Adam Steinberg

Communications lead @ Charity Elections
Working (15+ years of experience)
Seeking work
112Erlangen, GermanyJoined Nov 2021

Bio

Participation
2

Previous to my 15+ years as an international educator presenting chiefly English Language and Literature in Germany and Wales, I held a range of roles in editing, writing and project management, mostly in line with education and some in the philanthropic realm, in Chicago, Seattle and NYC. Highlights include serving as editor-in-chief an annual magazine for Earth Day Chicago, editing technical articles for Microsoft, and producing (product managing) award-winning educational software for Edmark.

For some months I have been pursuing a career shift into a communications, outreach, PR, movement-building or related role in or near the EA space. (If it involves education, so much the better.) This effort recently bore some tasty fruit: I am now communications lead (PT) for the Charity Elections program, a project cultivated by Giving What We Can and now supported by the EA Infrastructure Fund. I also have been working as a marketing copywriter (English) for a high-tech industrial B2B ad agency and production house in Germany.

Current interests related to EA include deepening my understanding of various areas of EA including longtermism and cause prioritization, exploring and developing the stories we use to bring EA to a wider audience, and looking at current thinking around the application of EA approaches and ideas in educational contexts and the working world.

I'm also a sometime volunteer editor for Kiva.org, recently served on the Comms Team for High Impact Professionals, and an amateur songwriter (www.lyricist.net) with musical theatre cred in the form of a Tisch MFA and various readings in Chicago and NYC. Meanwhile, writing and editing stuff can be glimpsed at www.adamedit.com.

How others can help me

Beyond helping me gain deep understanding of EA concepts, I have a new priority: At this point I will be leaving my marketing position, freelancing for that company while I pursue a new and more meaningful role. So my priority, and the thing I'd appreciate help with, is being pointed towards job opportunities where I can apply my broad communcations experience and strong writing and editing skills on behalf of a socially impactful entity. 

How I can help others

I am still discovering what I can offer in the EA space. Certainly I have experience with career counseling as a secondary educator for 15 years. I rock English and can always advise on anything written, including resumes and important correspondence. And I love good conversations that challenge my priors, so hit me up for a meaningful chat any time about whatever interests you, although especially if you share some interests above. That's a start!

Comments
14

Would love to see a similar analysis for LinkedIn, for example. There are a decent list of groups, from 80K to GWWC, Founders Pledge to the project I work with, GWWC Charity Elections, that aim to target people as professionals, or in specific professions or professional contexts. It would be instructive to see what success EA has had engaging audiences through that platform, and how.

Great points! I appreciate your concern about the original ideas being aimed too much at the job title and not enough at the  individual, and your thoughts on downside risks are also well taken. I like where you take these ideas from a marketing standpoint, as well. 

I have been encouraged by recent developments like the appointment of a head of communications at CEA, and hope ideas like those in my entry above—and improvements upon them, much as you have offered—will be considered increasingly in the coming months.

Stories are powerful things. I know it is just anecdotal, but I would wager The Lorax and possibly other books (The Giving Tree comes to mind in this moment) boosted my interest in environmental protection. Though it may be I was already tending in that direction as a child and they just fit my sensibilities. I mean, I was also reading Konrad Lorenz pretty young...

Guy, do let me know if there is anything else I can answer to help you decide whether to recommend the program to your school. Thanks!   -Adam-

Greg G., our project lead, sent me this information: Last year, a high school with limited English skills ran the event. Here is a testimonial from the teacher. (She requested sponsorship to run another charity election this year. )

”It had been a fulfilling experience for my students, they have not only learned about not charities but also got a chance to practice their language skills which is incredible! What a great accomplishment!”

While we have not started a process of localization for the program, it is a goal to start in the next year. In the meantime, however, it seems the program shows some success with English language learners.  

  • Location: Germany, in the Nürnberg area
  • Remote: Yes.
  • Willing to relocate: Perfer hybrid, but right pull factors and who knows!
  • Skills:
    • Highly versatile and creative communicator (over 10 years of experience) with a drive towards clear and effective messaging honed on professional, marketing, creative, educational and technical texts for diverse audiences in many media.
    • Presentation, planning, training and interpersonal skills developed as project manager and as dedicated international educator for 15 years.
    • Currently marketing copywriter/creative at industrial agency. Conceiving and writing social media and other promotional campaigns, websites, storylines, etc. for high tech B2B, from cybersecurity to the sustainable energy grid. I love working on and learning about new things every day!
    • Also communications lead for Charity Elections, a program supported by Giving What We Can, helping launch/upscale a small nonprofit project in schools. Involved in operations, outreach, promotions, writing of everything from grants to social media posts to curricula around effective giving.
    • Seeking a role in communications, such as marketing or outreach, collaborating with others to explore, explain and inspire solutions to the social and environmental problems of our time.
  • Résumé/CV/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-steinberg1/ or visit adamedit.com for fun (?) writing/editing samples and formatted CV.
  • Email: adamantic@gmail.com
  • Notes:
    • I currently work 15 hours per week for Charity Elections. It would be excellent to find a role that has room for this to continue through our grant period(s) (early 2023 or possibly 2024).
    • I am open to all causes and in many ways prefer multifaceted roles.
    • I dove into EA a bit over a year ago and have not looked back. I am not yet an expert, however. 
       
