Everything is neglected
I often see claims of an area being neglected, under-supported, or underfunded. But what do these claims really mean? They tend to break down into two categories: 1) neglected compared to how it should be, 2) neglected compared to other areas. I think both these ways of viewing neglectedness are pretty undescriptive and not very useful for making real decisions in philanthropy. However I do think there is a more useful way of considering neglectedness.
Neglected absolutely
“It would take $9.2 trillion per year to stop climate change and we are only spending $15 billion a year on it!”
This pretty common claim is that X area is neglected relative to how it should be funded. In many ways this claim is objectively true! 0 people should die due to lacking a $3 bednet; no easily and cheaply prevented disease or suffering should be around. But really, when a charity makes an appeal like this, it is equally true for virtually every issue in the NGO sector. We can whine all day that the NGO sector should be bigger and more should donate (I agree with this more than most), but in practice charitable giving over time has been pretty fixed for decades (right around 2% of income). Normally when an NGO raises a dollar, it’s moving money from a different NGO. Sadly, this means how neglected something is relative to an ideal utopia where we have enough funding for everything is really far from a useful question.
Neglectedness relative to rich counterparts
“Climate is so neglected. Education gets 5x more funding every year.”
Every area has a richer neighbor that can be used as a comparison. Unless you are literally the best-funded area in NGOs, you will have some areas that get a lot more and some that get less. Even if you’re well-funded, you can make comparisons to trivial for-profit areas (which tend to be way bigger), e.g., ice cream in just the US gets $15 billion a year. In general everything can be made to look under or overfunded relative to who you compare to. The clean energy climate space looks underfunded relative to university education but highly funded relative to farmed animals.
Doing neglectedness right
“Considering the main two areas I am considering, food systems climate is more neglected than clean energy climate.”
I think this sort of comparison makes a lot of sense. It is trying to look at the real oppperuntiy cost of what else would be supported by people (or yourself) considering the area. It makes a case not based on any cherry-picked possible example but relative to real-world options that many people are donating between. I also think the specificity adds useful context. Do we really care about “climate” as a whole? Very few donors are big enough to pick no sub-area from within that large a sector. What if a broad area like climate is overfunded but a sub-area like food systems within it is neglected? Which one trumps? I think generally the more specific the comparison, the better.
Who is on the edge of your circle?
There is a simpler model that one can use to find the “most neglected” area within their possible scope of giving. Peter Singer has an idea of expanding circles of moral concern—in summary, the concept that over time humanity has cared about larger and larger groups. Originally only having white landholding family members as worthy of moral care, broadening until more and more groups were included.
However, everyone is broader now; where the edge of this circle lies varies a lot. Caring morally about people who do not own land is pretty darn common at this point; caring morally about bugs is pretty rare. I think a decent proxy for neglect is: what is the group right on the edge? If you care about both people in your own country and those abroad, 9/10 the abroad people are more neglected. If you care about animals, particularly unpopular ones, they will be more neglected than humans. Of all the AIM charities started (~50), the one that works on shrimp welfare—I have been convinced that this is a worthwhile area, but it’s right on the edge of my circle, and for many, shrimp would be far outside of it. I think this gives a hint as to the “most neglected area I would consider supporting”—which I think is the real question of neglectedness.
P.S. I do not think neglectedness should be the only criterion used when making decisions. You also need to look at evidence base, tractability, cost-effectiveness, etc.
I think the most useful definition of neglectedness is: are there low-hanging fruit that early resources can harvest?
In truly neglected areas, the first researcher or first systematic effort can accomplish more than the next ten combined - because obvious wins haven't been picked up yet. As resources flow in, marginal returns decline sharply. This gives you a practical way to compare causes within your decision set. Ask: where can marginal resources accomplish the most because basic groundwork hasn't been done?
Examples:
Clean energy: Heavily optimized, marginal dollar does little
Profit For Good as philanthropic strategy: Almost no systematic work, enormous low-hanging fruit for first mover
Your "edge of the circle" point explains why things become neglected (fewer people care about shrimp than humans), which is useful for identifying candidates. But "low-hanging fruit available" tells you whether neglectedness matters for impact - some areas at the edges of most people's moral consideration areas may have already been picked over by the few people who do care.
Love this!