Good question. I’ll try to come back to this with a longer answer, but for the time being, which causes did you have in mind? The answer depends quite a bit on the area.
Personally I’m especially interested in cause prioritization, psychology, health and education, which are a lot thinner on the ground than anti-poverty work.
1) For the causes you’re interested in, do web research to find all the most relevant organisations in the cause. Open Phil’s cause overviews are a great starting point: http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes
Try to identify the best run and most effective projects in the cause, then go and speak to people at those organisations, then try and get jobs whereever you’ve got the best fit.
2) If you want to start a new project, it’s harder. The main thing is to get to know people working in the causes you’re working on who are succeeding and doing innovative things. That’s how you’ll discover new projects, and find people who want to work with you, and trust you enough to go ahead.
How to meet people depends on the cause. Maybe there’s a good conference, a meet-up, or a certain organisation that’s the centre of everything.
Try to discover what the big problems are in the cause, then try to figure out how they can be solved. Try to hack together a basic version of your idea to show that you can solve it, then use that to raise money.
More generally, learn about all the writing on tech startups, since this seems to the be state of the art on how to start new projects (though it doesn’t apply to everything you’d do in the nonprofit sector).
Say someone has decided they want to work on a problem directly, rather than earn to give. How do you suggest they find projects?
Good question. I’ll try to come back to this with a longer answer, but for the time being, which causes did you have in mind? The answer depends quite a bit on the area.
Personally I’m especially interested in cause prioritization, psychology, health and education, which are a lot thinner on the ground than anti-poverty work.
1) For the causes you’re interested in, do web research to find all the most relevant organisations in the cause. Open Phil’s cause overviews are a great starting point: http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes
Try to identify the best run and most effective projects in the cause, then go and speak to people at those organisations, then try and get jobs whereever you’ve got the best fit.
2) If you want to start a new project, it’s harder. The main thing is to get to know people working in the causes you’re working on who are succeeding and doing innovative things. That’s how you’ll discover new projects, and find people who want to work with you, and trust you enough to go ahead.
How to meet people depends on the cause. Maybe there’s a good conference, a meet-up, or a certain organisation that’s the centre of everything.
Try to discover what the big problems are in the cause, then try to figure out how they can be solved. Try to hack together a basic version of your idea to show that you can solve it, then use that to raise money.
More generally, learn about all the writing on tech startups, since this seems to the be state of the art on how to start new projects (though it doesn’t apply to everything you’d do in the nonprofit sector).
http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
I realise this is only a very partial answer, so let me know what other questions you have.