Thank you for the text and the interesting thoughts!

I don’t think charities will, or should, pay the same salaries as for-profits. They won’t do so because there are enough people willing to work for non-profits at lower salaries, and because all (EA) charities would effectively have to coordinate in order to pay salaries above the market rate for charity jobs. But they also should not do so, because that would actually reduce cost-effectiveness and therefore run counter to the purpose of charities.

Ideally, charities should structure salaries in whatever way maximizes cost-effectiveness. Suppose a charity needs to fill position X and could pay €100, €200, €300, or €400. At €100, nobody would take the job. At €200, the best candidate would create 100 units of impact. At €300, the best candidate would create 200 units of impact. At €400, there would be an employee who would create 210 units of impact. In that case, the charity should pay €300, regardless of what a comparable job would pay in the for-profit sector.

For-profits should actually follow the same principle as well, except that instead of impact, they optimize for contribution to company profit. If we assume that talented people are capable of contributing both to non-profit impact and to corporate profit, the question becomes: why are charity salaries lower on average? The answer is probably that people generally prefer working for charities.

In my view, there are several reasons for this. One important aspect is probably that many employees attribute the impact, at least partly, to themselves personally. Another aspect is certainly that working at a charity is often simply more enjoyable because you are surrounded by inspiring people, typically have more autonomy, and so on.

A similar dynamic exists in for-profit start-ups, which also tend to pay less than large established corporations, partly for those reasons. No start-up would say: “We’re going to pay as much as the big corporations.” Why shouldn’t a start-up make use of this advantage on the labor market? In my opinion, the same applies to charities.

Likewise, charities should also take advantage of the fact that they can pay less because employees attribute part of the impact to themselves, regardless of whether one thinks that attribution is justified or not. If someone believes that they will only get into heaven after death if they work for AMF, and is therefore willing to work for half the usual charity salary, then AMF should make use of that, for the benefit of the people whose lives can thereby be saved. (Of course, there are limits to this if the employee would suffer too much as a result.)

I also do not see the four stated advantages of for-profit-level salaries at charities:

“It would attract talent that otherwise would've been inaccessible because that talent wouldn't have been willing to take as big of a sacrifice.”
Under the method described above, charities can still pay high salaries if the output justifies it, thereby attracting very talented people. But if there are people who personally see no advantage in working in a charity environment, for example because they strongly prefer the clearly regulated structures of large corporations, and therefore demand higher salaries than equally talented people who are willing to work for less because they value the charity environment, then there is no need to attract those people specifically.

“It would allow less privileged groups to join the charity world that otherwise just wouldn't have the means to take pay cuts like this.”
The question here is how important reducing this social inequality is compared to the actual mission of a particular charity. Given that opening jobs to underprivileged groups comes with increased costs for the charity, one has to ask whether this is really the most cost-effective use of donated money. More generally, I think the focus should be on ensuring that everyone has enough money, rather than increasing salaries for selected positions within the charity sector.

“It would give employees a tangible measure to estimate how much impact they are having with their job.”
In my opinion, voluntary salary cuts can always in some sense be viewed as donations, and therefore as a measure of impact, regardless of whether the baseline salary corresponds to for-profit or non-profit market rates. Whether those donations are the only contribution to impact is a separate question, but that question arises in both cases anyway.

“It would avoid discussions like here whenever NGOs decide to pay market-rate salaries.”
First of all, I would not say that for-profits pay “market-rate salaries” while charities do not. There are simply two different labor markets: one for for-profits and one for charities. More generally, I think discussions about salaries are good. So from my perspective, avoiding such discussions is not an advantage.

Thank you for the text. In principle, I think that effective giving and earning to give are underestimated within EA. However, when it comes to advocating for more attention to these topics, focusing on LMICs would be the last thing that comes to mind for me, simply because the earning and donation potential is significantly lower.

The points you mention are broadly correct, but the question is whether they compensate for the enormous differences in potential when it comes to the amount of money. In Uganda, the median income per day is $2.56, while in the US it is $70 (source: Our World in Data). If someone pursues earning to give, earns twice the median income, and donates half of it, the amount donated in the US is 27 times higher. To generate the same level of donations, you would therefore need either one person in the US doing earning to give or 27 people in Uganda. Even if the person in the US cannot allocate the money within Uganda as effectively because of their outsider perspective, it would already be enough if they donated just one twenty-seventh of their donations to the most effective organizations for the outcome to be better overall.

