When we built a calculator to help meat-eaters offset the animal welfare impact of their diet through donations (like carbon offsets), we didn't expect it to become one of our most effective tools for engaging new donors.

In this post we explain how it works, why it seems particularly promising for increasing support for farmed animal charities, and what you can do to support this work if you think it’s worthwhile. In the comments I’ll also share our answers to some frequently asked questions and concerns some people have when thinking about the idea of an ‘animal welfare offset’.

Background

FarmKind is a donation platform whose mission is to support the animal movement by raising funds from the general public for some of the most effective charities working to fix factory farming.

When we built our platform, we directionally estimated how much a donation to each of our recommended charities helps animals, to show users.

This also made it possible for us to calculate how much someone would need to donate to do as much good for farmed animals as their diet harms them – like carbon offsetting, but for animal welfare. So we built it. What we didn’t expect was how much something we built as a side project would capture peoples’ imaginations!

What it is and what it isn’t

What it is:

An engaging tool for bringing to life the idea that there are still ways to help farmed animals even if you’re unable/unwilling to go vegetarian/vegan.
A way to help people get a rough sense of how much they might want to give to do an amount of good that’s commensurate with the harm to farmed animals caused by their diet

What it isn’t:

A perfectly accurate crystal ball to determine how much a given individual would need to donate to exactly offset their diet. See the caveats here to understand why you shouldn’t take this (or any other charity impact estimate) literally. All models are wrong but some are useful.
A flashy piece of software (yet!). It was built as a side-feature and has become more important than anticipated. We're now overhauling it to make it prettier and more user friendly (especially on mobile).

How it works

Feel free to skip this section if you don’t care. If you’re interested in digging into the details, you can read a longer write up on methodology here and see the underlying calculations and sources here, but in short we combined:

How many animals are farmed to provide for the average Western diet: This is based primarily on United Nations FAO data for animal product availability and output per animal, combined with demographic data. It also factors in estimates of premature deaths in the supply chain:

How much it costs our recommended charities to help each animal: This is the output of our estimate of the rough cost for each charity to help cows, pigs, chickens, fish and/or shrimp. We’ve used independent estimates of each charity’s cost-effectiveness where possible and adopted reasonable but conservative assumptions
How much each charity helps each type of animal:^[1] While interventions that reduce animal consumption will prevent all the suffering the animal would have experienced in it’s life, welfare interventions only prevent a fraction of it, so you may need to (for example) help 2 broiler chickens through the Better Chicken Commitment to offset the production of 1 chicken. These fractional improvements in welfare were estimated using AIM’s ‘Suffering Adjusted Days’ methodology.

The calculator has two modes:

Simple: Choose between ‘omnivore’, ‘pescetarian’, ‘flexitarian’ and ‘vegetarian’
Advanced: Allows the user to tailor the result to their own specific diet choices

Why this is a promising way to encourage effective giving for animals

As you've probably witnessed first hand, most people intuitively care about animal suffering and agree factory farming is problematic when pressed on it. Yet most people are either unwilling or unable to change their diet. The widespread messaging from the animal movement telling people to change their diet often falls on deaf ears. This creates a significant opportunity: there's a large population of people who care about animals and might be willing to take some other action (like donating), if approached with the right message.

FarmKind's core message, and our calculator in particular, could be effective in unlocking this potential donor base for three key reasons:

Decoupling action from diet change: By separating "wanting to help animals" from "changing your diet," we reduce defensive reactions and cognitive dissonance that often prevent engagement with animal welfare issues. Our core message is that donating is an underrated way that anyone can be part of the solution to factory farming, regardless of their diet. This non-judgmental message is one people are more willing to listen to, and our calculator seems to bring it to life for people.
The success of carbon offsetting: Voluntary carbon offsets raised $2 billion in 2020. Many are skeptical of carbon offsets because it's often questionable whether the money is going to high-impact interventions, but the fundraising model clearly works. As such, applying this successful fundraising model to effective farmed animal charities seems quite promising.
Enabling broader advocacy: Many people with platforms are sympathetic to addressing factory farming but hesitant to speak about it. This hesitation is understandable – when Alex O'Connor (formerly the Cosmic Skeptic) 'came out' to his audience as vegan, he received a lot of backlash from audience members who felt implicitly criticized for their own choices. When he later stopped being vegan for health reasons, he faced criticism from parts of the vegan community as well. The donation-focused message provides a way for influencers to discuss helping farm animals without making their audience defensive or uncomfortable. This is promising for our ability to secure more earned media coverage and reach potential donors cost-effectively.

