Thanks to everyone who voted and/or donated to the Donation Election! 

Winners

The winners this year are:

• The EA Animal Welfare Fund ($6693.75)
• The Shrimp Welfare Project ($4259.66)
• The Against Malaria Foundation ($4259.66)

We used a ranked-choice voting to determine the winner. 314 of you voted, and 44 of you donated (thank you!). 

The final votes were as follows:
 

Below you can see how many people ranked the three winners 1–10 (based on initial votes). 

PS - just in the nick of time, Forum users donated enough to qualify for a debate week of your choice in Q1 next year. I'll ask for your ideas in January. 

More info on the Winners

The EA Animal Welfare Fund

Marginal funding post | Donate

In AWF's marginal funding post, the Karolina writes that:

"Our strategy aims to deploy at least $20M to proven and emerging interventions, but we face an $11.6M funding gap for 2026 that will determine whether these opportunities can be leveraged or remain unexplored."

What is that strategy? You can read the whole thing here, but one gloss from the piece is that:

"Our strategy prioritizes large, neglected species of animals, as well as farmed animals in the Global South, where the majority of suffering occurs but disproportionately little attention is paid. We plan to maintain our role as an early-stage funder, supporting novel interventions, while also stepping in to provide scale-up support when proven work faces funding gaps that other grantmakers can't or won't fill."

Extra funding may support:

• Cage free corporate campaigns in the global south, where markets are currently growing.
• Improving the welfare of farmed shrimp and fish by advocating for welfare standards in the global south.
• Piloting contraceptives as an alternative to culling for wild animal species. 

The Shrimp Welfare Project

Marginal funding post | Donate

Shrimp Welfare Project reports no current funding gap: existing donors are expected to cover its core plans for humane slaughter, research, and corporate engagement. 

So what would extra funding next year do? 

Aaron Boddy, author of SWP's marginal funding post, writes: "I believe there's potential for us to build on this momentum with ambitious projects that could absorb $5-10 million, allowing us to not just double the impact but 20x-ing it."

He's talking about 1) scaling up the Humane Slaughter Initiative, and 2) exploring leads for even more impactful interventions. 

You can read more about the ideas in their marginal funding post, but a couple that stood out to me where:

• Finding a machine that can stun and kill shrimp - reducing the likelihood of pain at slaughter even more.
• Using precision aquaculture to monitor and optimise for welfare outcomes.
• More scoping work (research) to find interventions to help the ~25 trillion wild caught shrimp. 

The Against Malaria Foundation

Marginal funding post | Donate

In 2026, AMF will be distributing 69 million malaria nets, providing protection for 124 million people. More money = more nets. 

Rob Mather (AMF CEO) reports a very large funding gap: US $462 million. By 'funding gap' Rob is referring to the amount of money it would cost to fund their approved projects (and projects they are likely to approve over the next couple years). More details here. 

This number is so high because major AMF partners such as The Global Fund have greatly reduced their funding this year. 

Want more stats? Make your own!

Anonymised data on all the final votes are here. Please share anything you find in the comments below.