Of course, for any individual person in an LMIC it is impossible to say in general terms which career path will be the most impactful. If someone does not want to work for an NGO, in politics, or for a company relevant to animal welfare, then earning to give could certainly be interesting (effective giving can also be practiced while having direct impact). But I would assume that this case occurs rather rarely. As far as I know, the underfunding of the animal movement in places like Africa is also partly due to funders in the global North not knowing where they can sensibly donate money, or believing that they do not know, meaning they suspect that the opportunities they already know might not be as effective. In that case, it would be even more important to have people doing strong direct work in those countries.

More generally, I also consider dependence on funders from the global North to be problematic. However, that primarily reflects the global disparities in income and wealth, and we will unfortunately not change that significantly in the foreseeable future. Therefore, we should focus on how to deal with that reality.

Regarding a few of the arguments mentioned:
“Even modest local funding can change how work is framed: from ‘externally funded projects’ to ‘something people here care about.’” -> I would say that one can also say that people care about it if they are directly working for the NGO.
“External funding priorities can shift with philanthropic trends, macroeconomic conditions, or changing attention.” -> Philanthropic trends exist among all donors, including local donors. And if the goal is to be less dependent on macroeconomic conditions, it would be best to have a globally diversified donor base. If there are disproportionately many donors from a single country, for example the country where the projects are carried out, fluctuations are actually more likely when that country experiences something like an economic crisis.

If we want to address the problem of underfunding and some of the other points raised, regranting initiatives such as the one Vasco already proposed could help in my view. Another option would be a stronger focus on small donors in the global North. At the moment, this barely exists, partly because the work in places like Africa is not widely known, and partly because of tax disadvantages. These disadvantages do not exist for large donors, since with larger sums it becomes worthwhile to set up a corresponding contract or similar arrangement to obtain the tax benefits.

More generally, I would think that if we are discussing whether there should be more earning to give in LMICs, this mainly shows that we are still neglecting it far too much in industrialized countries.

I think the COP in Brazil was the climate COP of the climate agreement, not the CBD COP. 

ProVeg International advocates on UN conferences and I think they prioritize which conferences are most useful. If they get enough donations, they will certainly attend every CBD COP. ;)

I also find this a very exciting question and would like to read more about it. I am also surprised that there has been relatively little written about it so far. I would assume that ACE must have made some comparisons in past years, back when GFI was still being evaluated.

A few remarks:

• For charities in the alt-protein space, it definitely makes sense to also seek funding from the climate sector, because there is simply more money available there overall than in the animal welfare sector. If a charity like GFI ranks among the most cost-effective charities in two areas, it could even make sense for both donors with a climate background and donors with an animal background to agree on donating to GFI. See this interesting article on the EA Forum.
• For strategic reasons, GFI has never put the topic of animal welfare front and center. As far as I know, GFI no longer being evaluated by ACE also has other reasons, namely that GFI has become very large, and with that the effort required for an evaluation, relative to the expected benefit (especially ACE's recommended charities fund), has become very high.
• From my perspective, the comparison between donations to THL and investing in an alt-protein startup is somewhat off, because an investment is about getting the money back, ideally with a return, whereas a donation is not. Accordingly, I would assume that a donation to, for example, GFI has more impact than an investment of the same amount in a startup. If that were not the case, all GFI donors should invest in startups instead. I find this assumption plausible, because GFI can do things that benefit the entire ecosystem, for example advocating for public research funding.
• By the way, GFI does not receive government funding, and I think this is also not planned.
• Social norms are definitely a factor in the adoption of cultivated meat. However, I believe that social norms can also change, and will change, especially if the alternatives are cheaper and tastier. In that sense, I would not put too much weight on statements by people today who say they will never switch, even if it were cheaper and tastier. That may be true in individual cases, but I see no reason why the younger generation should opt for slaughter-based meat if it is more expensive and less tasty.

