All of Cristina Schmidt Ibáñez's Comments + Replies
* 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.
This is hard because the benefits of sponsorship are legible and predictable, and the costs are nebulous and erratic. But that makes it all the more important to deliberately investigate them.
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 p...
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 -
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 develo...
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...
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
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?
Ops people should have the power to say no, since people don’t respect their time.
I think a major skill that any ops person needs to succeed and not burn out in the process is to set the right boundaries and have what I'll call great "interview skills". You need to be able to ask the right questions (ideally on the spot) instead of falling into a "reactive mode"
- How important is it to get this done today/this week from 1 to 5?
- How important is it to you that I do this task quick vs at a high quality level?
- What do you think is a reasonable timeline to d
I take:
- A "vegan" multivitamin (I used to take most of the things in it as separate pills but found it way too cumbersome and the dosage not very optimal)
- Creatine
- Omega 3 (DHA&EPA)
In the last years I've gone 1x/year to get the following checked:
- Vitamin B12
- Ferritin
- Vitamin D
I might consider other tests/markers in the future (like holoTC). Based on the results the supplementation seems to have worked very well for me.
In terms of resources, I've found Niko Rittenau (mostly only known in German speaking countries) (his books, articles, etc.) very helpful. He ...
Very excited to see you're doing this! Have added it to the EAA Community Directory Resources now.
Thank you for all your work Max! I really admire your courage to make this decision and allow yourself to be so honest and vulnerable in the process. You're leaving us with a really valuable leadership lesson here. And although we only got to interact very briefly during your tenure, I was still able to see all the great qualities that all of your team have mentioned here.
I'm wishing you lots of good times with your loved ones moving forward.
Gotcha. I agree (like 60%) with this in the sense that I do want to see the "subsidized" services more heavily promoted. However, if I were the person seeing the list I'd also like to see (for-profit or "not subsidized") services that already work with EA projects or can in some way accommodate needs of EA projects really well and then I'd use my own judgement to decide what service is better suited for me given my own constraints (budget, time, etc.). Hope that makes sense.
I like the idea! Upvoted!
What is the reasoning for having "The resource should be free to use, or at available at a substantial discount to relatively poor EAs" as a guideline (and limiting factor)?
This photo looks staged but I think EAGxLatAm attendees were just actually this happy and interested
I can confirm that these specific attendees were genuinely happy and interested. 😁
Thanks for the feedback, Sam! Yes, I was somewhat worried that the post might come across as judgmental. And really my intention was to shed light on some things that I wouldn't want, let's say 1-3 years from now to still be a widespread theme in the Latin American community. The reason for using generalisations in this case was because during those 1-on-1s some topics kept popping over and over again. So I was like "Okay....there's something here...".
Despite asking people to share opposite experiences, the feedback I've received so far (including private feedback from community builders in Latin America) has been that people agree with these points (some even strongly agree).
Thanks for sharing that Nick! That's really helpful to know!
And yes, if people already bring a high level ambition in your community then having programs like the one Charity Entreprenurship runs, it's a great way for them to learn about how ideas can be prioritized and charity plans structured (so turning the ambition into a tangible project). I'd definitely encourage the people you meet interested in entrepreneurship to apply for their incubation program.
Thanks Agustín! Yes (as I told you in person) if anyone should feel attacked is me xD (I moved from Colombia to Germany to go to university right after high school.)
I think with that observation in particular (about the students wanting to study abroad) my main concern was that students might be putting too much weight onto the "legitimacy" factor vs. the "potential impact" factor and therefore making very costly decisions that (in some cases) might not be warranted. Having said that I can definitely imagine this (studying abroad) being the best decision for a lot of students.
On point 3. I can imagine a "staggered" stipend system worth experimenting with, where volunteers can choose from e.g. 0, 100, 200, 500 USD etc. based on their own needs.
Reasons why I think this could work:
- Some volunteers that have less financial stability could really benefit from getting this option (the intrinsic motivation for wanting to volunteer doesn't take away thoughts of struggling financially. And I'm not saying volunteering should be an alternative for earning money but if that ends up being the decision ultimately, some people might ne...
Thank you so much for sharing Ben! I'm glad to hear the calls have been fun.
What you described fits my observations so far. I also think that management coaching is probably one of the key "interventions" here. As with any skill, a great deal of learning how to be a (good) manager is learning a set of new behaviors. Having someone to reflect on the development of those behaviors and the respective decision-making can be extremely helpful.
Hi Vasco,
Thanks so much for all the effort put into attempting to do this calculation. I really appreciate it!
I have one main question (+ a meta comment) around the calculation of the cost-effectiveness of OM:
In the email you sent you asked for "(I_OM / C_OM) / (I_A / C_A), where:
- I_OM is the expected loss of impact due to one randomly selected person in operations management working 1 hour less.
- C_OM is the expected hourly rate of one randomly selected person in operations management.
- I_A is the expected loss of impact due to one randomly selected pers
First <3
Just making sure on how to give you feedback:
- Are you looking for feedback rather from parents than"the average EA forum reader". I'm not a parent myself, but I could share it with friends of mine who are parents.
- What kind of feedback would be most helpful? e.g.
- I gave it to my son (who is x y/o) and he loved it.
- I read it myself and would like to see more of xzy...
- What channel would you prefer for receiving feedback? (via eaforkids@gmail.com?)
Hey Ana-Maria, unfortunately, at this moment, RP does not hire in Sweden, but we continuously evaluate local labor laws, and thus, hope to be able in the future. That said, we welcome and encourage all candidates to submit their applications, regardless of their current place of residence.
