This is the third in a sequence reporting the results of Wave 2 of the Pulse project by Rethink Priorities (RP). Pulse is a large-scale survey of US adults aimed at tracking and understanding public attitudes towards effective giving and multiple impactful cause areas over time. Wave 2 of Pulse was fielded between February and April of 2025 with ~5600 respondents. Results from our first wave of Pulse, fielded from July-September of 2024, can be found here, with the forum sequence version here.
This part of the Wave 2 sequence focuses on US public attitudes towards different philanthropic cause areas.
Findings at a glance
Survey features:
- Wave 2 of Rethink Priorities’ Pulse project surveyed ~5,600 US adults between February and April 2025, following up on Wave 1 (July–September 2024).
- Results were statistically corrected (through multilevel regression and poststratification) to be representative of the US adult population with respect to Age, Sex, Income, Racial identification, Educational attainment, State and Census Region, and Political party identification.
- Respondents were randomly split into two groups: half answered how important they thought each of 10 cause areas was, and half answered how much they supported donors giving money to each of the same 10 cause areas.
- Data collection took place after the inauguration of US President Trump and subsequent, sweeping cuts to USAID, meaning that the survey was well placed to capture possible changes in attitudes towards related cause areas such as Global Health and Development (GHD).
Importance of causes and support for donations
- Traditional charitable causes continued to dominate public priorities: Cancer Research and Mental Health received the highest ratings on both importance (8.9 and 8.6 out of 10, respectively) and support for donations (2.4 and 2.2 respectively on a -3 to +3 scale), matching their top ranks in Wave 1.
- Farmed Animal Welfare and Climate Change received the lowest importance ratings (each at 7.4), whereas Nuclear Weapons (i.e., tackling nuclear risk) and AI Risk received the lowest donation support ratings (each at 1.1).
- Support for charitable donations followed a pattern similar to importance ratings, with Nuclear Weapons a notable exception. Tackling nuclear weapons received high importance ratings, but the lowest donation support. This diverges from the otherwise tight alignment between “importance” and “support for giving.” We suspect people are not aware of donation opportunities related to nuclear risk that could make a difference.
- Political polarization was most notable for climate change, which showed the greatest disparity between Republican vs. Democrat ratings, but sizable rating differences between Democrats and Republicans were also observed in Civil Rights, Farmed Animal Welfare, and GHD.
Little change over time in perceptions of causes despite major US political changes
- The overall hierarchy and absolute ratings of cause preferences were remarkably stable between Wave 1 and Wave 2 (representing a 5 month gap from the end of Wave 1 to the start of Wave 2). There were no reliable shifts in importance or donation support ratings over time, and the relative rankings were almost entirely unchanged
- Given actions and messaging from the Trump administration regarding cuts to USAID, one might expect sizable shifts in perceptions of GHD. GHD did show a hint of a downward trend, especially amongst Republicans. Any such shift remains modest at present; with Wave 3, we can assess whether this slight trend is sustained or increased over time.
Attitudes towards major cause areas
As in Wave 1 of Pulse, we sought to assess the US public's views on the importance of various cause areas. These cause areas ranged from more traditional philanthropic or charitable areas (e.g., Cancer Research) to those often highlighted by the EA community (e.g., Global Health, Animal Welfare, or Existential Risk).
Respondents were randomly split to see either a question about the importance of 10 cause areas (n = 2773), or to indicate the extent to which they, in principle, supported donors giving to those same 10 cause areas (n = 2835).
Each cause came with a brief description or example. While this explanatory information aimed to be simple, informative, and uncontroversial, it should be noted that different framings of cause areas could lead to substantially different prioritization ratings (as we have seen in previous research).
Cause area importance
Respondents who rated the importance of different cause areas saw the following:
“Governments, charities, philanthropists, companies, and individuals all make choices about the most important issues of our time.
We would like to know what you think are the most important issues to be tackled in the world.
On the following pages, we will show you several different issues or 'cause areas'. Please rate how important you think each one is.”
The average importance ratings are shown in Figure 1 (Figures S1 and S2 of the Appendix show how causes were rated as categorical outcomes). It is notable that all cause areas, on average, received ratings reflecting considerable importance attributed by the US public. Nevertheless, some causes got substantially greater endorsement than others, with arguably more traditional causes such as Cancer Research, Mental Health, and Civil Rights receiving more endorsement than Farmed Animal Welfare. Climate Change also ranked low in importance, owing to disagreement about its importance along political lines (higher amongst Democrats, lower amongst Republicans). Specific comparisons amongst the items can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 1: Most important issues to be tackled in the world, according to US adults
Figure 2: Comparisons between importance ratings for different cause areas
We observed remarkably little change in importance ratings in February-April 2025 relative to July-September 2024: none of the causes showed reliable shifts up or down, on average (see Figure 3). Indeed, the ranking of issues was unchanged from the first wave of Pulse, with the exception of Civil Rights just flipping Nuclear Weapons for the number 3 spot, though both were essentially unchanged at an average of 8.3.
