Overview of job posting

1. Highlights
2. Why found a NGO/charity
3. Why tobacco taxation
4. The role
5. Who your future co-founder is
6. The selection process
7. How to apply
8. FAQs
9. Recommended readings

Apply to be the co-founder of a Charity Entrepreneurship (CE) tobacco taxation advocacy NGO with a CE incubatee from the recent winter cohort.

Charity Entrepreneurship is often called the Y combinator of the charity/NGO space and its alumni are compared to the PayPal Mafia (but for the charity sector).

Note: this is not an application for the upcoming CE incubation program. You can apply for that here.

Early application deadline: August 6^th 23:59 UTC

Application deadline: August 13^th 23:59 UTC

After the deadline, applications will be taken on a rolling basis.

The process is going to be fast and most applicants that go through the whole process will do so in about 3.5 weeks. Times will be quicker for applicants that submit earlier at each stage. Turnaround times will typically be a matter of days.

Highlights

• The opportunity
  • This is a CE-researched intervention with a CE incubatee—J.T. Stanley—that will be considered for seed funding (via the CE seed funder network) in mid-September.
    • (The CE incubatee went through the winter 2023 cohort. His original match for co-founder from the cohort ended up pursuing another career opportunity with comparable impact that arose near the end of the program.)

• The impact
  • Tobacco is 13x Malaria in deaths (WHO, 2023).
  • Whereas malaria, HIV, and neonatal deaths are all decreasing year over year, deaths from tobacco are increasing. Tobacco is currently on track to kill a billion people in the 21st century (WHO, 2021).
  • Here is a link to a section that talks about the financial and economic impacts.
  • Taxation is both the most effective and most neglected form of tobacco control (WHO; NIH, 2016; World Bank, 2017).
  • Multiple EA organizations have ran analysis that found tobacco taxation advocacy to be “an extremely cost-effective intervention.”
    • CE’s cost-effectiveness analysis put the expected value between 39 and 51 USD per DALY averted.[1]
    • Open Philanthropy’s back-of-the-envelope calculation found 30 USD per DALY averted in expectation.[2]
    • Giving What We Can’s (GWWC) report suggested that cost per life saved could go as low as 800 USD according to one scientific study.[3]
  • In other words, a successful tobacco taxation charity would immediately have an impact with cost-effectiveness at the upper echelons (think Against Malaria Foundation for GiveWell and Lead Exposure Elimination Project for CE).

• Why you should apply
  • This is your chance to be a founder of an impactful organization.
  • Don’t count yourself out. If in doubt apply. Roughly half of the successful applicants/founders that are accepted into the CE incubation program did not think they would qualify. Don’t preempt yourself from becoming a founder; let the process play out.
  • If you’ve applied to CE in the past, this is the opportunity for you.

Why found an NGO/charity

Pros

1. You are not just a cog in the machine; you have ownership of a venture/organization that could deliver massive impact. The health of hundreds of thousands of tobacco users depends on you and your co-founder’s fateful actions.
2. One of the best expected values for impact—This intervention has the potential to avert a ridiculously high amount of deaths and DALYs.
3. Upward career mobility and increased impact later in your career. Running an impactful organization will give you critical skills, experience, and career capital that will better position you for impact later in your career.

Cons

1. A much more serious commitment than your typical job.
2. Founder salaries of CE charities are very modest compared to other parts of the EA ecosystem and the first-year salary is lean.
3. Founding an organization and trying to bring it to success is a rollercoaster of highs and lows—this is for people with perseverance and grit.
   • Tobacco kills 8 million people annually (WHO).

Why tobacco taxation

(^From GWWC’s 2015 report)

Problem

• Tobacco kills 8 million people annually (WHO).
• 1.3 million are killed from secondhand smoke annually (WHO).
• Disproportionately used by the poor in both HICs and LMICs (WHO, 2011; CGD, 2019).
• Displaces household income (the median result of studies on this topic is roughly 4.5% of annual income) (de Beyer et al., 2001).
• The annual costs of tobacco from healthcare expenditures and losses in productivity are estimated at 1.8% of the world GDP (Goodchild et al., 2018) (Tobacconomics, 2019).
• Globally the majority of addicts get hooked when they are a minors (The Guardian, 2016).
• Tobacco production utilizes several million child laborers (The Guardian, 2016).
• Deforestation from Tobacco is estimated as one tree for every 300 cigarettes produced totaling 600 million trees a year (Truth Initiative, 2018; WHO, 2022)
• Cigarettes are the most littered item in the world—accounting for 1.7 billion pounds of toxic waste and over a third of all litter collected annually (Truth Initiative, 2017)
• Tobacco’s carbon footprint is equivalent to one-fifth of the carbon emissions from the commercial airline industry—84 million tonnes (WHO, 2022).