Case study: Bentham’s Bulldog

Bentham’s Bulldog is a prolific Substack blogger with ~5k followers. He wrote a blog making the case for donating as something you can to help farmed animals even if you’re unwilling to change your diet.

Bentham has a very engaged following, but it is still small in the scheme of things, and yet this post had a really tangible impact for animals:

Shrimp and non-shrimp counted separately because in terms of sheer number of animals impacted, they dwarf everything 😅

How is this actionable for you?

If you like this tool for encouraging effective giving for farmed animals, here are a few ways you can take action:

Try the Compassion Calculator and share it with others: The calculator is designed to help people understand that even if they’re unable or unwilling to change their diet, donating to high-impact charities is a meaningful way to reduce animal suffering. If you know someone who might resonate with this message, feel free to share the tool with them.
Help introduce the calculator to a wider audience: Even small platforms can make a big difference. If you have an audience—whether it’s a Substack, Twitter account, YouTube channel, or podcast—or know someone who does, consider spreading the word. We can help craft the message and track the impact to maximize reach and effectiveness.
Share relevant quotes: Have you heard someone say something like, "I think factory farming is awful, but I love meat and diet change feels unrealistic" (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4)? These kinds of quotes help illustrate the pain point we address. If it’s from someone with an audience, we may even reach out to introduce them to the calculator and explore collaboration. Feel free to share in the comments or submit here.

Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to subscribe to quarterly updates about our strategy and what we’re learning about helping bridge the belief-action gap for farmed animals, you can subscribe here.

^{^}
An extra detail: The calculator doesn’t funge different animals’ suffering such that you could donate all of your money to (for example) the Shrimp Welfare Project. Instead if your diet affects 33 chickens, 1.5 pigs and 8 fish, your offset cost is what’s needed to do a commensurate amount of good for both the chickens, pigs and fish.

203 Reactions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is offsetting harms ethically the same as not doing them?

This is a fascinating question, which Scott Alexander has blogged about twice (here and here). But ultimately, it's not crucial to the value of this tool. The key question isn't whether donating while eating meat is as good as going vegan (since, we think it is likely that almost no one using the calculator will be planning to change their diet otherwise). The question is whether eating meat and donating is better than eating meat and not donating. We think the answer to that is a confident “yes”.

Don’t we want people to change their diets?

It's great when people change their diets! We just think that the movement against factory farming needs to test a variety of strategies for achieving its goals. Having multiple ways that individuals can take action - with different levels of commitment required - makes it more likely that people will take a first step in helping. Our aim is to expand the menu of options, not replace existing approaches.

Won’t offsetting cause people to change their diet less due to moral licensing?

We take this possibility very seriously, but we don't see it as likely and believe it's far outweighed by the benefits.

Given historically low rates of diet change, most people using our calculator wouldn't have otherwise changed their diet. In fact, we hear frequently from donors using the calculator that they weren't willing or able to change their diet and are glad to have found another way to help (see testimonials in the post^). Even in the rare case where someone does donate instead of changing their diet, the effect for animals would be neutral or (more likely) positive since we've built conservative assumptions into our calculator.

Moreover, taking a first step to help animals through donations may actually make people more open to future actions, as it helps them see themselves as someone who takes action on factory farming rather than someone who avoids thinking about the issue. It's not just that beliefs drive actions – actions also shape beliefs. I’ve personally met a number of people who went vegan purely for health reasons only to find themselves becoming increasingly convinced by the ethical arguments over time. Forthcoming research from Samantha Kassirer supports the view that getting people to take actions that help farmed animals can increase their moral sympathy towards them 6 months later.

Finally, we think the benefit from the majority of users now eating meat and donating instead of eating meat and not donating safely outweighs potential negative effects.

Isn't FarmKind the charity with that novel donation matching model?

Yes, we were.

We originally launched with a ‘split and boost’ donation model inspired by Giving Multiplier’s research. If you’re a regular forum reader, you may have first heard of us through a critique of this model. We shared a detailed response at the time, addressing those concerns, which you can see here.

Nonetheless, we've since decided to deprioritize this donation model and it's no longer available on our website. We found that (unlike Giving Multiplier) we need to do quite a bit of persuading for people to be willing to support the farmed animal cause in the first place. By the time they’re convinced to donate, adding complexity to the process can create more friction than benefit. While the model continues to work well for Giving Multiplier (who've raised over $4M), we've found a simpler approach better serves our context.

haoxingFeb 141

FYI, it appears the two links to SSC are the same.

Aidan AlexanderFeb 143

Oops here's the other one: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/28/contra-askell-on-moral-offsets/

WilliamKielyFeb 182

FYI you can edit your original comment to add this in.

