Why I No Longer Believe the Nonprofit Sector Is the Best Place to Drive Change for Animals
Six years ago, I started a capacity-building organisation based on a clear hypothesis: that recruiting great people into high-impact nonprofits was one of the best ways to help animals.
I no longer think that’s true.
After spending years working directly with nonprofit leaders, trying to fill critical roles, and analysing the broader job market, I’ve come to believe that the nonprofit sector at least within farmed animal advocacy is no longer the most neglected or scalable path to impact. If anything, it may be approaching saturation. Several new meta talent/community organisations have emerged, but the number of roles available for talented, mission-driven people remains small and isn’t growing fast enough to absorb the supply of people who want to help, nor the diversity of their skills.
That’s why, over the past two years, we’ve started shifting our focus. We’ve explored two adjacent levers: (1) policy, which influences institutional change far beyond the limits of nonprofit execution capacity, and (2) donations, which brings in capital from people in higher- earning roles outside the movement and helps them start their journey of engagement.
But more importantly, I’m starting to believe that some of the highest-impact opportunities for animals lie outside the nonprofit sector entirely, in industry, government, retailers and media. These are the places where talent is most needed, most neglected, and most capable of shifting societal baselines.
The animal advocacy movement is still largely structured around a nonprofit-centric model. But if we want to unlock serious capacity gains, it’s time we start helping people build impactful careers in places with much more leverage.
We are in the process of researching more into this and gaining case studies, but I’d be excited to receive push back from people who think I’m wrong here.
I have been procastinating writing it up for 6 months so i thought...… at least do a quick take :) sludge is real and I am just really bad at finding time to write on the EA forum
Is that saturation of great people in nonprofits a result of this nonprofit sector approaching some ceiling/seeing significantly diminishing returns for impact with respect to marginal great people, or is it a result of there being fewer opportunities for marginal impact just at existing orgs? That seems like a potential crux for deciding how to proceed. If it’s the latter, I think it makes sense to ask whether it’s because of a limited number of orgs in general, a limited pool of effective leadership/management for additional orgs, or a limited pool of funding available for additional orgs. I’m assuming you’ve considered and have a good answer for this question; I ended up leaving this comment because I’m curious and because I think it would be valuable to clarify this point if you make a larger post from the content of this take. I also understand that this part of your argument comes from watching the job market, which I think could easily be inscrutable with respect to the contributions of those separate constraints.
That said, I don’t know if that question is a crux of your overall post for me. It seems plausible that the opportunities you refer to lying outside the nonprofit space could be more impactful for the marginal strong candidate regardless, and I’d enjoy reading a longer post that talks about that in more detail.
From what I’ve seen, it’s partly job-market driven, partly from feedback we get from placed candidates and hiring organisations, and partly from talking to people in impactful roles outside the nonprofit sector.
There’s simply a natural ceiling on the number of truly high-impact jobs within nonprofits. The more top talent we attract, the more competitive those roles become, and the harder it is to find placements where the marginal hire is making a significant difference. My best estimate is that globally there may be fewer than 20 such roles per year (some might argue up to 50), which is far less than we’d like.
One response could be to start more high-impact charities. That can work, but only to a point. Funding is only available for a small number of ideas, and many new organisations end up having little impact while still diverting talent and funding from stronger opportunities.
This is why I think we need to move the conversation away from concentrating talent inside a relatively small number of NGOs, and towards distributing it wherever it can have the most systemic leverage. There is a huge range of opportunities in areas like retailers, food companies, government, media, and policy, where skilled, mission-aligned people can have a transformative effect for animals. These routes are much less well mapped out, but the more I look into them, the more convinced I am that some of the most significant wins for animals are happening in these spaces. Often, the people making them happen are the only mission-aligned person in the room, and without them nothing would have moved forward at all.
This links to the idea of community capital. Our community’s value is not limited to who works for NGOs, although I think for most people that is not the case and that’s a narrative i would like to challenge.
That said, there is still a strong case for getting more talented people into nonprofit roles that are consistently hard to fill, where the marginal hire can have an outsized impact. If an organisation cannot fill a role, it may end up hiring someone who is not ready for the responsibility or having to run another lengthy recruitment process, both of which carry real costs.
Finally, a more uncomfortable point. Simply putting a talented person into a high-impact NGO role does not guarantee meaningful change. The reality is that there is a lot of variation. Some people genuinely transform the organisations they join. Others are absorbed into bureaucratic systems and find it difficult to make any major shifts. We tend to assume the first outcome will be the norm, but in practice the variation is greater than we like to admit.
So yes, part of the problem is a ceiling in nonprofit opportunities. But an equally important factor is that high-impact work is not confined to the nonprofit sector at all. We should be thinking about where our skills, networks, and influence can be deployed for the greatest possible effect, wherever those opportunities might be :)
Thanks for your detailed response! These arguments make sense to me and are valuable to hear, since my background isn’t in animal advocacy or HR. If this does become a full post, it sounds like the results of your research will be valuable to have out there, and I think being explicit about what specific bottlenecks you’ve identified in NGO work will be important part of that.