  • Available from and until: mid-October and onward.

Thanks again for your initial thoughts.

The post is now posted -- here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nJP2iLJZxjF8z8frw/a-case-for-targeted-introductions-to-effective-giving-for

TARGETED INTRODUCTIONS TO EA FOR SPECIFIC AUDIENCES
 

ADDENDUM: The above post about "Targeted Introductions" has been moved to get its own feedback, to this location:  https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nJP2iLJZxjF8z8frw/a-case-for-targeted-introductions-to-effective-giving-for

I would suggest that if this of interest to you, you link to and read that updated version. 

 

TL;DR - Slightly verbose  :-)  rationale for conducting a defined outreach effort, comprised of a series of articles targeted to and tailored for very specific audiences outside EA to orient them to effective giving. 

---<>---

Here's a concept relevant to this post as it offers one possible direction for EA writing. 

It is not unlikely something like this is already in the works somewhere in EA that I don't know about, and if so, I am sure the community will not let me remain uninformed.

(I was recommended to make this a full-on post rather than a reply, but I'd like to see what sort of feedback it gets here first.)

As marketers know, a specific target audience is easier to reach than a very broad one. You can choose a channel that already targets that audience with a message tailored to reader and context (e.g., a magazine about knitting reaches knitters particularly and quite efficiently). Plus, you might benefit from the medium itself if its ideas are trusted by and shared widely between people in that target population.

Meanwhile, there is much discussion, as EA increasingly meets the world, about how to disseminate information about the movement clearly, delicately—after all, you are asking people to examine their values—and in manageable doses. First impressions are oh-so important. You can see discussions about this around the forums. Examples include this Forum post, this podcast on this set of guidelines, portions of this Forum post—e.g., about the dangers of a “low-fidelity [first] exposure” with EA—and this video providing a teacher’s views on risks and solutions around external movement building.

So alongside any efforts to write content for a broad distribution, one might visualize a specific project to turn out a series of highly focused introductions to EA targeted towards specific audiences outside EA, written by or at least in the voice of an “insider,” and pitched to relevant publications.

The example that sparked this idea was an intro to EA written specifically for product managers by Clement Kao, speaking the language of its audience, making connections between their approaches and EA's that would, one hopes, make Kao's fellow product managers feel 1) well understood and 2) positively inclined towards EA.

This targeted outreach could be addressed to any community: Unitarian Universalists; sci-fi fans; AARP members, eSport gamers; you name it. But certainly EA has been looking to establish more momentum in reaching people in the workplace, and there are widely distributed publications within just about any professional community. As an example, consider how many developers’ eyeballs meet mass-distribution magazines like CODE or .NET.

Such a project could start by targeting the broadest and potentially most EA-aligned audiences—for our Market Testing team to identify, of course—and aim to be published in top specialized media for those groups. While containing a central common set of well crafted ideas and terminology, articles would differ in addressing the particular concerns of people in that target group, highlighting ways EA fits their world view and how its tenets can help them improve their work or their lives. 

For authentic insider voices, we might do well to mine the multitalented ranks of EA for writers to author articles on areas in which they have experience. 

Can anyone see a downside risk here? I haven’t so far, and it seems to me that, with careful attention to leading readers to further engagement with EA, such an effort might also cultivate a growing crop of EA groups in the workplace (or among any targeted groups).

A broader question is whether EA outreach would benefit from a far-reaching, coordinated program (perhaps with some elements like the above) to ensure a consistent, vetted message using consistent EA language—or continue to be accomplished as it is now, not badly, but ad hoc by various organizations within the community. Also, whether one particular organization, such as GWWC, would be the logical hub for such an undertaking.

 

 

(Thanks: David Reinstein for feedback on my early draft and Sunnie Huang for extra encouragement.)

Aaron, has a .pdf of the new edition been made available? Thanks!

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