Intervention

• Tobacco taxation is the most effective form of tobacco control (WHO; NIH, 2016; World Bank, 2017)
  • Tobacco taxation typically has a price elasticity of -0.4 in HICs and -0.5 in LMICs, meaning that for every 10% increase in retail price there is 5% reduction in smoking (NIH, 2016).
  • Taxation reduces consumption especially amongst the most poor who are the most price sensitive (and also incur the most social costs from smoking) (de Beyer et al., 2001; The Union, 2015; Tobacconomics, 2018)
• Tobacco taxation is the most neglected form of tobacco control (World Bank, 2017)

How tobacco taxation compares with other CE interventions

• This is a policy intervention therefore its expected value is predicated on tailend outcomes. Passing policy is typically harder than a health-direct intervention, however if policy is passed and implemented then the impact would drastically exceed a health-direct intervention.
• Even of policy interventions considered by CE, this is atypical. Tobacco is so disastrous for society that most policy wins would have massive impact. However, unlike some other CE policy interventions, tobacco taxation has an opposition lobby—one of the most aggressive.

The role

You are applying to be a co-founder of an NGO founded through and supported by Charity Entrepreneurship.

Why co-founders are important

Organization and co-founder success relies principally on A) judgment, B) productivity, and C) compatibility of the co-founders, and CE has found that these factors are multiplicative not additive—i.e. you need high proficiency in all of them to have a top-tier impactful organization. 

A CE charity is an experiment, it’s a bet on the idea and the co-founders. It’s not guaranteed that the idea will be viable in practice, and even if it is it might require the right decision-making and effort to unlock its potential impact. That latter part rides on the co-founders.

Hence a CE charity going up for funding is an experimental product that potential seed funders are evaluating, and a major component of that product is the co-founders.

Universal co-founder traits

• Irrepressible
  • Every start-up organization has significant low and stressful moments. Successful organizations exist not because they never experienced those moments but because the founders bounced back when they occurred.
  • There will be many pessimist moments where you question if the NGO can succeed with its intervention. You need to stay level-headed and push past the noise yet while not neglecting the signal of when it’s time to double down, pivot, or wind down operations.
• Open-minded
  • The successful tactic, strategy, etc. will often not be the first thing we think of. It’s important to stay focused on finding what gets results rather than being invested in our own ideas.
• Highly productive and competent
  • When starting a new organization with a seed budget, the biggest budget line item is the salaries of the co-founders. Thus, the productive output of the co-founders is critical to what the organization can accomplish with the seed budget—which determines whether the organization will even secure the fundraising post-seed budget needed to scale the organization to impact.
  • If a person routinely can get 20% more stuff done in an hour than another person, that productive output compounds over many hours to the point that their two organizations reached substantially different outcomes at the end of a year.
• Creative
  • There is no blueprint to success. Being a successful charity entrepreneur means finding innovative ways to the solution when conventional means fall short.
• Goal-oriented
  • A co-founder’s single biggest value (what the CE community is investing in) is the ability to find a way to get from point A to point B when most people haven’t found a way, when there is no structure or blueprint, and when there are high degrees of ambiguity and difficulty. Co-founders are the ones that when tasked with getting to an end point find a way despite the challenges.

What you don’t need

There are many misconceptions about what it takes to be a successful founder. CE has found the following to not be necessary.

• Expertise in the subject
  • As with past CE founders, you will become the expert in your field by diving headfirst. More important than a background in the subject is your ability to learn things quickly.
• Extensive experience
  • As a founder you will need to have a hand in every part of running the org and every CE founder has taken on tasks that they didn’t have experience in. The important trait is, again, being able to learn new things quickly (as a generalist), as well as, doing things to a high-quality level.
• Extraversion or being a great public speaker
  • There have been great co-founders that didn’t possess these skills. The more important thing is having at least one co-founder that can pitch your organization—which your future co-founder can do.