Some rough ideas on how one might model the overall calculation: One option would be to assign each change, for example higher animal welfare standards or higher consumption of alternative products, a durability or half-life. That is, without additional follow-up intervention, the effect of an intervention persists for X years or is reduced by half within X years. Another option would be to assume a long-term baseline trajectory, for example how the share of people living vegan develops over time or how animal welfare legislation evolves over time, and then, for each intervention, try to measure how much it brings a given stage of development forward in time. For example, reaching 2 percent of people living vegan five years earlier than assumed, whereas in the baseline scenario the share in those five years would have been 1 percent. An important question in this context would be whether reaching a development stage earlier also shifts later states forward in time, for example when 50 percent of people live vegan.

Thank you very much for organizing and for writing it up (and for inviting me)!

I’m wondering whether this concept can be transferred one-to-one to other regions. I think a major advantage was that the event could be promoted via the Vegan Student Associations in various Dutch cities. That way, you reach exactly the right target group:

1. Interested in animal welfare
2. Interested in career advice / inspiration
3. Not necessarily already in contact with EA (which increases the counterfactual impact of the event).

When I think about whether such an event would also make sense in Germany for example, I find it unfortunate that there aren’t really Vegan Student Associations here. That probably also has to do with university culture, there simply aren’t student associations for every hobby and interest. It’s possible there are some vegan student groups that I’m just not aware of. Otherwise, I would think that maybe the Plant-Based Universities groups could be approached.

That said, I suspect that organizing such an event would still be effective even without such highly targeted promotion channels. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this!

Thank you!

In conversations with effective altruists, we sometimes hear there’s a perception that GFI is sufficiently or even well-funded. Or that there’s less scope for impact in giving to an established charity.

I’ve also heard the argument that GFI should be supported by climate-focused donors, and that money from EA animal-welfare donors should go to other animal charities. If I, as an animal advocate, donate to GFI, is there a risk that GFI would then pass up opportunities to secure additional funding from climate philanthropists (where I assume there is more money overall)?

Eco Resilience Initiative also recommends GFI as the best donation opportunity to fight biodiversity loss. 

I’d like to add a few thoughts and perspectives that came to mind while reading:

“AI-driven research could dramatically reduce alternative protein costs—but the same technology will likely help animal agriculture cut down expenses for conventional animal products.” You later write that alternative proteins are likely inherently more efficient conversion systems than animal farming. An additional aspect here could be that alternative proteins have so far received significantly less research and development than the meat industry. This means that the proportional progress through the use of AI in this area could be significantly higher – a kind of "Ceiling Asymmetry". In other words: there is still a lot of untapped potential in alternative proteins that AI can unlock, whereas conventional meat production systems are already largely optimized.

I find the Truth Asymmetry interesting. I wonder if we will eventually reach a point where an AI concludes that there is no reasonable (scientific) basis to treat farmed animals differently from pets.

“For example, the industry may already be able to pay for the best human marketers, lobbyists and company leaders. AI could enable animal advocacy organizations to catch up by leveling the playing field” If it eventually no longer comes down to securing the best people but rather the best AIs, this will probably be primarily a question of cost – and here the industry has a considerable advantage due to its financial resources. The "moral advantage" of the animal advocacy movement is less relevant here than in the battle for the best human talents.

The Cooperation Asymmetry is also very interesting. In fact, the industry faces the classic "free rider problem": Why should an individual farmer or a small operation pay membership fees to an agricultural association when that association will lobby anyway and the individual’s influence is minimal? Industry associations therefore often need to provide other incentives, such as offering member advice, providing relevant information, and so on.

My understanding of the argument regarding “Meat reduction data from Germany's Statistical Office” is that significantly less meat is consumed in January than in the other months (I don't understand the argument in the sense that Veganuary has contributed to the downward trend over the years). Perhaps it would be better to compare the value for January 2023 with the monthly average for 2023 than with the monthly average for 2022, because this would rule out the possibility that the comparatively low consumption is due to the downward trend over the years. However, since the annual decline is less than 12.5% or 14.3%, consumption in January is also lower than the average month of the corresponding year.
The fact that the consumption of poultry meat in Germany has risen in recent years is very regrettable, but I don't believe that this is due to Veganuary. However, the German Statistical Office should also have figures for different animal species, so you should be able to see whether the consumption of poultry meat is higher, lower or similar in January compared to other months.
I don't think comparing January with December is very helpful because December is an atypical month due to Christmas.