Global Health and Development showed the greatest, though still not statistically significant, shift downwards. This may be understood given the geopolitical context surrounding Waves 1 and 2 of Pulse. Wave 1 was conducted before the 2024 US Presidential election, whereas Wave 2 was conducted after the inauguration of President Trump, and the subsequent announcement of cuts to global aid from the Trump administration. It could be that this signalling from the White House has begun to shift public perceptions. However, as any such shift was so far very modest, even among Republicans, we await the results of Wave 3 of Pulse to determine the longer-term effects of the administration’s activity on public perceptions.
Figure 3: Effect size estimates suggest little change in perceived importance of various cause areas in February-April 2025 relative to July-September 2024
Support for donations to cause areas
Respondents who were randomized to see the donation support/opposition items were told:
“On the following pages you will see several 'cause areas' or issues.
We would like to know to what extent you support or oppose charitable donors giving money to each of them.”
Average ratings are shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Support for donating to different causes among US adults
As with importance ratings, Cancer Research and Mental Health came out on top, but Farmed Animal Welfare fared relatively better in terms of its placement among the ratings. Specific comparisons between each of the different causes can be found in Figure 5.
As we saw in Wave 1, in contrast to a top four spot in importance rankings, dealing with Nuclear Weapons was ranked at the bottom among causes to donate to. This places Nuclear Weapons as something of an anomaly amongst the causes, which otherwise show a tight coupling between importance ratings and donation support (Figure 6).
Figure 5: Comparisons between support/opposition ratings for different cause area donations
Figure 6: Comparing importance and support ratings
Similarly to the lack of variation over time observed in importance ratings, none of the cause areas had notable shifts up or down in the support they received as targets for charitable donations (Figure 7).
Figure 7: Effect size estimates suggest little change in reported support of donating to various cause areas in February-April 2025 relative to July-September 2024
Political dimensions of cause area perceptions
We observed that certain causes were substantially more politically polarized than others, with Climate Change being much less endorsed by Republicans than by Democrats (Figure 8). These political tendencies are very similar to those observed in Wave 1 of Pulse, but some slight shifts can be observed and may be of interest if they persist or increase in Wave 3 of Pulse (Figure 9). For example, and in line with what might be expected given Trump administration signalling, Global Health and Development was .25 points (out of 10) lower amongst Republicans in importance in this most recent wave of Pulse, and .11 points down amongst Independents.
Figure 8: Ratings of cause are importance and support for donations across political party affiliations
Figure 9: Comparison of cause area ratings in February-April 2025 vs. July-September 2024 across different political party affiliations
Appendix
In addition to multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) to determine mean ratings for cause area importance and support, we conducted weighted regressions on the categorical ratings, which can be used to see more precisely how people rated each cause. Weighted regressions similarly estimate outcomes in a way that is representative of the US population, but for items with many categories are less computationally intensive than MRP. These are presented in Figures S1 and S2 below.
Figure S1: Categorical responses to cause importance
Figure S2: Categorical responses to cause support
Rethink Priorities is a think-and-do tank dedicated to informing decisions made by high-impact organizations and funders across various cause areas. We invite you to explore our research database and stay updated on new work by subscribing to our newsletter.
Jamie Elsey conducted analyses and wrote this report, with editing and review from David Moss.
Hi Jamie and David,
Really cool work. It's striking how much higher mental health is in importance and support than GHD. Do you have any insight into why this is and what people are imagining when they're referring to mental health?
I interpret this as very weak evidence that there's an audience for global mental health / mental health related EG that is non-overlapping with GHD (that is, there are MH givers that wouldn't otherwise give to GHD). But of course 1. most philanthropy is domestically oriented, and presumably that's what people mostly have in mind here as well. 2. It's in my self interest to read the data this way, so wondering what y'all think.
Do you know how hard it'd be to tease our real answers to these questions if you couldn't answer them with current data? E.g., by adding questions to the next round of the pulse data.
Hi Joel - in this case the positive sentiment towards mental health is indeed probably driven quite a bit by domestic mental health concerns. We actually provide an example or two for each cause and the mental health one notes improving or increasing access to mental health in the U.S.. Given it is the only mental health thing we have done so far in Pulse I think it would be hard to tease out with current data as you suggest.
But yes there could be opportunities to add something in upcoming rounds - feel free to DM or reach out by email to discuss more exactly what you would be looking for insights into. At face value it would probably be quite easy to compare how much people support e.g., mental health access/improvements at home, vs. as something they would support being done in lower income countries.
I can imagine support for government or charitable efforts at improving mental health in lower income settings being similar to support for general efforts to improve welfare/health in lower income settings, but it also seems possible that the current vogue for mental health (with therapy apps, ads all over etc. about its importance) could make people think it is an especially valuable way of helping abroad. That might just be cannibalizing broader GHD support even then though.