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Announcement: applications for the 2020 Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program are now open!
3 min readMar 18, 2020
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Charity Entrepreneurship’s 2020 Incubation Program will be held from June 29 to August 28 in London, UK. Successful applicants will get a free 2-month intensive training (with accommodation, food, and flights covered) in management, fundraising, impact analysis - everything needed to start a high-impact charity! You will finish the program with a co-founder, a high-impact charity startup and will be eligible to apply for a seed grant of up to $100,000.
Apply from any country by April 15!
Note on COVID-19
We are closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic situation and always put the safety and well-being of program participants first. We will make all decisions in advance and keep participants informed about any changes resulting from official recommendations. We encourage everyone to apply. If needed, the program will be carried out online. We’ll find an effective and safe solution to run it.
Logistics
Application deadline: April 15, 2020
Program date: June 29⎼August 28, 2020
To make it more convenient, we’ve changed the application process this round. We’ve introduced three different application forms, so make sure to use the right one when you apply!
The application process comprises five stages (read more>>). Successful applicants will be informed whether they have been selected one to two weeks after the last round. We expect to accept between ten and twenty attendees in 2020.
We encourage you to apply even if you are unsure whether you are a good fit. Since we only accept applicants who have a strong chance, with training, to start a high-impact charity, going through the application process will be the best indicator of possible fit.
IMPORTANT: We will only be able to contact applicants who are moving forward to the second stage of the recruitment process. If we have not contacted you within 2-4 weeks after the application deadline, unfortunately you have not been accepted to the program.
A focus on co-founder pairing and usable outputs for your charity (e.g. a fundraising plan)—these are the two tenets Charity Entrepreneurship’s 2020 Incubation Program is built on. This allows participants to hit the ground running with their charity startup after only two months.
The new program structure is influenced by CE’s first batch in 2019 that helped to form six charities (see charities started in 2019). The key takeaway from participants and organizers was to make this year’s program even more action-oriented: First, by helping participants find a co-founder through additional in-person exercises. Second, by allowing the teams to work on the essential building blocks of a new charity, including cost-effectiveness analysis, budget, a one-year plan, fundraising documents, and much more. While these priorities add activities, the program has retained its two-month duration (July/August 2020). Content previously taught in-person is now mostly moved to an online handbook on how to start an effective charity. This book will be shared publicly for the benefit of the broader NGO and effective altruism community.
[READ MORE ON THE 2020 INCUBATION PROGRAM CURRICULUM]
If you want to increase your chances of getting in, apply to start a charity based on our research. Each year our team spends thousands of hours researching potential charity ideas, building on large bodies of research by external organizations. Only the best interventions make it onto our list of top charity ideas. If you are open to multiple ideas, you will have an even better chance of being accepted into the program.
This round we’re making it even easier for you. Our quiz will connect you to useful resources and readings about starting a charity. It will not only help you prepare for the program but also increase your overall knowledge of effective altruism.
[TAKE THE QUIZ]
Recommendations for 2020 are currently in the research process and have not yet been released. We’re working on 4 cause areas:
We’ve just published a new report (read more >>) that gives you a sense of what ideas Charity Entrepreneurship is considering as potential new animal charities.
The top ideas that we’re researching for other cause areas will be published soon. You’ll find them on our blog, charity ideas page, and of course on the EA forum.
If you want to start a charity based on your own idea, you can use this special form to apply. We are happy to look at your research and reasoning, but to be accepted to the program you must be able to make a good case that your project is similarly high-impact to our recommended charities list.
In 2019, the Charity Entrepreneurship team graduated 13 alumni, who went on to launch six new charities, five of which implement interventions selected by our research program. You can read our latest update on how this outcome was accomplished, and how these charities come into existence.
You can find a lot of useful resources about the Incubation Program including FAQs on our website. However, if you’re still uncertain about applying or can’t find the answers to your questions, get in touch via our website chat or contact form. You can also post your questions in our Facebook group or in the comment.