Other important requirements

Willing to travel abroad for at least 3 months of the year. This would be waived for a candidate that brings exceptional value. Previous experience traveling (and being comfortable in) LMICs is preferred. Work overseas, especially in LMICs, is a plus but not necessary.

Here is some additional content (11 min video) to consider about if you are the right fit for founding.

Who your future co-founder is

Your future co-founder—J.T. Stanley—was accepted into the incubation program on his second attempt (hint: it’s okay if you applied to CE before and did not get in) and went through the winter 2023 cohort. During the cohort he settled on tobacco taxation. 

In his recent past endeavors, he worked for a small local NGO in Goma, Congo in conflict threatened territory, started a small virtual reality business in Congo, and developed a few projects related to US democracy and governance.

Since the last cohort, he’s been exploring experimental approaches to tobacco control (e.g. such as targeted reforms at the World Bank to alleviate bottlenecks) and launching the advocacy program of Upstream Policies.

Your future co-founder is a fierce competitor that was known in his cohort for being gregarious, affable, and persuasive, as well as, being a creative strategizer with strong pitching skills.

You will learn more about him as you advance through the selection pipeline. Finalists will also get to talk to other incubatees from that cohort about what it was like to work with your future co-founder.

The selection process

The selection process is modeled after the CE selection process for the incubation program. It is a multi-stage process designed to be respectful of your time while finding people that match the predictive profiles of founders. Additionally, and unlike the CE selection process, this process will assess your compatibility with this specific co-founder.

1. Application
2. Test task
3. Interview
4. Team work trial

The process is going to be fast and most applicants that go through the whole process will do so in about 3.5 weeks. Times will be quicker for applicants that submit earlier at each stage. Turnaround times will typically be a matter of days.

At the last stage you will get to speak with peers from your co-founders’ cohort about what it is like working with him and better inform your decision (because deciding to co-found together is a two-way street).

If you’ve read to this point and decided not to apply I’d love to hear why. Here is a one-question form where you can do that.

How to apply

Here is the link to the application form.

Early application deadline: August 6^th 23:59 UTC

Application deadline: August 13^th 23:59 UTC

After the deadline, applications will be taken on a rolling basis.

The application consists of many multiple-choice questions and a few short-answer questions. The additional requirement is to attach a resume. If you have launched or ran any ventures, organizations, or independent projects, the resume is a good place to highlight them.

Your identity will be blinded during the application and test task for impartial evaluation. To ensure this, please don’t write your name in the short answers.

FAQs

Why has this not been founded before?

• People were more attracted to health-direct interventions to be closer to the beneficiaries.
• People were hesitant to go up against the tobacco industry.

How much seed funding do you expect this intervention will receive?

• Co-founder quality and fit will greatly affect what the seed funders think. Hence this intensive and iterative selection process (and the importance of you applying!)
• For context, the three human (health-direct) charities in J.T.’s cohort received $130,000 – $190,000. The animal policy charity received $110,000.
• In the previous cohort (summer 2022), the one human policy charity received $170,000.
• (all numbers are in USD)
• Funding is not guaranteed. Some proposals have received zero funding in the past.
• CE has a recent track record of getting 70-80% of proposals funded.

I'm afraid do it without training from the CE incubation program (CE IP).

• Everyone in my cohort will tell you not to worry about this. The training is not the principal value of CE IP, and the training can be supplemented. This will be elaborated on further in the selection pipeline. 

Is there a hierarchy? How much ownership do I get?

• You will be one of two equal cofounders. There will likely be a bit of asymmetry at first because J.T. has been focused on this endeavor for a few more months than you. However, this will erode quickly and steps will be proactively taken to forge a shared vision for the organization.

Recommended readings

1. CE handbook – top recommendation
   1. You can do a Kindle Unlimited free trial (and cancel it later) to get access to the book for free 
2. CE’s report on tobacco taxation
3. J.T.’s EA Forum post on tobacco taxation
4. Open Philanthropy’s report on tobacco control
5. Giving What We Can’s report on tobacco 

[1] Based on a tax increase of 23.7% in Mongolia and Lebanon with 27.14% chance of success.

[2] In Indonesia with a 10% probability of success, million-dollar campaign, 10% increase in retail price, and a counterfactual speed up of 3 years.

[3] This appears to be under a scenario where the intervention is scaling.