Toby Tremlett🔹Feb 1315

Can I ask how many hits it gets right now?
I love it btw, I think I've convinced my Mum to use it.

Aidan AlexanderFeb 137

Good on your Mum!

Since we carved it out as it's own page in ~September 2024 it's had 4336 visits from 3169 visitors (that's just those who accepted cookies -- we can't see those who didn't).

Since we turned on the ability to track "offset donors" seperately in mid-December, we've had ~30 offsetters sign up. We also have reason to believe that a fair few people who were convinced to donate by the offset calculator ended up making normal donations, not through the calculator

Toby Tremlett🔹Feb 131

Thanks! That's awesome. Best of luck growing it.

sauliusFeb 279

Thanks for working on this. I just want to point out that if a charity helps say one animal per dollar, the real cost for the animal advocacy movement is a bit higher if you account for the following:

Opportunity cost of staff: People working at animal advocacy charities often accept lower salaries than they could earn elsewhere. Some might have been earning-to-give if they weren't directly working in the field, potentially donating substantial amounts to animal causes.
Hidden costs: Volunteer time, pro bono services, and other non-monetary contributions often aren't factored into cost calculations but represent real resources.
Diminishing returns: animal advocacy interventions may be becoming less cost-effective over time as the easiest wins ("low-hanging fruits") were addressed first.
Failed interventions: For every successful approach we discover, there were likely multiple attempted interventions that didn't work. The "research and development" costs of finding effective strategies should ideally be factored into overall movement costs.

I don't know if I advise you to change anything based on this though. Your estimates are already quite conservative and perhaps it's best to avoid complicating things with considerations like these.

Aidan AlexanderFeb 273

Thanks Saulius! The in-some-cases 100% adjustments for conservatism should easily cover considerations like this. I agree they exist and matter

sammyboizFeb 136

interesting, you offset each species independently using the appropriate charity. e.g. an omnivore causes 8.3 fish to be farmed per year and it costs $117 to offset those fish via fish charity. if you offset all animals via SWP or some chicken welfare project, the number might be around $10 to offset a year of meat eating which is similar to my prior of 5 cents daily. (since you dont use moral weights, i am only estimating the $10 figure)

Aidan AlexanderFeb 135

We do use moral weights, in the sense that the Suffering Adjusted Day (SAD) methodology considers both probability of sentience and welfare ranges :)

Vasco Grilo🔸Feb 192

Hi Aidan,

Your estimates of the donations needed to offset the harm to animals do not depend on welfare ranges ("welfare range" = "probability of sentience"*"welfare range conditional on sentience"). The values you use for the relative reduction in suffering for each group of animals only depend on pain intensities within species. You would only need to rely on welfare ranges if you were to consider donations to the best organisation instead of the best organisations helping each group of animals.

The calculator doesn’t funge different animals’ suffering such that you could donate all of your money to (for example) the Shrimp Welfare Project.

MDCFeb 283

How about adding an option to select animals in people's care (pets, but also other captive animals) who are fed other animals?

Aidan AlexanderMar 34

Great idea! I will add this to the product backlog. We're currently trying to add the carbon emissions from one's diet :)

Julia_Wise🔸Feb 184

Minor suggestion: you could link to the calculator earlier in this post. I was curious to see it sooner!

Aidan AlexanderFeb 182

Sure thing! Done!

Brad West🔸Feb 114

Really glad to see the success of the Compassion Calculator and hope for its continued success in bringing more omnivores into the fight against factory farming!

Caroline MillsFeb 124

Thanks for posting this! I saw the tool and was intrigued, appreciate the opportunity to learn more about it, and about what you all are finding is working.

Stijn Bruers 🔸Feb 133

I generally support this idea of diet offsetting, although purely morally speaking I have several objections, explained here: https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/carbon-offsetting-versus-meat-offsetting/

There are morally relevant differences between carbon offsetting and meat offsetting.

Pat Myron 🔸Feb 14*9

Offset objections narrowly focus on future behavior; most people are raised omnivore; I'm offsetting past consumption:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HJtfDKDdFFHhDiJXM/recommendations-for-charities-for-animal-suffering-offsets?commentId=iq3SrK9K2q8zwsuBL

Aidan AlexanderFeb 146

Love this comment. This is an angle we’ve considered for encouraging vegans to donate

WilliamKielyFeb 184

I endorse this for non-EA vegans who aren't willing to donate the money to wherever it will do the most good in general, but as my other comments have pointed out if a person (vegan or non-vegan) is willing to donate the money to wherever it will so the most good then they should just do that rather than donate it for the purpose of offsetting.

