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Day in the Life: Harshdeep Singh, Program Associate, Farm Animal Welfare

  • Focus Area: Farm Animal Welfare
  • Content Type: Day in the Life

Table of contents

Day in the Life

Published: May 10, 2024 | by Harshdeep Singh

Open Philanthropy’s “Day in the Life” series showcases the wide-ranging work of our staff, spotlighting individual team members as they navigate a typical workday. We hope these posts provide an inside look into what working at Open Phil is really like. If you’re interested in joining our team, we encourage you to check out our open roles.

 

Harshdeep is a Program Associate on the Farm Animal Welfare (FAW) team, which supports a wide range of interventions aimed at improving the lives of animals confined on factory farms. He’s a generalist grantmaker with a broad focus on developing regions — specifically Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Before joining Open Philanthropy in 2021, he worked as a consultant for Mercy For Animals in the government affairs and public policy team.

Harshdeep pauses for a quick photo before dinner. 🙂

Day in the Life

I usually start my day around noon here in one of Bangalore’s many WeWork offices. My sense is that most Open Phil staff reserve the first part of their day for focused work, but I like to start by answering emails — knocking them out first helps me focus on the rest of the day. Afterward, I catch up on farm animal welfare news by scanning my Google Alerts, Twitter/X list, and LinkedIn. I usually spend 30–60 minutes on these tasks, depending on how busy my inbox is and what’s happening in the world of animal welfare. This morning, I look over Compassion in World Farming’s third annual ChickenTrack, which tracks companies’ progress against their “Better Chicken Commitment” pledges. 

Next up is my grantmaking work, which comprises around 90% of my role. This might entail researching a prospective grantee, vetting some of their claims, or progressing on an internal writeup. In a writeup, I’m essentially making the case for a grant to both FAW and Open Phil leadership. If a grant is an obvious can’t-miss opportunity, the writeup will likely be around 7–10 pages. If significant context is required to fully make the case for a grant, or if my back-of-the-envelope (BOTEC) calculation doesn’t fully capture its promise, the writeup will be closer to 25 pages.

Today, I’m spending a few hours researching FAW organizations in Africa, where our team is expanding our grantmaking. I’m currently looking into five or six organizations — examining their track record, leadership, etc. If there’s a chance we’ll want to fund one of these organizations, I’ll propose a call to learn more about their work. I’m seriously investigating an average of 2–4 grants in any given month. 

After a few hours of researching, I’ve decided to ask two groups whether they’re interested in a call. Once those emails are sent, I pivot to work on grant investigations further along in the process. Today, I’m vetting claims that a grantee has made in their renewal application. Most of my work is solitary, so second opinions are especially helpful at this stage. For example, I was unsure about a technical claim that a grantee had recently made. When I checked in with my teammate Michelle, she was also a little skeptical of the grantee’s claim, so I plan to do some additional digging. I couldn’t imagine my job without the rest of the FAW team.

Two or three days a week, I have evening calls with potential grantees or FAW team members. During FAW’s weekly team meeting, one of us presents on an interesting facet of a grant we’re making or another project we’re working on. Today happens to be my turn, and my presentation is about a current grant to support litigation to affect EU policy reform. There’s always something interesting to chat about, and this conversation is even more pertinent as, last year, the EU shelved the world’s most ambitious proposal for farm animal welfare reform. Despite this disappointment, it’s an exciting time to be working in the field: in the last year, advocates achieved major wins for farmed animals, and the movement is more connected and committed than I’ve ever seen. 

But there’s still a lot of work to be done to end the abuse of billions of sentient beings. If this cause area resonates with you, check out Open Phil’s general application, as well as this list of openings at other FAW organizations.

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