Thanks a lot for writing this up, Sam! Interesting data point on what an entry-level job in aid policy grantmaking can look like.

The AIM burgundy red is basically the same as the old CE red for easier re-identification; the other colours we slowly added on last year and this year and what can I say, we do like us some magical, natural, but clearly distinct colours for our different programs :)

Hi Sentient Toucan (lovely name!),

in short, we do in fact cap the number of people in some ways, and there will be more than these four charities, and/but/also we are quite creative if we should be so lucky as to get too many people! I'll go into more detail:

First, there are in fact two caps on the number of people in each IP cohort: 

1. Most importantly, there is a pragmatic cap in that we do see clear tiers between the people we make offers to and the people who are close but not quite there in terms of a sufficient likelihood to launch one of the top charities we are looking to launch (like LEEP, FEM, Fortify Health etc.).
2. Secondly, we usually have a soft cap in that we think there is an ideal number of participants in a cohort. Given our experiments in the last years with both large and small cohorts, we currently believe it to be around 12-14 people.
3. Thirdly, there are many smaller, softer factors and heuristics that might lean us towards accepting or rejecting a candidate in any given round - e.g., if we have 2 animal ideas and there are 3-5 similarly strong animal candidates and a slightly weaker candidate, we might lean towards letting in the latter person as well.

Secondly, we currently expect to have at least five ideas for this Feb - March 2024 cohort (the four mentioned above, one passing over from the current IP, and perhaps one or two more we are currently considering adding). We usually don't add "considered ideas" to the pool after deciding they didn't make the cut as there was usually a reason they were considered, not recommended - that is, the research team looked into them and decided that they were in a lower tier than the ideas we do recommend.

Thirdly, given our past experience, that means the ideal cohort for that round would be 12-14 people. Usually about 90% of incubatees in each cohort end up founding charities while about 10% don't find their ideal co-founder and/or idea match and/or decide this career path is not quite the right fit for them at this time.

However, if there were more than 12-14 candidates during the application process that we would be super excited to have on the program, we would find a way to make it work. We are quite pragmatic and creative.

Hope this helps!

Hi Lizka, I've clarified at the top of the application form that it is for both the 2023 and 2024 programs. Thanks for your comment!

I wholeheartedly agree with the key statement and goals of this post, thank you for writing this up!

One thing I think could be really useful to see (perhaps for this post, or perhaps this is coming in a future post?) would be even just a simple sample M&E system with a Theory of Change, a Framework, and Evaluation questions for a particular project. It could make it easier to understand at a glance what the type of thing is that it would be great for a project or org to have and a sample template could easily be copied and adapted by readers in 80/20 fashion.

I'm looking forward to the next post(s?).

Hi there, thanks for your question! As Talent Systems Specialist, I'm happy to answer them:

1. The main benefit will be going through the earlier stages sooner. Acceptance letters will be sent out by mid-May at the latest, but earlier for people who make it to the final stages sooner (i.e., apply earlier and send in their test tasks etc. earlier).  I can't say anything more precise than that as the total time we need to process all candidates through the entire application round will still depend largely on how many applications we get and how high the quality of the pool is - this varies from round to round from ~700-3000 initial applications.
2. This is correct - we always recruit for two program rounds during each application round (so there is some flexibility for candidates and for us to recommend a particular program cohort and cause area combination to each future incubatee). We are usually looking for cohorts between 8-20 people (ideally 14-16) and have already accepted 3, so there are between 5 and 17 spots left for the July/August 2023 cohort and 8-20 for Feburary/March 2024. However, if we find someone who we think is a great fit and their test tasks and interviews are really exciting, we will never not accept them. Amazing founders are our bottleneck!

Would love to see you put in an application if you're interested! 

All the best,
Judith

This is so great to see, both the intervention, progress to date, and your future plans. The post was very engaging to read as well. Thank you for this, Joy & Anita!

EA has a high deference culture compared to the epistemic norms it claims to adhere to = compared to the standards it aspires and claims to follow, I'd say. This can be true independently of the difference with other groups of people that you described (which I think is also a true description).

Well, shoot, guess it's time to rebrand!