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>I'm distrustful of "cruelty-free" branding because so many standards for that kind of thing are false or misleading, but with further research I expect I could find more harm-minimizing options there too.
Thinking mostly about eggs, I've concluded that "Animal Welfare Approved" (first choice) and "Humane Certified"+"Pasture Raised" (second choice) probably significantly reduce suffering compared to alternatives. There's also Whole Foods' GAP levels but I'm less familiar with those. No fancy analysis here, just "these labels set standards actually focused on welfare and claim to do verifications".
I'm not saying that should make vegans feel happy to eat eggs. For one thing, there's still chick culling at least until the sex selection tech becomes mainstream. But if you're going to eat eggs, you have an option to spend more money to probably reduce suffering by a lot.
I think the biggest way this would fail is if the producers were falsifying things -- in the most egregious case by picking up eggs from Walmart on their way to the farmers' market. But in expectation there still seems to be a lot of value here worth paying for.
Meat, Eggs and Dairy Label Guide l Help Farm Animals l ASPCA
“Wild-caught,” “organic,” “grass-fed,” “humane”: animal product labels, explained - Vox
For GiveWell and its top charities, excluding GiveDirectly, I think a lot depends on whether you expect GiveWell to have more RFMF than funds anytime in the near future. The obvious question is why wouldn't OpenPhil fill in the gaps. Maybe if GiveWell's RFMF expands enough then OpenPhil won't want to spend that much on GiveWell-level interventions?
GiveWell gives some estimates here (Rollover Funding FAQ | GiveWell) saying they expect to have capacity to spend down their funds in 2023, but they admit they're conservative on the funding side and ambitious on the RFMF side.
If GiveWell will actually be funding constrained within a few years, I feel pretty good about donating to them, effectively letting them hold the money in OpenPhil investments until they identify spending opportunities at the 5-10x GD level (especially where donating now yields benefits like matching).
If they're ultimately going to get everything 5x+ funded by OpenPhil no matter what, then your argument that I'm donating peanuts to the huge pile of OpenPhil or Moskovitz money seems right to me.
GiveWell does say "If we’re able to raise funds significantly faster than we've forecast, we will prioritize finding additional RFMF to meet those funds." So it sounds like they're almost-committing to not letting donor money get funged by OpenPhil for more than a few years.
Thanks! For eggs in particular, I've concluded that none of the standards require the producers to avoid buying hens from hatcheries that cull male chicks, or to ensure that they are culled in a particular way, or to let laying hens live out their lives once they're beyond their prime laying age. Also that there are essentially no hatcheries that do not cull male chicks, but there is apparently a commitment from 95% of egg producers to stop culling by 2020 by using sex-selection technology to avoid creating male chicks altogether.
Does anyone have any thoughts on giving to AMF vs giving to GiveWell? It sounds like GiveWell still believes that donations to GiveWell are more effective. I believe that they are being honest about this, but I wonder to what extent I should take into account the biases inherent in self-evaluation. I am also unsure how, if at all, the existence of Good Ventures should influence this decision.
In this vein, I'd love to see an analysis of how eggs from hens meeting CH+PR standards stack up against other animal products in welfare terms, especially since it's become very easy to find these eggs at supermarkets (at least in my corner of the US) in recent years.