Felix_Werdermann 🔸
Bio
Felix works as a business consultant (earn to give) and lives in Berlin, Germany. Mainly interested in animal welfare and nuclear security. Member of the EA & Consulting Network. Academic background in mathematics and political science. Worked as journalist before.
Posts 1
Comments13
You write that Funds like ACE or the EA Animal Welfare Fund can be a solution to the coordination problem when financial cutbacks are necessary (and you don't want to apply across-the-board cuts). That's true, but such funds also create exactly the dependencies on a few large donors that you criticize in the text, don't they? This dependency wouldn't exist if the money came directly from many small donors.
In general, one could say that ACE and EAAWF are better informed than individuals (also regarding the question of which organizations are particularly effective), but the same could be said about OP. I also find that plausible in principle, but I also think that a certain degree of "democratization" makes sense because it reduces the risk of wrong decisions and keeps a public discussion about effectiveness ongoing, which ultimately (hopefully) leads to better identification of more effective measures.
A lower dependency on major donors could also be good if we assume that (at least in some situations) the organizations themselves are better able than the large donors to assess which measures are most effective. With a high dependency, they might implement the measures preferred by the major donor, even though they actually believe that other measures would be more effective.
And then there are the arguments mentioned in the text. Can the arguments be summarized in such a way that the main problem of fragility is that larger fluctuations in financial resources are to be expected, and in the event of significant cutbacks, structures, experiences, and security that have been built up over years would be lost, and rebuilding them would come with additional costs?
Cool initiative!
In the Netherlands, there is an umbrella organization for vegan student associations: https://www.vsanetherlands.nl/ Perhaps, it could be interesting to exchange experience?
How to Create a Vegan World by Tobias Leenaert
What: A book about effective strategies of the animal advocacy movement.
Why: I know of no other book that deals explicitly and in such detail with strategies of the animal advocacy movement. It is characterized by a very clear argumentation, good comprehensibility even without prior knowledge, and the recourse to scientific studies (if available).
Other notes: You can watch a video that is loosely based on that book. The book is presently available in English, Spanish, Czech, Turkish, (traditional) Chinese, Korean, German and Polish. Upcoming are French, Swedish and Russian.
Thank you for sharing these insights!!
I would like to add another possible positive indirect effect of banning / reducing the sale of live animals. I could imagine that seeing live animals suffering and considering this situation as "normal" will have a negative impact on general attitudes towards animals. Especially children could adopt this view that it's "normal" to buy live animals and kill them - and it's perhaps more unlikely that they question this practice later on.
However, I agree that it is difficult to continue with a campaign if the short-term effect is unclear / (potentially) negative and you have to argue against the argument that your campaign is causing harm. If there are better alternatives, it seems a good choice to me.
Hi Engin, thanks for your reply!
I agree that it's better to have multiple major donors than one major donor (e.g. it's better to have four major donors who contribute to 20% of all funding each; than one major donor who gives 80% of all funding). I would assume that EAAWF and ACE rely on smaller donors who would have donated invidually otherwise. So in the case that - for example - there is one major donor (60%) and many small donors (summing up to 40%), I don't know if it's good to pool the money of the small donors by ACE or EAAWF (as long as they donate to equally effective charities) so that there are one major donor (60%), and e.g. ACE and EAAWF as further major donors (each 20%). On the one hand, it's easier for ACE and EAAWF to react to a cut of funding by the major donor. On the other hand, there will probably be many charities which depend on ACE or EAAWF instead of many small donors. Of course, if the total amount of donations increases by new major donors, it's a different thing.