I think service sector businesses or even part-time gigs , particularly in pet care, could be a diverse source of donations and outreach and here’s why:
Folks have been saying funding is too concentrated around here:
"There’s a near consensus that EA needs funding diversification... with Open Phil accounting for ~90% of EA funding [in 2023]” source: Marcus Abramovitch 2024
“Funding for talent-focused organisations (TFOs) in EA remains highly concentrated, with more than 80% coming from Open Philanthropy and EA Funds.” source: Wallen and Gruban 2025
And I also feel bad for donors outside of EA. Not nearly enough people know how cost effective charity can be.
In 2020 "on average, people believed the most effective charity to be about 1.5 times as effective as the average charity." source: Max Roser 2024
That’s the main reason I recently started a pet care business
Namely:
- It has got my foot in the literal door with many wealthy clients that I would never had the chance to chat with otherwise.
- My clients clearly have disposable income (if they are paying my rates) and a soft spot for animals.
- And even though I’m shy, I can gently bring up EA charities by offering matching donations to them (up to 10% of profits (a bit more detail on this site: https://www.properpetcare.org/))
Nice Perks
And while that may be apply to many other parts of the service sector, like private tutoring, pet care has:
- A relatively low barrier to entry but relatively safe from AI automation. [1]
- And that's not to mention the benefits of exercise in general, and walking in particular, on the mind. [2]
- Pets usually don’t mind if I listen to the 80,000 Hours Podcast while tending to them.
I'm just getting started
I could go on about the side benefits, and maybe I should go into the downsides, but I got to get back to work preparing holiday gifts for my clients. Those gifts include flyers introducing them to the aforementioned donation matching policy to. Honestly maybe I shouldn't be posting this until I infomred them and had some success steering their donations.
However I wrote this anyway because I’d love feedback on how to improve and to be corrected if I'm wrong. And if my ideas are salvageable than I'd be happy to collab with others to implement them and thought it better not to hold off until next year's Funding Strategy Week to do so.
So if this I inspired anyone to pursue this, feel free to reach out because I’d be happy to share tools and lessons I’ve learned. I would also welcome help with stuff I still suck at like talking to (rich) people, recruiting a team, and maybe writing persuasive essays like this one.
- ^
If you want to learn more about the topic I highly recommend this ~ 1hr article which led to me to believe pet care is physical enough that it probably won't be replaced by robots any time soon. Also for the foreseeable future, AI sucks at higher level parts of the job managing people and business strategy.
- ^
A shocking amount of great thinkers have explicitly linked long walks to their best thinking. Some examples:
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
"I have walked myself into my best thoughts" - Søren Kierkegaard
Charles Darwkin didn't wax poetic about it but every day he walked on a "thinking path" near his home. Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-to-think-about-exercise/201501/charles-darwins-daily-walks?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Interesting approach to earning to give. I only see farmed animals in your pictures though, a cow and a chicken, no companion animals. Regardless, or maybe because of that, I suspect ACE's Recommended Charity Fund is possibly the best donation opportunity for your clients.