Cristina Schmidt Ibáñez
Bio
Special Projects Coordinator at Rethink Priorities.
I mentor people working in nonprofit operations (as time allows) and run the Effective Animal Advocacy Community Directory.
EA Forum Alignment: Neutral Good
Past work/activities: Operations & Intern Coordinator (Riesgos Catastróficos Globales), Project Manager (National Pandemic Cohort Network - Germany), Incubation Program Participant '21 (Charity Entrepreneurship), Operations Lead (EAGxVirtual '20), Volunteer Coordinator (EAG London '21), Event Lead (EA Fellowship Weekend '21 and EAGxVirtual Unconference '20), Group Lead (EA Hamburg)
My academic background: M.Sc. International Logistics and Management
I truly enjoy:
- Improving organisation and coordination within teams
- Figuring out how to structure things: information, organisations, etc.
- Mentoring
Please reach out if you think I can help you.
Posts 15
Comments64
Topic Contributions2
Try to include people knowledgeable about different donating areas.
As a participant I can say this was extremely helpful. It allowed us as a group to get up to speed in different areas quickly and to make sure we are informed about any relevant and current events (in those areas).
and games like the Trolley Problem card game are highly recommended.
+++1 ;)
One thing to add here (also highly recommended): Have a fantastic host such as Max!
Hey! (full disclosure: I work within the Special Projects team at Rethink Priorities which also provides fiscal sponsorship services).
A couple of quick notes from me:
- There are different models of fiscal sponsorship. I can recommend this overview from AntiEntropy and this to learn more about that. Different sponsors offer different models (depending on their infrastructure and risk appetite) although A and C are the most utilized and established.
- Another thing that your question seems to imply is that these options - depending on how you define them - are mutually exclusive (which they are not) e.g. you can get fiscal sponsorship for tax-exemption and basic financial compliance but also "external" ops support. There are also ways to meaningfully combine incubation with fiscal sponsorship (which unfortunately I won't be able to lay out here today).
- Some funders require a project to have tax-exempt status (either via their own 501(c)3 or because they are fiscally sponsored by another 501(c)3). In those cases you'll need fiscal sponsorship (beyond ops support) to receive a grant.
Some pushback on this:
I think this is a limited model for understanding meetings. (Citing from the handbook of meeting science) there are different cognitive processes taking place during meetings (usually several in one meeting):
- Problem identification and construction
- Information exchange/information sharing
- Idea generation and brainstorming
- Idea evaluation and selection
- Implementation planning
When I conduct meetings as a project manager (or participate in team meetings) I rarely have a clear "decision brief meeting" or a "planning and course of action development". All of these may take place in one meeting depending on the scope of the decision(s) to be made. If a decision is consequential enough I can understand the need for fragmenting these processes into different meetings.
Additionally, other processes take place that are worth highlighting:
- Trust and psychological safety
- Support for innovation
- Conflict
I think the main takeaway from your post would be for readers to highlight the purposes that the meetings they plan serve and approach meeting planning with more intention.
Interesting! This actually reminded me of a flower farmer I interviewed 4 years ago as part of my masters thesis and the reason why I was interviewing him was that he had no (third party) "social certification" for his flower production but brought up giving sunscreen to his employees which no other farmer that I interviewed (including the ones with social certification mentioned) did. Unfortunately I wasn't able to prioritize the issue as part of the other things I was assessing, but it did leave me thinking (a lot!).
(As a decently busy person) I've found that it's not so much how concise the material is I'm consuming rather than the medium through which I consume that predicts whether I will finish/engage with it or not.
For me I'm more of an audio-visual type and have ditched most (70%) written material for audio (e.g. podcasts, audiobooks) because the time I can use to learn (unless it's my professional development time that my employer offers me) directly competes with other things that I need/want to do during the week: exercise, clean the house, go for a walk, etc. I've found that after finally embracing that fact I've been learning much more than I used to.
In terms of actively learning (rather than passively consuming) I've found that chatting with others about the material I consume, whether it's a casual meeting with colleagues or having or other avenues for discussion is a great way to learn that doesn't require much additional time for me.
Hey Liv,
Here are a couple of things I can think about (though I would say preparing for an EAG is very similar to preparing for an EAGx) - maybe I'll see you there? :)
- Before the conference
- Keep an eye out for communication/emails from the events team (CEA) prior to the event for general recommendations on how to plan your EAG
- Have a look at these resources
- During the conference
- Join the session "First timers at EAG"
- Directly after the conference
- Relax, have fun
- Some time after the conference
- Follow up with people you met
- (Totally optional): Write about your experience & share
The bigger the kind of impact someone is planning, the more important it is that they have a good character.
Loved this line. And I second Rockwell's opinion: It's one of my favorite presentations I've seen at an EAG.
Hey! Cristina here. I work as a Special Projects Coordinator (which is an ops role) at Rethink Priorities providing ops services to internal and external new projects. I'm not only not required to be on call all the time (unless I'm providing events support on the ground in which case I'm asked to take time off afterwards to balance that off), it's in fact discouraged at RP, my team (Special Projects) and more specifically with my manager.
You're like the busiest people I know... how do y'all have time for this? What's your secret? :D Did ChatGPT write this for you?
* Apologies that I'm not able to engage more in depth with the arguments presented here at the moment. So only sharing some quick thoughts for now.
I agree somewhat with the first sentence. Some benefits from fiscal sponsorship are much more predictable than others. Impact being one of the less predictable ones.
I agree strongly with the second sentence. I think it is part of any fiscal sponsor (and sponsees) due diligence to do that. Fiscal sponsorship relationships should be reassessed continually and with care. I think this white paper describes this very well.
This seems roughly right. However this depends a lot on:
I think something that I'm missing in this post is more mention that fiscal sponsorship is widely practiced (especially in the US). However, as Emma Geering puts it - way better than I could - :
"As a practical construct that addresses market failures and motivates social change, fiscal sponsorship needs formal recognition in the law. New state corporate codes and Internal Revenue Code provisions cementing fiscal sponsorship in the doctrines supporting nonprofit law are necessary to continuous growth in the nonprofit sector." (The Legal Value of Fiscal Sponsorship: A Proposal of New Law)
(I work within the Special Projects team at RP, but all views are my own)