WilliamKielyFeb 184

Per my top-level comment citing Claire Zabel's post Ethical offsetting is antithetical to EA, offsetting past consumption seems worse than just donating that money to wherever it will do the most good in general.

I see you've taken the 10% Pledge, so I gather you're willing to donate effectively.

While you might feel better if you both donate X% to wherever you believe it will do the most good and $Y to the best animal charities to offset your past animal consumption, I think you instead ought to just donate X%+$Y to wherever it will do the most good.

NB: Maybe you happen to think the best giving opportunity to help animals is the best giving opportunity in general, but if not then my claim is that your offsetting behavior is a mistake.

Pat Myron 🔸Feb 193

Offsetting has multiplier effects.. people constantly make significant sacrifices attempting to marginally improve their personal sustainability, so publicly offsetting decades worth of personal impact with a weeks' earnings seems worth the statement

NB: I'd consider them regardless, but offsetting's a solid nudge

Aidan AlexanderFeb 133

We agree that there may be morally relevant differences between carbon offsetting and meat offsetting. But as I mention in my FAQ comment, given how the calculator is actually being used (i.e. by people who had no intention of changing their diet), the important question isn't whether eating meat and then paying to offset it is morally equivalent to not eating the meat. The important question is whether eating meat and donating is morally better than eating meat and not donating. The answer to that seems like a resounding 'yes'

MatthewDahlhausenFeb 136

"The important question is whether eating meat and donating is morally better than eating meat and not donating. The answer to that seems like a resounding 'yes'"

Offsetting bad moral actions depends on 1) the action being off-settable, 2) the two actions are inseparable, and 3) presuming a rather extreme form of utilitarianism is morally correct.

In the case you provide, I think it fails on all three parts. The action isn't off-settable. Most moral frameworks would look at the two actions separately. Donating to an animal welfare charity doesn't first require you eat meat, and there is no forced decision to donate or not donate if you eat an animal. And if you accept moral offsetting is better in this case, you are upon to all sorts of the standard utilitarian critiques.

There are also separate justice concerns and whether you are benefiting the appropriate reference class (if you eat cow and donate to shrimp welfare in another country, is that appropriate offsetting?).

I think it's fine to promote the endeavor (or at least its morally permissible). But saying it is morally better isn't well-supported. It's similar to the somewhat non-intuitive finding in moral philosophy that if choosing between A) not donating to charity, B) donating to an ineffective charity, and C) donating to an effective charity, choosing A over B may be morally permissible, but choosing B over C is not.

Aidan AlexanderFeb 138

Sorry I've been unclear -- let me clarify: When we use the term 'offset,' we mean it in a quantitative sense - doing an amount of good for animals that's comparable in magnitude to the harm caused by one's diet. Whether this good deed makes eating meat ethically equivalent to not eating meat is a complex philosophical question that reasonable people can disagree on. But for someone who is going to eat meat either way (which describes most of our users), adding a donation that helps farmed animals is clearly better than not adding that donation.

The calculator is simply a tool to help people understand what size of donation would create a comparable scale of positive impact to their diet's negative impact. We've found this framing resonates with people who care about animals but aren't ready to change their diet

Stijn Bruers 🔸Feb 134

I agree, that's why I generally support it.

Tejas SubramaniamFeb 211

The fourth objection, on who the victim is, has always seemed like the strongest explanation of the deontological moral difference to me. When you offset your CO2 emissions, you haven‘t actually harmed anyone. (I’m personally inclined to place higher credence on utilitarianism than most other moral theories, so I‘m not too bothered by this, and I also think it’s certainly better than the most plausible alternative – people eat meat but don’t offset it – but regardless, interesting philosophical question.)

Ula ZarosaFeb 212

Questions:

How much have you invested in the project already vs. how much donations did you get?
Are you utilizing paid ads? If no, why not? If yes, what are the results of your campaigns?
What is your overall marketing strategy to grow FarmKind?

Adam BinksmithFeb 113

Really great presentation on the tool, I was impressed when I stumbled across this a few weeks ago!

WilliamKielyFeb 182

This seems like a useful fundraising tool to target people who are unwilling to give their money to wherever it will do the most good, but I think it should be flagged that if a person is willing to donate their money to wherever it will do the most good then they should do that rather than donate to the best animal giving opportunities for the purpose of ethical offsetting. See Ethical offsetting is antithetical to EA.

Anand JeevanandhamFeb 251

The FAQ shows the arduous task of avoiding the ills of moral licensing whilst allowing for a conscious counter action to one's lifestyle that may cause harm.

