I’d love to dig a bit more into some real data and implications for this (hence, just a quick take for now), but I suspect that (EA) donors may not take the current funding allocation within and across cause areas into account when making donation decisions - and that taking it sufficiently into account may mean that small donors shouldn’t diversify?

For example, the recent Animal Welfare vs. Global Health Debate Week posed the statement “It would be better to spend an extra $100m on animal welfare than on global health.” Now, one way to think through this question is “How would the ideal funding split between Animal Welfare vs. Global Health look like” and test whether an additional $100m on Animal Welfare would bring us closer to the ideal funding split (in this case, it appears that spending the $100m on Animal Welfare increases the share of AW from 0.41% to 0.55% - meaning that if your ideal funding split would allocate more than 0.55% to AW, you should be in favor of directing $100m there).

I am not sure if this perspective is the right or even the best to take, but I think it may often be missing. I think it’s important to think through it, because it takes into account “how much money should be spent on X vs. Y” as opposed to “how much money I should spend on X vs. Y” (or maybe even “How much money should EA spend on X vs. Y”?) - which I think closer to what we should care about. I think this is interesting, because:

• If you primarily, but not strictly and solely favor a comparably well-funded area (say, GHD or Climate Change), you may want to donate all your money towards a cause area that don’t even value particularly highly.
• Ironically, this type of thinking only applies if you value diversification in your donations in the first place. So, if you are wondering how much % of your money should go to X vs. Y, I suspect that looking at the current global funding allocation will likely (for most people, necessarily?) lead to pouring all your money into one cause (probably the more neglected one). The exception being that your donations can sufficiently change global funding allocation beyond what you’d favor…
• This would then suggest that there may not really be a case left for any small donor to diversify their donations? (I think this conclusion would be.. kind of strong? I am hesitant to draw it from the sort of quick thinking that went into this, but I think it’s fascinating!)

I believe that I, like many visitors on the Forum, would usually be very careful to vote on either end of an extreme. The reason I opted to move all in into animal welfare is that, while I acknowledge and put some credence on views around ripple effects and moral uncertainty (in the sense of placing some weight on societal consensus views), these views primarily have an influence on my view of how global philanthropic spending should be allocated. 

However, when it comes to an additional $100m, the (difference of) neglectedness completely wipes out these considerations for me. It appears, that there are $290 Million going into FAW^[1] vs. $70 Billion into GHD; pouring another $100m into FAW would effectively grow FAW from 0.41% of global philanthropic (neartermist) funding to 0.55%. I am not sure if this is the ideal way to frame the debate question (I use it really more as a proxy), but I have close to 0 credence that less than 0.55% of global philanthropic (neartermist) spending should be spent on farmed animal welfare.

1. ^{^}

   I focus on farmed animal welfare as opposed to including wild animals, because it seems that that's what many debate readers have in mind and are discussing here.