Donors committed to making a difference need strong evidence and empirical methods to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources.
Should you donate to programs that help humans or animals? If animals, which species? Answering these questions requires us to compare the overall quality of life that different species can experience (i.e. their capacity for welfare). Using unrestricted funding, Rethink Priorities launched the Moral Weight Project to meet this need. Via a multidisciplinary approach, the research team found the estimated welfare capacities of the species they examined to be relatively similar to one another. Our rigorous investigation resulted in the creation of the welfare range table—an accessible model that some foundations and governments have begun using to help them make better decisions.