Posting as an individual who is a consultant, not on behalf of my employer
Hi, I’m one of the co-organizers of EACN, running the McKinsey EA community and currently co-authoring a forum post about having an impact as a management consultant (to add some nuance and insider perspectives to what 80k is writing on the topic: https://80000hours.org/articles/alternatives-to-consulting/).
First let me voice a +1 to everything Jeremy has said here already—with the possible exception that I know several McKinsey partners are interfacing with the EA movement on particular causes like Animal Welfare, Governance of AI, pandemic preparedness and climate change. However I don’t know the exact scope of our client work in either field and haven’t heard of projects for EA orgs (I’ve worked with several of these topics for the McKinsey Global Insitute, see e.g. this report: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/climate-risk-and-response-physical-hazards-and-socioeconomic-impacts?cid=app)
Second, I’m happy to jump on a 30-60 minute call in July/August to discuss if the EACN or some of its members can be helpful in making something like this happen—you can reach me at jakob_graabak[at]mckinsey[dot]com. (Luke, Ozzie, any of the Peters, any others?)
One example of how we could help: for “Talent Loans” I can imagine that we could use the McKinsey EA Community to find the right people in a more efficient way than described above. I of course understand that most EA orgs likely won’t become regular McKinsey clients, but I can try to talk to some of our partners about how we could run 2-3 pilot projects with e.g. Open Phil in a mutually beneficial way. Perhaps that would also work as a proof of demand and would drive more people into this space.
Love the idea of a having call and a pilot project (if this is what is most useful). We might even explore the options for pro bono work in the EACN as I know that some partners in BCG are looking for strong partnerships in their regions. I imagine that might also be the case for McKinsey, Accenture, Bain, … .
I also agree that almost all consultancies already do EA-aligned work (not to the extent, we would like them to of course) and have expertise in many relevant fields. E.g., my last project was to do an impact assessment (incl. counterfactual impact etc.) of a 300+M€ government grant, which addressed an EA cause area. At Accenture, BCG and Capgemini members of the EACN are actively reaching out to partners to push EA relevant topics even more. So we have a broad network of contact persons within the EACN and the different firms we could reach out to depending on the needs.
Jakob and Jona, what do you think about crowdsourcing/creating something like this for EA relevant consultants and posting about it on the forum when filled? See my response above to Ozzy for context. Jakob, I’ll send an email as well just to make sure you see it. I hear that people tend to be busy at Mckinsey!
Thanks for the link—I was not aware of this but have added my name to it.
To your question, I don’t know if it would be helpful. I haven’t tried to do consulting for EA orgs yet, and I know that some who have tried to do this have found it hard because of lack of demand. To the first point in your comment: Maybe a document like this and a forum post could unlock some demand, but I’m not sure. The best way to learn would be to simply test it!
Thanks. I agree! On the point of not knowing about the link, I’ll mention that I think it is all too often the case that useful EA resources remain relatively unknown.
I occasionally find out about a resource after it would have been very helpful for me. Even when I know resources are out there I can’t often remember where I found them.
With that in mind, I think we could do better/more awareness raising for good resources. I think that EA forum posts are good for that because the forum is well indexed easily searchable. Posts can also be found via a google search. Hence the suggestion for posting about it in the forum. I’d also recommend mentioning it wherever it is relevant (e.g., as a comment in any new posts by consultants new to EA for example).
Posting as an individual who is a consultant, not on behalf of my employer
Hi, I’m one of the co-organizers of EACN, running the McKinsey EA community and currently co-authoring a forum post about having an impact as a management consultant (to add some nuance and insider perspectives to what 80k is writing on the topic: https://80000hours.org/articles/alternatives-to-consulting/).
First let me voice a +1 to everything Jeremy has said here already—with the possible exception that I know several McKinsey partners are interfacing with the EA movement on particular causes like Animal Welfare, Governance of AI, pandemic preparedness and climate change. However I don’t know the exact scope of our client work in either field and haven’t heard of projects for EA orgs (I’ve worked with several of these topics for the McKinsey Global Insitute, see e.g. this report: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/climate-risk-and-response-physical-hazards-and-socioeconomic-impacts?cid=app)
Second, I’m happy to jump on a 30-60 minute call in July/August to discuss if the EACN or some of its members can be helpful in making something like this happen—you can reach me at jakob_graabak[at]mckinsey[dot]com. (Luke, Ozzie, any of the Peters, any others?)
One example of how we could help: for “Talent Loans” I can imagine that we could use the McKinsey EA Community to find the right people in a more efficient way than described above. I of course understand that most EA orgs likely won’t become regular McKinsey clients, but I can try to talk to some of our partners about how we could run 2-3 pilot projects with e.g. Open Phil in a mutually beneficial way. Perhaps that would also work as a proof of demand and would drive more people into this space.
Love the idea of a having call and a pilot project (if this is what is most useful). We might even explore the options for pro bono work in the EACN as I know that some partners in BCG are looking for strong partnerships in their regions. I imagine that might also be the case for McKinsey, Accenture, Bain, … .
I also agree that almost all consultancies already do EA-aligned work (not to the extent, we would like them to of course) and have expertise in many relevant fields. E.g., my last project was to do an impact assessment (incl. counterfactual impact etc.) of a 300+M€ government grant, which addressed an EA cause area. At Accenture, BCG and Capgemini members of the EACN are actively reaching out to partners to push EA relevant topics even more. So we have a broad network of contact persons within the EACN and the different firms we could reach out to depending on the needs.
Jakob and Jona, what do you think about crowdsourcing/creating something like this for EA relevant consultants and posting about it on the forum when filled? See my response above to Ozzy for context. Jakob, I’ll send an email as well just to make sure you see it. I hear that people tend to be busy at Mckinsey!
There is also an Airtable version of that directory that is more up to date, I’ll update the google sheet
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the link—I was not aware of this but have added my name to it.
To your question, I don’t know if it would be helpful. I haven’t tried to do consulting for EA orgs yet, and I know that some who have tried to do this have found it hard because of lack of demand. To the first point in your comment: Maybe a document like this and a forum post could unlock some demand, but I’m not sure. The best way to learn would be to simply test it!
Thanks. I agree! On the point of not knowing about the link, I’ll mention that I think it is all too often the case that useful EA resources remain relatively unknown.
I occasionally find out about a resource after it would have been very helpful for me. Even when I know resources are out there I can’t often remember where I found them.
With that in mind, I think we could do better/more awareness raising for good resources. I think that EA forum posts are good for that because the forum is well indexed easily searchable. Posts can also be found via a google search. Hence the suggestion for posting about it in the forum. I’d also recommend mentioning it wherever it is relevant (e.g., as a comment in any new posts by consultants new to EA for example).
Already done.