Hey Richard, thanks for starting the discussion! I'd suggest making it easier to submit answers to these questions anonymously e.g. via an anonymous Google Form. I think that will help with opening up the discussion and making the brainstorming more fruitful.
Hey Ben, first I want to thank you so much for being willing to try this out. This sounds like an extremely valuable experiment!
Second: I'd be super keen to see a follow-up post to hear how the experiment went, if there were any common/recurring themes/blindspots for the people you talked to as well as any other pieces of advice after trying this out.
Hey Kirsten, we expect to make job offers mid-late January with starting dates being flexible, but ideally starting Feb/March. This will be based on the additional FTEs we take on for new projects starting next year.
Thanks so much for conducting this research you both! And of course for the write-up :)
I'm curious about this: How cumbersome (or not cumbersome) did you find collecting this information by yourself (especially as a small org)? For future hires: Would you prefer to do this again but let someone else take over this research? What do you think about an HH employee conducting the research vs. an external party?
Just asking as I wonder if we could have more of these insights by removing any (potentially existing) roadblocks.
Strongly upvoted. This kind of post is extremely valuable and I would encourage anyone to write more of these kinds of posts: It helps us as a community to coordinate much better. Thanks Anya and Katie for all your efforts and research putting this together and sharing it.
Reg. "There are probably more efforts we’re not aware of" There are EA-aligned newsletters including job openings relevant to that newsletter's scope, e.g. like this.
Reg. "We’re not sure what the optimal level of coordination between hiring organizations in the EA community is...
Thanks so much for creating and posting this series Lynette! :) I really enjoy these. I'd be excited to see something like this post for people in more generalist careers like ops and PM and see how that compares to the kinds of answers in this post.
As someone that used to be a Wikipedian this made me smile :) Have a great EA-break Rémi! Thank you for this great analogy!
--
Also I went and checked and my "Wikivacation" sign is still there :D
Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us Andy! :)
Sometimes all that's missing to take the next big step is a sense of urgency. For you and me it came through tragic loss. I hope others reading this realize that it doesn't have to come this far to take that next step.
In a way I feel guilty that I didn't push you that much back then in 2021 when we were talking about your career plans. Taking leaps is scary. But what I've been learning the last years/months by talking with others is that is extremely valuable to really get deep into the question "What is holding you back from taking the leap?" and then have a good look at that... often that's all that's needed to plant a seed.
Hola Jaime, ¿por cuales medios tienen planeado/han compartido información sobre el concurso? Por ejemplo lo podría postear en el grupo de Facebook de AE America Latina: https://www.facebook.com/groups/423949304946768
Si hay algun plan en pie para promover los articulos ganadores (una vez sean escogidos) estaria interesada en saber y/o ayudar a encontrar, coordinar personas que los puedan promover.
Nonprofit Growth Research Think Tank/Consultancy
EA Ops, Effective Altruism
Most EA organisations and projects will be faced (at several times during their organisational lifecycle) with changes to their organisations due the growth of their teams.
If handled poorly a team can grow with many "growing pains" such as processes, policies, financial systems, (project) management and organisational/team structures that are not fit to the new status quo.
We'd love to see an organization that guides other EA organisations on their path to growth by identifying the right strategies and blind spots to manage the change phase in a period of growth.
Job application support for underrepresented groups
Increasing diversity in EA, Effective Altruism
Underrepresented groups usually face additional (or exacerbated) challenges in job applications: language barriers, impostor-syndrome, smaller networks, etc. that affect their application success. There are organisations within the EA ecosystem that provide career coaching but none provides dedicated, on demand support with job applications.
We'd love to see an organisation that provides ongoing support to people from underrepresented groups in job a...
Vetting and matchmaking organization of consultants and contractors for EA founders
Empowering Exceptional People, Effective Altruism
Founders of new projects, charities and other EA-aligned organisations can have an extremely high impact. These individuals tend to suffer more from issues such as overwhelm, burnout, etc. which can easily lead them to have much less impact both short and long-term. A potential intervention against this is decreasing the decision-making overload by helping them outsource some of their decision-making.
We'd love to see an organi...
Leadership and management auditing
Effective Altruism
It is uncertain at what cost to employees' well-being EA organisations achieve impact. A sustainable ecosystems of EA organizations that has long-term impact should have a foundation of evidence-based leadership and management that doesn't harm employees or volunteers (or at least tries to avoid this).
We'd love to see an organisation that evaluates the leadership and management practices of EA organisations and its effect on the well-being of their employees at all levels of the organisation as well as make recommendations for improvement.
Thank you so much for sharing Yi-Yang :)
(1) I think there's another great benefit you didn't mention: Reducing overwhelm and anxiety!
I know enough EAs (including myself) that just feel like devouring a lot of information in order to learn something.
(2) Might want to add: Expected time to learn the "thing". I think the framework becomes truly valuable once you pass some sort of subjective expected time threshold, e.g. if I need more than 30 min, 1 h etc -> Use the framework, for everything under that use other heuristic(s)
(3) Aside from trust level and u...
Hey Sofia,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience here! :)
I wanted to add some things for people interested in project management/considering a career in project management:
(1) Problem-solving was almost at the end of your list and problem-solving is probably the thing I do THE MOST as a project manager (at least in the kinds of projects that I work in). Actually, I think an accurate name for my role could be "Problem-solving Officer" :D. Most problems coming from: processes not being clear/standard (things not being done/not being done t...
This in particular resonated with me and largely reflects how I updated my views on AI x/gc-risk incubation.
My (also low resilience take) is that the AI safety ecosystem can probably more effectively get a project or idea off the ground where there's already pooled infrastructure and other resources (e.g. larger existing think tanks... (read more)