One Month Left to Win $5,000 Career Grants from 80k

TL;DR: generate a referral link to our advising application form here and share the link you generate with potential 80k advisees. If we speak to just two people who applied through your link, you’ll have a good chance to win a $5,000 career grant. The more advisees you refer, the better your chances are.

Updates

This is an update on my earlier announcement of our referral program. The important new points are:

  • The “conference travel” grant is now a general career grant.[1] If there’s anything money can do to help advance your impactful career goals, winners can request a grant and I expect we’ll be able to do it. Ideas include:

    • Conference travel + attendance

    • A skills development course or service

    • Tuition support

    • Productivity tools

    • Paid career coaching

    • Whatever else you can think of (likely)

  • Only 11 people have made two successful referrals, meaning you have a very good chance of earning a grant:

    • We’ve guaranteed there will be 10 winners

    • Only 3 people have gotten more than 5+ others to apply

We’re counting referrals that generate applications submitted by October 6, 2024. Thoughts on who to refer on my earlier post and the referral page.

Reminders

I want to emphasize that 80k conversations are a really robustly good use of 1-2 hours for advisees and our team is big enough to speak to many more people than we have been historically. Some concrete benefits:

  • Our headhunting program is expanding and advising is one of the primary ways we get promising candidates on our radar to recommend to orgs

  • We have hundreds of impactful experts/​professionals that we introduce advisees to, often people who can hire or mentor them

  • Having space to write out your plans and have a smart person focus on them and you for an hour is rare and underrated

  • Repeat calls are available, so don’t fret about whether the timing is ‘right’

I’m obviously biased, but I think talking to 80k at some point is basic impact hygiene akin to donating at least a modest amount to projects you think are important. The core idea being “have I run my basic plan and perspective by someone who’s thinking along similar lines, heard many such plans, and seen how they pan out?” The answer should be yes.

I’m confident that many Forum readers know many high-potential people who are interested in or curious about EA/​GCRs. Spending 10 minutes thinking of everyone you know in this category and reaching out can now net you a $5k grant!

If people have ideas or questions about what would/​wouldn’t count as a career grant or who to refer, I’m excited to engage in the comments.

  1. ^

    Thanks to Ben Millwood for pushing back on the narrowness of the initial reward.