Donations | 2025

I believe that public accountability is powerful. To that end, and for the internet’s wandering eyes, I’m sharing where I donated in 2025.

I’m donating $25,000 in total and split my contribution across two charities. Below, I explain my reasons for selecting each charity and discuss some tax implications of my gifts.

Charities

First, I’m giving $20,000 to The Humane League (THL). 

THL works to improve conditions for farmed land animals. Their biggest victories so far have been in curtailing the usage of battery cages, cramped wire enclosures which restrict the movement of egg-laying hens. In 2005, almost all American hens lived in battery cages; today, less than half do. THL has played a major part in this transition by pressuring egg producers, retailers, and restaurants to make cage-free commitments and tracking implementation of those commitments. Their internal estimates indicate that each dollar spent on cage-free advocacy leads two hens to live outside of cages. THL also works to support the global cage-free movement through their Open Wing Alliance and advocate for the welfare of broiler chickens.¹

Over the last decade, THL has received over $72 million ² in grants from Coefficient Giving.³ On the one hand, these grants are a signal that THL is doing effective work; I trust the grantmakers at Coefficient to identify high-impact charities. On the other hand, Coefficient’s contributions dilute the impact of my own giving. In the event that THL was truly short of funds to do their core work, Coefficient would likely step in to top up their coffers. For that reason, I’m uncertain about the marginal impact of this gift for THL.

With that said, I’m skeptical of the argument that individual donors should prefer to give to charities that Coefficient does not fund. At worst, my donation frees up some capital for Coefficient’s farmed animal welfare team to allocate elsewhere—I’d be pretty happy with this outcome.

Second, I’m giving $5,000 to the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP). 

SWP attempts to make the life and slaughter of farmed shrimp less painful. I find it plausible, though not likely, that penaeid shrimp⁴ feel morally-relevant pain and are worthy of moral patienthood. If it is the case that shrimp are sentient, then their deaths by asphyxiation likely cause them significant pain. SWP works to alleviate this pain by purchasing electrical stunners for producers; these stunners knock shrimp unconscious in the moments before death. SWP also advocates for an end to eyestalk ablation, the practice of removing the eyes of female shrimp to encourage them to reproduce, and for sludge removal from shrimp farms. I enjoyed the Daily Show’s recent profile of SWP’s work.

As a much newer charity than THL, SWP’s theory of change is far more speculative. I’m not confident that decapods are sentient and I think that it will be difficult to trace electrical stunner use on shrimp farms. Still, I’m excited about this gift because of the sheer scale of shrimp farming—six times more shrimp are farmed every year than all farmed land animals combined!

My SWP donation is supported by a $5,000 matching gift from my employer; I am reasonably confident that this match does not trade off with contributions to other effective charities.

Honorable Mention: I also considered giving to Rethink Priorities, FarmKind, Arthropoda Foundation, METR, Wild Animal Initiative, Americans for Responsible Innovation, and the EA Animal Welfare Fund.

Tax Math

Making these donations will slightly reduce my income tax burden. Instead of claiming the standard deduction, I will itemize my deductions and report my charitable contributions. I would have deducted $15,750 if I had used the standard deduction. Now, I will be able to deduct the $25,000 in charitable contributions I made plus the $6,930 I paid in state and local income tax.⁵ As a result, I will deduct $16,180 more than the standard deduction, which translates into $3880 in savings at a 24% marginal tax rate.

In other words, the net cost of my donations is $21,100, and I mobilized $30,000 in capital that otherwise would not have been donated to effective charities.

While these tax savings are nice, I missed out on a way to save even more. Given that I plan to donate a similar amount next year, a smarter way to structure my donations would have been to aggregate them together and make them all in 2026. This way, I could take the standard deduction in 2025 and maximize the total deductions I accrue over both years. At a 24% marginal tax rate, I will miss out on ~$870⁶⁷ in tax savings by splitting my donations evenly rather than donating more in 2026. Indeed, I could have made this switch relatively costlessly by donating on January 1st, 2026 instead of at the end of December.

Unfortunately, I realized this mistake after my donations had been processed. I’ve learned my lesson for my next batch of donations, though, and will consider giving through a Donor-Advised Fund to further optimize my tax savings.