Opportunity to start a high-impact nonprofit—applications for the 2022-23 Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Programs are now open!
You can now apply to the two Incubation Programs 2022-23!
Charity Entrepreneurship’s Summer 2022 Incubation Program will be held online from late June to late August, and will include one week in person in London. The Winter 2023 program will be held from early February to late March, and will also include one week in person in the US (location to be determined).
Successful applicants will get a free 2-month intensive training in charity management, fundraising, impact analysis, and everything else you need to launch your own organization. Finish the program with a co-founder, a high-impact charity start-up, ongoing mentorship and support, and a funding proposal for a seed grant of up to $175,000. The deadline for first round applications is January 16, 2022.
Apply to start one of our new charity ideas from any country using the form below:
If you would like to apply with your own charity idea, please use this form:
Application process
Application deadline: January 16, 2022
Program date: 27 June – 19 August 2022, OR early February – late March 2023.
Costs: All costs covered.
The application process comprises five stages. Our entire application process typically takes less than 10 hours over approximately one month to complete. We’ve designed our vetting system to not only assess an applicant’s fit for CE, but also to help potential candidates get a sense of their other options and paths to impact. Due to the high number of applications, we are only able to contact applicants who are moving on to the second stage of the recruitment process.
Successful applicants will be informed whether they have been selected within one month of the application deadline. As we expect to accept around 10-20 candidates per program, we encourage you to apply early, though we will offer multiple application rounds.
We encourage any who may be interested in charity entrepreneurship to apply. We select attendees on the basis of potential, not track record alone. As we only accept applicants with a strong chance, given training, of starting a high-impact charity, the application process itself is the best indicator of possible fit. We also recommend looking over resources like our past blog content, videos, and reading list to learn more and/or prepare for the program.
The program
Our Incubation Program requires a full-time commitment (on average, 8 hours a day) during the two-month training course. Stipends are provided to those in need, and transportation costs are covered for those who can travel for the week in person. We also include a preparation stage in the weeks before the program begins in order to level the playing field and prepare attendees to hit the ground running.
Overview:
First application round: 15 December 2021 – 16 January 2022
Second application round: Begins in March 2022
Pre-program: Starting in May, you’ll read the Charity Entrepreneurship handbook (soon to be available on Amazon) and attend weekly one-hour virtual meetups to discuss content, ask questions, and get to know your potential co-founders. You will also take a test on pre-program content in June, before the program begins.
Online program: 27 June – late19 August 2022, OR early February – late March 2023.
First five weeks: You will work closely with other participants on real-world partner projects to be evaluated and scored by the CE Team. This will help you learn more about the intervention opportunities, choose a co-founder, and begin to build your charity.
Final three weeks: Together with your co-founder, you will create a funding proposal to compete for Charity Entrepreneurship seed grants of $25,000–$100,000 per team. In 2021, new CE charities received a total of over $500,000 in seed funding. If you don’t seek or receive start-up funding, our track record for connecting non-founder participants to research grants, related jobs, and other pathways to impact is near 100%. (Moreover, we are able to offer stipends to the few participants who do not immediately find a new opportunity.)
Post-program: We provide weekly mentorship calls for up to one year, access to the CE network, office space in London at discounted rates, and social events.
For further information, see our FAQ.
What you will learn
Our Incubation Program not only prepares you to start your own organization but also enables you to develop a cross-applicable skillset for a range of high-impact careers. Build your confidence and master the foundational principles of managing high-impact organizations, including:
Is your charity cost-effective? Prepare a Cost-effectiveness Analysis
Where do you operate? Draft a Geographic Assessment Framework
How do you begin implementation? Outline a One-year Plan
What is your impact? Prepare a Monitoring & Evaluation Plan
How much funding do you need? Draft a Budget
How do you best fundraise? Prioritize potential funders
How do you work with your co-founder? Come up with a Founders’ Agreement to facilitate your collaboration
You will also be coached in:
Running legally: charity registration and forming a board
Onboarding and managing staff: hiring, firing, and self-care
Communications: giving feedback, pitching ideas, and public speaking
Marketing: building an online presence
You’ll practice these skills in real-world partner projects as well as be provided with our CE Handbook How to Launch a High-Impact Nonprofit and ready-made templates. Receive constructive feedback and lectures from experts including our own research team, Co-founders, and Directors, one of whom is the co-founder of New Incentives, now a GiveWell Top Charity. They’ll give you progress reports, guidance on next steps, and the freedom to explore what charity ideas work best with your skillset.
What is CE’s track record?
We’ve helped launch 18 effective nonprofits in the past 4 years, reaching over 5 million humans and 1.2 million animals.
Our charities have successfully worked in a broad range of cause areas. Their efforts include family planning campaigns in northern Nigeria, advocacy work for reducing lead exposure in Malawi, improving fish welfare across India, increasing career opportunities and skill-building within the Effective Altruism movement, and more. One of our 2017 incubated charities, Fortify Health, is predicted to have a 25% chance of becoming a GiveWell Top Charity.
They have been supported by entities such as Mulago, GiveWell, Open Philanthropy, EA Funds, Founders Pledge, Animal Charity Evaluators, Schmidt Futures, and D-Prize, as well as many high-impact professionals and smaller funding organizations.
To explore our charities and their work in more depth, visit our website.
[OUR CHARITIES]
What charity should I start?
After extensive research, CE has selected the following top ideas for the 2022 Incubation Program.
1. Road traffic safety – policy advocacy work for road traffic safety improvements like reducing existing speed limits and improving and introducing seat belt legislation.
Promising countries for this intervention: Brazil, Egypt, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. Initial overview >>
2. Aid Quality – policy advocacy work to ensure the flow of governmental aid resources is directed as effectively as possible.
Promising countries for this intervention: US, India, South Korea, Japan, UAE, EU, UK, Germany, France, and other smaller EU countries. Initial overview >>
3. Tobacco taxation – policy advocacy work on increasing tobacco taxes to reduce tobacco consumption.
Promising countries for this intervention: Mongolia, Lebanon. Initial overview >>
4. Postpartum family planning – providing family planning guidance to women at pivotal moments for their health and fertility, such as after giving birth.
Promising countries for this intervention: Ghana, Senegal, Benin, Sierra Leone, Cameroon. Full report >>
5. Exploratory altruism – exploring and making a strong case for new cause areas. Full report >>
APPLY HERE to start one of our high-impact charity ideas.
You are not limited to only starting charities based on our top ideas, and may apply to the program with your own charity in mind. However, you must make the case that it is at least as impactful as our current recommendations. To apply to the program with your own idea, please submit your application using this form.
Still have questions? Comment below or contact us.
We’ve recently updated our FAQ to answer the most common questions we receive about our organization and program details.
Please feel free to ask any additional questions you may have in the comments. We will do our best to be responsive, and look forward to opening up discussions about our charity ideas, program details, personal fit, and any uncertainties about our process.
For more in-depth inquiries, or for those of you who prefer not to comment publicly, you can also get in touch with us via our contact form.
We look forward to reading your applications. Good luck!
Thank you for posting this!
This answer in the FAQ is really helpful for those of us with kids/other dependents:
Thank you for running an inclusive program that aims to meet participants where they are and offer to support them to make it work for all!!
Thanks, Alex!
If you or anyone else has questions about participating in the program when you have or are expecting children or have other dependents feel free to reach out to me, we can discuss your situation and what support we offer.