All of SteveThompson's Comments + Replies

Hi there

I'm now (finally) doing a round of user interviews to understand what influences people to apply or not apply. If you know of anyone who you would consider a very talented potential founder that has decided not to apply, I'd love to connect with them to understand their thinking. (I won't try to change their mind, just understand their reasons.)

Steve@charityentrepreneurship.com

Hi there

I'm now (finally) doing a round of user interviews to understand what influences people to apply or not apply. If you know of anyone who you would consider a very talented potential founder that has decided not to apply, I'd love to connect with them to understand their thinking. (I won't try to change their mind, just understand their reasons.)

Steve@charityentrepreneurship.com

See also, Joey's response to a very similar question towards the top of the thread

Thanks Thijs

Good point. TBH, I haven't given much thought in a while. Be good to re-calculate given that we have way more datapoints now and, as you say, the funding situation has changed. 

We believe that it's very challenging to change  existing organizations.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/drRsWTctSqNRveK56/what-is-the-expected-value-of-creating-a-givewell-top

Oh - and apologies for how long it took me to respond to this. 

Yep - it's true we get very large numbers of applicants. Perhaps 80% are speculative though, and don't even really understand what we do.  So the big number is somewhat misleading. Of the two or three hundred  relevant candidates we receive, maybe 20 or so will make it onto the program.  So for the purposes of those reading the EA Forum (who one would imagine are somewhat or very involved in EA) the likelihood of getting into the later rounds of the application process are actually pretty good. 

I will add, however, that it's a little di... (read more)

• Our mission is for more highly- impactful charities to exist in the world. In four years we’ve helped launch 23. We’ve proved our model works and we’re now getting ready to scale up. 
• Our research team has traditionally targeted ideas for charities that, in expectation, will be at least 5 X AMF. 
• We’ve grown in confidence, scope and capability. We’re now targeting even more ambitious  ideas and, we hope, we’re demonstrating  what’s possible. 
• We’ve grown a very tight- knit community of charity entrepreneurs, funders, researchers, and

We’re also very interested in tracking their impact (for many reasons including our own cost effectiveness analyses).

We encourage and will pay for external impact evaluations too.

We encourage orgs to have shut down criteria and scale up criteria and we coach and advise based on these.

We would love to do user interviews with people who don’t apply.

How might we find these people and encourage them to tell us what’s holding them back or what’s off putting?

Steve@charityentrepreneurship.com

Here’s a video of a presentation: it’s purpose is to help people really consider if this path is for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpZgc0e1aaQ

If you email me steve@charityentrepreneurship.com I’m happy to talk about how you might run a group session, and share some resources.

(This first bit is copied from below)

We provide a whole range of supports, from on-going weekly coaching/mentoring, advisors, retreats, sharing resources, workshops, giving administrative, logistical, and legal support. We do whatever we can to help. It's not perfect and we'd like to be able to give even more, but on the whole we are always there if a charity asks for help.

We help find new hires, we help access funding, we've even set up a yearly "insurance" system where our charities can opt to place a small % of their donations as a "rainy day fund" for ... (read more)

• Thanks a lot for your interest in supporting our charities! 
• How it works is we read the forms and then we match potential advisors/mentors with specific charity or specific founder. It is very important for us to use the mentor’s/advisor’s time in the most valuable way. So there is no barriers for filling the form - any skills/experiance level is welcome. We will just make sure to use it for the right charity at the right time and find a good fit for both mentee and mentor/advisor.

Not sure. The ideas of EA and of bed nets were around long before these people stepped up to the plate. Some argue that without GW, EA might not have taken off to this day.  But I do agree that oftentimes leaders are advancing things more quickly than they would otherwise be. 

Yes - the best way to figure out if you’re a good fit is to apply. 

It's low cost and we've developed a pretty good understanding on who will do well. It's not reasonable to expect to know yourself, if you'd be a good fit for doing something that you've never done. So I'd suggest you submit an application and see how far you get. 

I will add though, not getting through doesn't mean you're NOT a good fit, it just means we had some concerns or reservations given our particular approach. However if you do get in you can be confident you ARE a good fit... (read more)

Yes - that's been done in the past. Case by case basis. There can be good reasons to defer. But it's best to apply early and then discuss those considerations with us if you progress to the final rounds of the application process. 

We certainly don't vet on the basis of age. We've had 19 yr olds and 60+ yr olds. I was 43 on the program. Yes it's true that most of the applicants are younger and that youth is a reasonably good proxy for higher energy and career / location flexibility, but we do value life experience and do seek older applicants. One can imagine a particularly good founding team being made up of a younger person with their strengths and an older person with their experience. 

Yes, signing up to be a mentor is a great way to get involved! 

We provide a whole range of supports, from on-going weekly coaching/mentoring, advisors, retreats, sharing resources, workshops, giving administrative, logistical, and legal support. We do whatever we can to help. It's not perfect and we'd like to be able to give even more, but on the whole we are always there if a charity asks for help.  

We help find new hires, we help access funding, we've even set up a yearly "insurance" system where our charities can opt to place a small % of their donations as a "rainy day fund" for a charity in the pool that has a timing issue securing funding. 

We have the ideas, (and can find more) we have the program, (and can train more). What we need are more applicants. More leaders to pick up the ideas and make them a reality.

• Imagine Rob Mather hadn’t started the Against Malaria Foundation. That’s likely 200 million bednets, gone from the world. 
• Imagine Karolina and Joey hadn’t started CE, that’s 23 charities and perhaps all their future impact, gone from the world. 
• Imagine Will hadn’t started GWWC and CEA, that likely means no EAGs, no movement, no EA Forum…. all gone from the world.
• Leaders, founders, starters-  people who step up to the plate and launch something are incredibly contingent, irreplaceable, and important.  They can set in motion massive amoun

• We suspect that a huge number of EAs don’t apply who would be excellent candidates, thinking themselves not good enough.
• This is a shame. Historically, about half of those who have made it all the way through the program and achieved funding didn’t even think they’d be accepted. 
• Doctors think they lack the commercial skills, business students think they lack the research skills and researchers think they lack the interpersonal skills. The truth is that nobody comes onto the program ready. That’s what the program is for. Moreover, year one of running th

Short version (IMHO) is that Masterminds  are excellent when you get good people (seniority, experience, entrepreneurial spirit etc) and they are far less good with less relevant  people. 

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Take a bunch of very early stage peers. They often have more limited and similar knowledge and networks. On the other hand, take a bunch of essentially lonely and talented entrepreneurs and stick them in a room, magic will happen! 

I reckon it's some combination of neglectedness/isolatedness and relative value.

I'm a member of a Mastermind group (from a... (read more)