I’m not sure that I disagree overall, but I think variance really matters here: both within subcauses/areas and between individuals. Some areas and profiles within farmed animal advocacy still seem much more talent-constrained than others, and those differences can be quite stark. Likewise, individuals often have a much greater comparative advantage for certain types of direct work depending on their skills, experience, and networks.
Because of this, while the nonprofit sector may indeed be approaching saturation in some areas, there are still pockets where additional high-quality talent could be really impactful. Similarly, for some people, a direct nonprofit role may still be the highest-impact option, even if for others the best opportunities lie in policy, industry, government, or elsewhere.
<<Because of this, while the nonprofit sector may indeed be approaching saturation in some areas, there are still pockets where additional high-quality talent could be really impactful.>> I completely agree with this, which is why AAC continues to highlight and work on this issue. My earlier comment may have come across more bluntly than intended. I feel we’ve perhaps overcorrected toward the idea that non-profit roles are the main or even the only path to driving meaningful impact for animals (both within AAC and more broadly I have observed in the EAA space). In doing so, we’ve often overlooked other promising career opportunities, such as roles directly within the system, that could potentially have an even greater impact, particularly because at least right now, they’re so neglected. Too often, I hear these alternative paths framed mainly as ways to build career capital before pivoting back into the non-profit sector, rather than recognising that they can be impactful in their own right (unless they’re earning-to-give roles).
Hey Kieran! I guess you’re thinking about fish and invertebrate welfare as the more talent-constrained subcauses (correct me if I’m wrong?) but I’m curious which kinds of profiles or job types you think are more talent-constrained than others? Also interested in your take, @lauren_mee 🔸 !
Hey! Yes, on subcauses, that sounds right to me. WAW as well, though that’s somewhat outside the scope of this discussion.
On profiles/job types, I’d highlight government policy and lobbying, management, fundraising, and local experts in specific but neglected populous countries.
Strong agree! I also often get asked „why push careers, if the movement is primarily funding constrained“ - it’s almost as though there is a bit of a misconception around the idea that only non profit work is a „career that helps animals“ and I think part of this is that there is no good guide on making an impact in adjacent areas (outside of E2G perhaps). I‘m very excited to see the research you are producing!
I think part of the reason there is no guide is because it’s still quite uncertain and most people doing it are pioneers and want to stay anonymous. But on policy careers we will launch a new career guide soon.
Why I No Longer Believe the Nonprofit Sector Is the Best Place to Drive Change for Animals
Six years ago, I started a capacity-building organisation based on a clear hypothesis: that recruiting great people into high-impact nonprofits was one of the best ways to help animals.
I no longer think that’s true.
After spending years working directly with nonprofit leaders, trying to fill critical roles, and analysing the broader job market, I’ve come to believe that the nonprofit sector at least within farmed animal advocacy is no longer the most neglected or scalable path to impact. If anything, it may be approaching saturation. Several new meta talent/community organisations have emerged, but the number of roles available for talented, mission-driven people remains small and isn’t growing fast enough to absorb the supply of people who want to help, nor the diversity of their skills.
That’s why, over the past two years, we’ve started shifting our focus. We’ve explored two adjacent levers: (1) policy, which influences institutional change far beyond the limits of nonprofit execution capacity, and (2) donations, which brings in capital from people in higher- earning roles outside the movement and helps them start their journey of engagement.
But more importantly, I’m starting to believe that some of the highest-impact opportunities for animals lie outside the nonprofit sector entirely, in industry, government, retailers and media. These are the places where talent is most needed, most neglected, and most capable of shifting societal baselines.
The animal advocacy movement is still largely structured around a nonprofit-centric model. But if we want to unlock serious capacity gains, it’s time we start helping people build impactful careers in places with much more leverage.
We are in the process of researching more into this and gaining case studies, but I’d be excited to receive push back from people who think I’m wrong here.
I think this would be very valuable as a top level post so more people can see this!
I have been procastinating writing it up for 6 months so i thought...… at least do a quick take :) sludge is real and I am just really bad at finding time to write on the EA forum
Is that saturation of great people in nonprofits a result of this nonprofit sector approaching some ceiling/seeing significantly diminishing returns for impact with respect to marginal great people, or is it a result of there being fewer opportunities for marginal impact just at existing orgs? That seems like a potential crux for deciding how to proceed. If it’s the latter, I think it makes sense to ask whether it’s because of a limited number of orgs in general, a limited pool of effective leadership/management for additional orgs, or a limited pool of funding available for additional orgs. I’m assuming you’ve considered and have a good answer for this question; I ended up leaving this comment because I’m curious and because I think it would be valuable to clarify this point if you make a larger post from the content of this take. I also understand that this part of your argument comes from watching the job market, which I think could easily be inscrutable with respect to the contributions of those separate constraints.
That said, I don’t know if that question is a crux of your overall post for me. It seems plausible that the opportunities you refer to lying outside the nonprofit space could be more impactful for the marginal strong candidate regardless, and I’d enjoy reading a longer post that talks about that in more detail.
