 | |
| Abbreviation | WAI |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2019 |
| Founders |
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| Merger of |
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| Type | 501(c)(3) [1] |
| Registration no. | EIN 82-2281466 [2] |
| Focus | Wild animal welfare |
| Location |
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Region served | Global |
Executive Director | Cameron Meyer Shorb |
Revenue (2020) | $605,883 [3] |
| Website | wildanimalinitiative |
Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) is a nonprofit organization focused on supporting and producing academic research on improving wild animal welfare. It is one of the charities recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators. [4]
WAI was founded in 2019, as a merger of the organizations Utility Farm (founded in 2016 by Abraham Rowe) and Wild-Animal Suffering Research (founded in 2017 by Persis Eskander). [5] Its stated mission is to "understand and improve the lives of wild animals," by studying natural causes of pain and death for animals, such as natural disasters, disease, and starvation. [6]
Abraham Rowe was the Executive Director of WAI until 2019, [7] after which Mal Graham became the leader of the organization. [8] In 2022, Graham took the role of Strategy Director, and Cameron Meyer Shorb became the Executive Director. [9]
In 2021, WAI received a grant of $3.5 million from Open Philanthropy to support research on wild animal welfare. [10] In the same year, WAI launched a research fund for high-impact wild animal welfare research, with the intent to "distribute over $3 million to academic research projects designed to understand and improve the lives of wild animals". [11] WAI received a further $6 million grant from Open Philanthropy in 2023. [12]
Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), which rates the cost-effectiveness of projects that work on improving animal welfare, rated WAI as a "top charity" in 2020, meaning that in their view, donating to WAI was one of the most effective ways to help animals. WAI is the only group not working on farmed animal welfare to ever receive that rating. [13] [14] WAI retained its "top charity" status in 2021 and 2022. [15] In 2023, after ACE moved away from categorizing its charities as "top" and "standout", it was categorized as a "recommended" charity by the organization. [4]
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material gain; and with government endeavors that are public initiatives for public good, such as those that focus on the provision of public services. A person who practices philanthropy is a philanthropist.
Gary K. Michelson is an American orthopedic surgeon, medical inventor, and billionaire philanthropist.
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The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. It works on issues including pets, wildlife, farm animals, horses and other equines, and animals used in research, testing and education. As of 2001, the group's major campaigns targeted factory farming, animal blood sports, the fur trade, puppy mills, and wildlife abuse.
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Holden Karnofsky is an American nonprofit executive. He is a co-founder and Director of AI Strategy of the research and grantmaking organization Open Philanthropy. Karnofsky co-founded the charity evaluator GiveWell with Elie Hassenfeld in 2007 and is vice chair of its board of directors.
Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, called effective altruists, may choose careers based on the amount of good that they expect the career to achieve or donate to charities based on the goal of maximising impact. The movement developed during the 2000s, and the name effective altruism was coined in 2011. Philosophers influential to the movement include Peter Singer, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Prior to late 2022, a major funder of the movement was Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, though the bankruptcy of FTX was a source of controversy and criticism of the movement.
The Humane League (THL) is an international nonprofit organization that works to end the abuse of animals raised for food through corporate, media and community outreach. It operates in the United States, Mexico, the UK and Japan. THL promotes plant-based diets, conducts research on the effectiveness of different interventions, and works to obtain animal welfare commitments from companies. It was founded in 2005 in Philadelphia by Nick Cooney.
Open Philanthropy is a research and grantmaking foundation that makes grants based on the doctrine of effective altruism. It was founded as a partnership between GiveWell and Good Ventures. Its current chief executive officer is Alexander Berger, and its main funders are Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz. Dustin says that their wealth, worth $11 billion, is "pooled up around us right now, but it belongs to the world. We intend not to have much when we die."
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Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), formerly known as Effective Animal Activism (EAA), is a US-based charity evaluator and effective altruism-focused nonprofit founded in 2012. ACE evaluates animal charities and compares the effectiveness of their different campaigns and strategies. The organization makes charity recommendations to donors once a year. Its stated purpose is finding and promoting the most effective ways to help animals.
Philanthropies, formerly LDS Philanthropies, is a department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is responsible for facilitating donations to humanitarian and educational initiatives. The department works under the direction of the church's Presiding Bishop. The most widely known educational projects are the operation of church-owned schools, such as Brigham Young University (BYU). Humanitarian funds are given to Latter-day Saint Charities which sponsors and organizes relief efforts. In 2019, the church reported over 3,000 community-based projects with an excess of 2,000 partners, in locations around the world. A 2020 statistic reported a total of $2.3 billion that had been donated over Philanthropies' existence.
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