Thank you so much, Vaidehi, for this thoughtful comment and for taking the time to engage.
On motivations: we saw a wide spectrum. Some applicants were driven by very personal experiences, e.g. having lived close to poverty or discrimination themselves, and wanting to “fix” what they endured. Others were motivated by specific issues they’ve worked on professionally (education, environment, public health). A few were drawn by the “founder identity” itself, the idea of building something new and leading a team. Part of our methodology is to surface motivations early and help participants refine them. Even with evidence-based tools, unclear or misaligned motivations can steer an org sideways over time. I’ll write a dedicated post on motivations later, but it’s important to flag certain drivers we need to watch out for, such as resentment, ego, the need for power, feelings of superiority, or even a saviour complex. Unfortunately, these do exist in the sector, and because we work with vulnerable populations, we have to be especially careful, not only for founders, but all of us that work on these issues.
On geography and cohort diversity: you’re right, there can be real benefits to multiple orgs in the same geography, especially around resource-sharing and peer support. We didn’t avoid that altogether, in fact, we do have overlaps. Out of the 20 fellows, five are the sole representatives of their country, with one of them currently living in another, more represented country. The constraint was more about balance: we had so many strong candidates from a handful of countries, but since this is the very first program of its kind in the region, we felt it was important to deliberately seed it across more geographies, so that in the future we can create regional clusters while still representing the breadth of Latin America. It’s definitely a trade-off.
On the “good intentions vs. impact” point: thanks for catching that nuance. I didn’t mean to suggest that EA as a whole dismisses the broader social sector, more that I’ve heard an impression that “traditional NGOs (led by people in the Global South) care less about impact than EA orgs.” Like you, I strongly disagree with that oversimplification. In our applicant pool, and in general in the sector, people who’ve worked years in constrained environments deeply care about whether their interventions work. What they often lack are the time, tools, or funding to evaluate rigorously, not the will. And when given those tools, they show remarkable openness to learning and reframing. That’s one of the things that excites me most about bridging EA methods with practitioners already in the field.
Thank you so much, Vaidehi, for this thoughtful comment and for taking the time to engage.
On motivations: we saw a wide spectrum. Some applicants were driven by very personal experiences, e.g. having lived close to poverty or discrimination themselves, and wanting to “fix” what they endured. Others were motivated by specific issues they’ve worked on professionally (education, environment, public health). A few were drawn by the “founder identity” itself, the idea of building something new and leading a team. Part of our methodology is to surface motivations early and help participants refine them. Even with evidence-based tools, unclear or misaligned motivations can steer an org sideways over time. I’ll write a dedicated post on motivations later, but it’s important to flag certain drivers we need to watch out for, such as resentment, ego, the need for power, feelings of superiority, or even a saviour complex. Unfortunately, these do exist in the sector, and because we work with vulnerable populations, we have to be especially careful, not only for founders, but all of us that work on these issues.
On geography and cohort diversity: you’re right, there can be real benefits to multiple orgs in the same geography, especially around resource-sharing and peer support. We didn’t avoid that altogether, in fact, we do have overlaps. Out of the 20 fellows, five are the sole representatives of their country, with one of them currently living in another, more represented country. The constraint was more about balance: we had so many strong candidates from a handful of countries, but since this is the very first program of its kind in the region, we felt it was important to deliberately seed it across more geographies, so that in the future we can create regional clusters while still representing the breadth of Latin America. It’s definitely a trade-off.
On the “good intentions vs. impact” point: thanks for catching that nuance. I didn’t mean to suggest that EA as a whole dismisses the broader social sector, more that I’ve heard an impression that “traditional NGOs (led by people in the Global South) care less about impact than EA orgs.” Like you, I strongly disagree with that oversimplification. In our applicant pool, and in general in the sector, people who’ve worked years in constrained environments deeply care about whether their interventions work. What they often lack are the time, tools, or funding to evaluate rigorously, not the will. And when given those tools, they show remarkable openness to learning and reframing. That’s one of the things that excites me most about bridging EA methods with practitioners already in the field.