440 billion farmed shrimp, 1 trillion farmed insects, 85 billion chickens, 100 billion farmed fish. These are the staggering numbers of animals raised in factory farms each year—most suffer in systems where their welfare is an afterthought, if considered at all.

But 2025 proved that strategic grantmaking can change the fate of those animals. A single $28,500 grant helped ban cages for 270,000 hens in Slovenia. $290,000 in seed funding launched campaigns that secured welfare commitments for billions of shrimp from six major European retailers in just ten months. These demonstrates how pooled resources and rigorous grantmaking can unlock and amplify the impact of many activists.

The EA Animal Welfare Fund (AWF) just published our three-year grantmaking strategy at a crucial moment for animals around the world. Having deployed $4.2M across 45 grants in 2025 (with $2M more planned for Q4), we've identified high-impact opportunities that could help the most numerous yet most neglected animals. Our strategy aims to deploy at least $20M to proven and emerging interventions, but we face an $11.6M funding gap for 2026 that will determine whether these opportunities can be leveraged or remain unexplored.

This figure may seem daunting for an individual donor. But [...]

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Outline:

(02:36 ) Our 2025 Impact

(02:40 ) 2025. Grantmaking Overview

(04:02 ) By region

(04:15 ) By species

(04:27 ) By intervention type  en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ Bar graph showing spending across seven categories, with Warfare Campaigns highest at $1.387M.

(04:42 ) 2025. Progress From AWF's Grantees

(05:06 ) Animal Enterprise Transparency Project (AETP) - Ban on Cages for Egg-laying Hens

(06:17 ) International Council for Animal Welfare (ICAW) - Rapid Progress for Billions of Shrimp

(07:38 ) Arthropoda Foundation - Completing Promising Academic Research on Insect Welfare

(09:12 ) Animal Welfare League (AWL) - Establishing National Poultry Standards in Ghana and Increasing Supply of Cage-Free Across Africa

(11:04 ) How Your Support Turns Into Impact for Animals

(11:09 ) Objectives: Six Strategic Goals Your Funding Enables

(12:18 ) Ending Cage Confinement for Hens Globally, Accelerating Progress in the Global South

(13:14 ) Establishing Aquatic Animal Welfare Standards in the Global South

(13:47 ) Making Humane Slaughter the Default for Farmed Shrimp

(14:32 ) Preventing the Next Factory Farming Crisis Through Strategic Insect Welfare Work

(14:59 ) Research and Implementing Proven Interventions to Reduce Wild Animal Suffering

(15:42 ) Transforming Farm Animal Welfare Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America

(16:30 ) Funding Gap: What Different Contribution Levels Enable

(20:04 ) Please join us in the mission to alleviate animal suffering on a massive scale

(21:08 ) Take action now:

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First published:

November 20th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Gwss96MkMFawzoZKe/awf-s-plan-to-deploy-usd20m-to-scale-impact-for-billions-of

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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