ea_forum&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TYPE III AUDIO</a>.</p> <p>---</p><div style="max-width: 100%";><p><strong>Images from the article:</strong></p><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/cea/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/07548469e3af99ce4aed6a8ede4518cd1941b279f0c64b8071c2749f2cdc2554/jbeblwkjqwhq7gwz4awp" target="_blank"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/cea/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/07548469e3af99ce4aed6a8ede4518cd1941b279f0c64b8071c2749f2cdc2554/jbeblwkjqwhq7gwz4awp" alt="Bar chart comparing donation percentages across X-risk, Global health, Animal advocacy, Meta, and Other categories." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><hr style="margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;" /><a href="https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/cgyAlfpLFBBiEjoXacnz/images/20637e4d1eee351b025d0e8426b851006d0af8698b3c9d60.png" target="_blank"><img src="https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/cgyAlfpLFBBiEjoXacnz/images/20637e4d1eee351b025d0e8426b851006d0af8698b3c9d60.png" alt="Violin plot comparing percentage distributions across four risk categories with means labeled." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><hr style="margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;" /><a href="https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/cgyAlfpLFBBiEjoXacnz/images/99049d913af4d1968c0283931725f0edac325524000b9ee1.png" target="_blank"><img src="https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/cgyAlfpLFBBiEjoXacnz/images/99049d913af4d1968c0283931725f0edac325524000b9ee1.png" alt="Violin plot showing distribution of cause areas, with percentages ranging from 3% to 26.8%." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><hr style="margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;" /><a href="https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/cgyAlfpLFBBiEjoXacnz/images/fd092a73094abeca9e7277732b7f762d54292a4a063fcbad.png" target="_blank"><img src="https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/cgyAlfpLFBBiEjoXacnz/images/fd092a73094abeca9e7277732b7f762d54292a4a063fcbad.png" alt="Graph showing preferred resource allocation percentages across six different causes with confidence intervals." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><hr style="margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;" /><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/cea/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/a5dce4368ed71e3b43532bb4e160718c9e5f4da3bbea79a0b33c4201cd528244/e0efy18q8tk09sme3de0" target="_blank"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/cea/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/a5dce4368ed71e3b43532bb4e160718c9e5f4da3bbea79a0b33c4201cd528244/e0efy18q8tk09sme3de0" alt="A stacked bar chart titled "EA Grants by Sector ($m)" showing funding from 2014 to 2025E." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><p><em>Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try <a href="https://pocketcasts.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Pocket Casts</a>, or another podcast app.</em></p></div>