Thank you, this is really useful.
From what I’ve seen, it’s partly job-market driven, partly from feedback we get from placed candidates and hiring organisations, and partly from talking to people in impactful roles outside the nonprofit sector.
There’s simply a natural ceiling on the number of truly high-impact jobs within nonprofits. The more top talent we attract, the more competitive those roles become, and the harder it is to find placements where the marginal hire is making a significant difference. My best estimate is that globally there may be fewer than 20 such roles per year (some might argue up to 50), which is far less than we’d like.
One response could be to start more high-impact charities. That can work, but only to a point. Funding is only available for a small number of ideas, and many new organisations end up having little impact while still diverting talent and funding from stronger opportunities.
This is why I think we need to move the conversation away from concentrating talent inside a relatively small number of NGOs, and towards distributing it wherever it can have the most systemic leverage. There is a huge range of opportunities in areas like retailers, food companies, government, media, and policy, where skilled, mission-aligned people can have a transformative effect for animals. These routes are much less well mapped out, but the more I look into them, the more convinced I am that some of the most significant wins for animals are happening in these spaces. Often, the people making them happen are the only mission-aligned person in the room, and without them nothing would have moved forward at all.
This links to the idea of community capital. Our community’s value is not limited to who works for NGOs, although I think for most people that is not the case and that’s a narrative i would like to challenge.
That said, there is still a strong case for getting more talented people into nonprofit roles that are consistently hard to fill, where the marginal hire can have an outsized impact. If an organisation cannot fill a role, it may end up hiring someone who is not ready for the responsibility or having to run another lengthy recruitment process, both of which carry real costs.
Finally, a more uncomfortable point. Simply putting a talented person into a high-impact NGO role does not guarantee meaningful change. The reality is that there is a lot of variation. Some people genuinely transform the organisations they join. Others are absorbed into bureaucratic systems and find it difficult to make any major shifts. We tend to assume the first outcome will be the norm, but in practice the variation is greater than we like to admit.
So yes, part of the problem is a ceiling in nonprofit opportunities. But an equally important factor is that high-impact work is not confined to the nonprofit sector at all. We should be thinking about where our skills, networks, and influence can be deployed for the greatest possible effect, wherever those opportunities might be :)
Thanks for your detailed response! These arguments make sense to me and are valuable to hear, since my background isn’t in animal advocacy or HR. If this does become a full post, it sounds like the results of your research will be valuable to have out there, and I think being explicit about what specific bottlenecks you’ve identified in NGO work will be important part of that.
Thank you!!
We have already published the NGO bottlenecks for 2024 here: https://animaladvocacycareers.org/talent-survey-2024/
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/post/animal-advocacy-bottleneck-survey-2022/
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/post/animal-advocacy-bottleneck-survey-2021/
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/post/animal-advocacy-bottleneck-survey-2020/
I’m not sure that I disagree overall, but I think variance really matters here: both within subcauses/areas and between individuals. Some areas and profiles within farmed animal advocacy still seem much more talent-constrained than others, and those differences can be quite stark. Likewise, individuals often have a much greater comparative advantage for certain types of direct work depending on their skills, experience, and networks.
Because of this, while the nonprofit sector may indeed be approaching saturation in some areas, there are still pockets where additional high-quality talent could be really impactful. Similarly, for some people, a direct nonprofit role may still be the highest-impact option, even if for others the best opportunities lie in policy, industry, government, or elsewhere.
Hey Kieran! I guess you’re thinking about fish and invertebrate welfare as the more talent-constrained subcauses (correct me if I’m wrong?) but I’m curious which kinds of profiles or job types you think are more talent-constrained than others? Also interested in your take, @lauren_mee 🔸 !
Hey! Yes, on subcauses, that sounds right to me. WAW as well, though that’s somewhat outside the scope of this discussion.
On profiles/job types, I’d highlight government policy and lobbying, management, fundraising, and local experts in specific but neglected populous countries.
I don’t have anything to add beyond the below and my anecdotal evidence that campaigning roles (particularly more senior ones) outside of (ICAW- who just seem to get everyone!) are hard to hire for, curious to hear what Kieran thinks:
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/talent-survey-2024/
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/post/animal-advocacy-bottleneck-survey-2022/
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/post/animal-advocacy-bottleneck-survey-2021/
https://animaladvocacycareers.org/post/animal-advocacy-bottleneck-survey-2020/
Strong agree! I also often get asked „why push careers, if the movement is primarily funding constrained“ - it’s almost as though there is a bit of a misconception around the idea that only non profit work is a „career that helps animals“ and I think part of this is that there is no good guide on making an impact in adjacent areas (outside of E2G perhaps). I‘m very excited to see the research you are producing!
Kevin I was hoping you would disagree with me!
I think part of the reason there is no guide is because it’s still quite uncertain and most people doing it are pioneers and want to stay anonymous. But on policy careers we will launch a new career guide soon.