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by SahebG, Neha
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Position: Administrator for high school essay contests

About Eon Essay Contest

This is a contest to introduce students aged 13-24 to existential risks. Students are asked to read The Precipice and write an essay responding to a related prompt. You can find out more details and read past winners at the website: https://www.eonessaycontest.com/ 

Neha started this contest and has run it for the last three years. In those years, it has received about 1,000 to 2,000 entries each year. The contest has now reached steady state and she would like to hand it to someone else so she can explore other projects. She is really proud of the reach the essay contest has, and hopes the contest can continue running and growing.


About Pivotal Essay Contest

The Pivotal Essay Contest centered loosely around ideas from What We Owe The Future, and aimed to engage high school students in thinking about existential risk, longtermism, and AI safety. In its inaugural year, the contest received around 4,500 entries. You can find out more here: https://pivotalcontest.org/ 

Saheb, along with a small team, started Pivotal in partnership with Oxford University’s Global Priorities Institute. Although much of the contest infrastructure has been developed, it is still in early stages and could scale and/or shift its focus to similar topics.
 

About the role

Your role would be to run both (preferred) or one contest(s). At a minimum, this includes:

  • Being able to legally operate a fiscally sponsored entity in the US
  • Writing a grant application
    • Note that it is not guaranteed that the contest will receive funding for future iterations
    • Depending on the funding available, this could potentially become a full time role
  • Brainstorming essay prompts
  • Updating the website
  • Publicizing the contest
  • Writing blog posts
  • Hiring and managing graders
  • Sending money to winners

We already have processes for most of the above tasks that we’d be happy to share as part of the handoff process. You can then modify them as appropriate.

More broadly, because you would be running the contests, you could expand or modify the contests as you see fit so they reach more students and engage them more deeply. For example, you could try adding different essay prompts, shifting topics, or experimenting with different advertising channels.

Neha spent ~75 hours this year running Eon, and thinks the contest could easily have absorbed more hours. She was paid $50 per hour as a contractor for running the contest. 

Saheb and the Pivotal team ran the contest largely as volunteers, and spent around ~1,000 hours establishing the organization and infrastructure for the inaugural contest. Saheb estimates that future iterations will take much less time.


Skills needed

  • Willingness to roll your sleeves up and get things done: To keep the contests running, you’ll need to complete a wide range of random tasks. We’ve done everything from editing legal documents, to designing postcards or making social media videos. You should have a strong drive to keep the contests running, even if it means you have to learn a new skill or complete a task you’re unsure about.
  • Interest in outreach: One thing that would improve both contests would be a continued focus on outreach to talented students. It would be great if you have ideas for how to reach students who would be interested in the contests.
  • [nice to have] Prior experience with any of the following tasks:
    • Writing a grant application
    • Brainstorming essay prompts
    • Updating a website
    • Publicizing a contest
    • Writing blog posts
    • Hiring and managing people
    • Sending money to people

If you have run a medium-sized student organization before, you likely have the skills required to run the contests.
 

Contest overlap

Although both contests focus on x-risk/longtermism and aim to reach high school students, Eon and Pivotal reached different audiences last year, based on a comparison of participant lists. For this reason, we’d be excited about seeing both contests continue in some form, whether it is under the same brand or separate brands. 

We’d prefer for an applicant to take on running both contests, but are open to hiring one administrator for each contest. If there’s a particular contest you’d be interested in running, please indicate this on the below form.
 

How to apply

To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, October 6, 2024 Sunday, October 13, 2024. We will invite selected applicants to an interview within around 2-3 weeks.

If you have any questions, please send them to info@eonessaycontest.com and CC support@pivotalcontest.org.
 

Disclaimer

Neha currently works at Open Philanthropy, which has given grants to both Eon and Pivotal. Neha has run Eon since before working at Open Philanthropy, and is co-authoring this post in a private capacity.

Neha is not involved in the decision of whether or not either contest will receive grants in the future.

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