Funders and philanthropy

The metric

The Welfare Footprint Framework measures welfare as time spent in experiences of defined intensity, reported separately from duration and prevalence so any weighting stays visible. For grantmaking, a practical common unit is hours of intense pain (Disabling plus Excruciating) averted. The unit has the same form across species and production systems. How an hour in one species weighs against an hour in another is an explicit judgment that you set.

The estimates describe the size of the welfare change a reform would bring. They do not assess tractability, which is part of your own evaluation.

Intensity and duration are estimated by synthesizing behavioural, neurophysiological, pharmacological and evolutionary evidence against defined criteria, and are expressed as probabilities across four intensity categories rather than a single value. Prevalence comes from epidemiological evidence; where data are thin, it is given as an uncertainty interval. Each parameter is treated as a hypothesis with a stated uncertainty, and is updated as evidence accumulates. The main limitations, mostly sparse data on timing and prevalence, are set out in the FAQ. The framework does not prescribe whether to improve current systems or move away from them. It makes the welfare consequences of each option comparable. The method is the same for every estimate. What varies is the scope (species, system, life stages and region), and each estimate states its boundaries.

Start here: What is a welfare footprint? · The framework · Pain intensities

1. Compare proposals

• The Welfare Impact Calculator turns Pain-Tracks, prevalence, mortality and productivity into Cumulative Pain for each scenario. Results depend on the values you enter and are your own analysis, not WFI estimates.
• The Estimates Dossier, still being built, will show what has been estimated or is in progress.
• For designing RFPs for researchers, the Value of Information tool can be useful
• Interspecific Affect, one of the AI-Assisted Tools, assesses one species at a time and sets out the evidence on its capacity for intense pain. It does not rank species or assign weights; it makes the assumptions behind a cross-species comparison explicit, so you can set the weighting yourself.

2. Check what else changes

Lowering mortality or speeding up growth can remove a limit on production. Before funding, it helps to ask:

• Does it ease a condition that currently limits production?
• If so, how will producers respond?
• Will the number of animals farmed change?
• Taking every effect into account, is welfare better than in the most likely world without it?

3. Fund the evidence that would change a decision

Research is most valuable when its result could change a decision. The Value of Information tool (a prototype) simulates two scenarios from uncertain ranges and shows which unknowns, once resolved, could reverse the choice.

Why fund the infrastructure

Welfare can be weighed against price, productivity and emissions only once it is measured in comparable units. Like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or the Global Burden of Disease study, the Welfare Footprint Framework offers one method and a growing set of estimates. Each new estimate makes the next cheaper to produce and the existing ones more useful (Mission and Impact).

Estimates create impact through transparency, resource optimisation, market incentives and accountability for welfare claims and commitments (Mission and Impact). Their users include producers, retailers, certifiers, advocates, funders, investors, policymakers, regulators and academics, each using the same estimates for their own decisions.

Funding can target core consumption categories and major production regions, systems such as cages for laying hens and gestation crates for sows, the conditions with the most hours of Disabling and Excruciating pain per animal, or the shared tools and training that let others produce estimates. Support brings a public estimate sooner. The findings follow the evidence.

Work with us

• Learn through Workshops, which include funders among their audiences, and Office Hours.
• Shape what gets estimated first, or design research calls (RFPs) around the gaps in your portfolio. Funders have no role in methods, data or conclusions, every estimate is published in full, and the same terms apply to every funder.
• Fund the roadmap: Donate. To ask which estimates are open for support, use the form below. WFI is a 501(c)(3) public charity and also receives donations through regranting organisations (Transparency).

Tell us which estimate would change your next decision, or how you've used one.

Your question

Or email contact@welfarefootprint.org.