Pat Myron 🔸Feb 201

@VilleSokk created a similar calculator:
https://foodimpacts.org
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KLqAiKpMpBCLCH6x7/ranking-animal-foods-based-on-suffering-and-ghg-emissions
FarmKind's donation call-to-action is a great add; you all should link up :)

SummaryBotFeb 121

Executive summary: FarmKind’s diet offset calculator, initially a side project, has become an effective tool for engaging donors by allowing meat-eaters to offset their diet's impact on farmed animals through donations, leveraging the success of carbon offset models to encourage effective giving.

Key points:

Concept and Functionality: The calculator estimates how much a person would need to donate to offset the harm their diet causes to farmed animals, based on data on animal farming and charity cost-effectiveness.
Engagement Potential: It provides a way for people who care about animal suffering but are unwilling to change their diet to contribute meaningfully, reducing cognitive dissonance and defensive reactions.
Successful Model Parallel: The approach mirrors carbon offsetting, a fundraising model that raised $2 billion in 2020, showing potential for expanding donor engagement in animal welfare.
Broader Advocacy Benefits: The donation-based approach enables influencers to promote farmed animal welfare without triggering backlash associated with diet change advocacy.
Impact Example: Bentham’s Bulldog, a small but engaged Substack blogger, successfully drove significant donations through a single post promoting the calculator.
Actionable Steps: Users can try and share the calculator, help introduce it to wider audiences via social media and content platforms, and share relevant quotes to aid outreach efforts.

This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.

Vasco Grilo🔸Feb 19*0

Thanks for your great work, Aidan and Thom! I really like the idea of offsetting the harm caused to animals with donations. I think you are greatly overestimating these, though. You are currently saying that 281 $/year are needed, which is 13.1 k (= 281/0.0214) times my estimate of 0.0214 $/year. I get a much lower value because, from the most to least important:

I assume all donations go to the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP), whereas "The calculator doesn’t funge different animals’ suffering such that you could donate all of your money to (for example) the Shrimp Welfare Project [SWP]". I think this leads to more donations because SWP is way more cost-effective than top animal welfare interventions helping other species. I estimate SWP is 412 and 173 times as cost-effectivene as broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns, and 9.01 k (= 1/(1.11*10^-4)) times as cost-effective as Fish Welfare Initiative's (FWI's) farm program.
I believe the interventions you modelled increase welfare relatively more than you assumed.
- I estimate:
  - Broiler welfare campaigns increase welfare by 91.1 % (accounting not only for reductions in the time in pain, but also increases in the time in pleasure), whereas you assumed 36 %.
  - Cage-free campaigns helping hens increase welfare by 79.1 %, whereas you assumed 33 %.
  - WFP increases welfare per shrimp-year by 52.3 %, whereas you assumed 5 %.
  - Fish Welfare Initiative's farm program increases welfare per fish-year by 33.5 %, whereas you assumed 10 %. My estimate of 33.5 % relies on numbers from AIM for improvements in water quality, whereas my 3 estimates above are based on the time animals spend in pain, and my guesses for pain intensities, so I trust them more.
- I understand you relied on Ambitious Impact's (AIM's) suffering adjusted days (SADs). I left my suggestions for improvements in the SADs' doc. Readers can ask Vicky Cox for access.
  - I strongly disagree with AIM's estimate of the intensity of excruciating pain. Assuming hurtful pain is as intense as fully healthy life, AIM's pain intensities imply that excruciating pain is 56.7 times as intense as fully healthy life. Consequently, 25.4 min (= 24*60/56.7), “for example, of scalding and severe burning events [in large areas of the body]”, or dismemberment, or extreme torture would be needed to neutralise 1 day of fully healthy life, whereas I would say adding that amount of excruciating pain would make a life clearly negative. I estimate the past cost-effectiveness of SWP is 639 DALY/$. For AIM’s pain intensities, and hurtful pain as intense as fully healthy life, I get 0.484 DALY/$, which is only 0.0757 % (= 0.484/639) of my estimate.
  - AIM does not account for increases in the time in pleasure.
I consider the animal-years of a random diet globally, whereas you rely on Western countries. I think this makes sense given your target audience, so I agree with your assumption here.
I try to use unbiases guesses, whereas your calculator has an explicit "Adjustment for conservatism", which increases. I think the 2 points above are way more important that this 3rd point. Removing the adjustments for conservatism brings the donations to 198 $/year, which is only 29.5 % (= 1 - 198/281) less than yours.

I think the priority now should be incresing donations, not getting an accurate estimate for the amount of donations needed to offset the harms to animals. However, you may still want to flag your estimate is likely conservative in your public-facing materials, and revisit your estimates later having the above in mind.

Effective Altruism Forum
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FarmKind: Using a diet offset calculator to encourage effective giving for farmed animals

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