I have no particular dog in this fight, but I’m not surprised about the lack of feedback. I come from a digital market/advocacy background, and most EAs strike me as very self-censoring by nature. Point is valid, though.
For the commitment part, I’d say it depends. I do think “career capital” means very different things in this context. If you’re optimising for climbing the career ladder, I’d say CE is of marginal value. I would not advise someone trying to find a full-time role in an EA org do this versus spend time upskilling+taking an EA-adjacent role. CE itself isn’t super well-known, so no strong benefit if you want to work in FAANG/Big Law/consulting. But for the founders CE is looking for, I think it’s super valuable. A lot of founder work is essentially the same thing: making forms, recruiting+HR, spreadsheets, filling out legal documents. Even if you’re not super interested in the cause areas, the skills are valuable to learn.
Finally, as someone who is both neurodiverse and from an underrepresented region, I do not strongly relate to your final point. Sure, the repeated assurances that “you should take this weird assessment bc we really know how to spot good founders” is weird, but I didn’t get an “excluded” vibe while applying. If anything, I’d say that relative to other EA applications I’ve experienced, I felt like I wasn’t disadvantaged outright just because I’m not from an EA hub/a prestigious uni EA club.
To add context, the significance of the point on career capital, is that building broad career capital was the hand wavy advice the community ala 80,000 hours would give people. Not sure if they do now
Hahaha yeah I think they still do. I mean … saying that is non-controversial, likely to be some net positive and unlikely to be a net negative. Factor in the randomness of job apps+the early career uncertainty common in young people and it kind of is the lowest common denominator advice.
In that sense I’d agree. CE is not obvious career capital to most employers. However, I would also add that as experience starting successful advocacy orgs/nonprofits is underrated by employers/HR who underrate the resilience, problem solving and adaptability required for founding stuff. Because you’re essentially responsible for multiple roles at first, and then successfully teaching/coordinating people to take over those roles. So really, if being a founder is underrated by employers, then a good incubator to be a founder would also be underrated.
Anyway, my main point is that CE and entrepreneurship in general is low-EV if you’re simply optimising for effort-vs-career-capital. However, that doesn’t say much about whether CE achieves its goals (incubating highly effective charities and creating effective founders).
Whether CE achieves its goals doesn’t matter to me—whether a) CE is a more cost effective donation opportunity than others or b) they’re the most impactful career step in expected value—those are the decision centric questions that matter
Hi! Thanks for the feedback and for sharing your concerns. I agree that it is a good idea to get a sense of the program from past incubatees. Our incubatees often attend EAGs, so that is a good opportunity and we always encourage that. That being said, I’m surprised by what you say. To explain why, I copied results from a survey conducted after the most recent program in 2022:
Charity Incubation Program:
Foundation Program:
As you can see, people are generally very positive about the experience. When we analyze the reasons why someone applied, one of the most common answers is because they talked with a CE incubatee and they gave a glowing review. In fact, we have had people who decided to participate in the program twice, and people who didn’t get in the first time, so they upskilled, applied again, got in and started a great charity. When we look at the data from earlier years, there was one person who scored it 3⁄7, so maybe you came across that person. As they explained in the survey, the reason for that was that very early in the program they decided to not start a charity and therefore the rest of the program wasn’t a good fit. We of course would love to know why the incubatee was critical. If you would like to pass that feedback on to us, you can either DM me on the forum or email me at karolina@charityentreprenuership.com and the program and application team will have a look at that. In general, we improve the program and the application each year (e.g., we now offer financial stipends during and after the program, and adjust content based on feedback from participants), and we are always open to suggestions.
I think it is a cool idea to publish various quantitative data from post-program surveys, thanks for the idea!
Because of the above, and that it requires a 2 month initial commitment with no guaranteed future, for which the opportunity cost for someone building career capital or in full time employment is high, I have not applied.
We try to help participants as much as possible—we offer a financial stipend not only during the program, but also a bit before and after, so it is not a financial burden for them. The majority of people start a charity and receive seed funding after the program. In the most recent program, all but one person started a charity and received generous seed grants. The one person who didn’t was offered a job at CE and will join the next program again. In previous years, the participants found that they have many more EA job opportunities and better career prospects after the program than before—often, they have multiple job offers from EA-aligned organizations that they didn’t have before. I think it is different if someone wants to come back to the corporate world or work in a non-EA institution, where I think something like participation in the CE IP will be a weaker signal. If you have further suggestions on how we can support people post program, let us know.
Finally, the application process is rather rigid and does not seem open to outliers, neurodiverse applicants (relative to those who apply) who might not fit your mold but might otherwise be good founders.
I agree that our application process is rather rigid, we have been optimizing it over the years. When it comes to neurodivergent candidates, a couple of members of the CE team are neurodivergent, including staff in leadership positions and in the program vetting team. We have had a couple of participants in the program who were non-neurotypical as well. I would be extremely surprised if the process systematically filtered out people based on their neurodiversity. However, if there are any adjustments we can make to the process to accommodate individual applicant needs that emerge from their neurotype, we are happy to do it. In that case, just email Judith, our vetting specialist and she will discuss accommodating the process, her email is judith@charityentreprenuership.com
Thanks for the reply. Needless to say, when you’re surveying 7 people they have reason to be concerned that they’ll be identifiable from their responses. I will be abstaining from providing details shared with me from the past charity starter including their main concerns because I’m not in a position to judge if they’d be identifiable from that, but would encourage you to collect such feedback. I think it’s safe enough to say that they weren’t from the most recent cohort
Re non discriminatory hiring, I don’t think the ‘we have neurodivergent staff’ angle is the way to go (ala ‘my best friend is black’ response) - you might just be selecting for neurodivergence in the same direction. I think the fact your hiring process specifically seeks out peoples ability on your selection tests is the problem, because that gauges skills without the broader context of a persons life, where they may be able to adapt to disability and other circumstances. For that reason, there is merit in say deferring to a resume and work experience which can illustrate that sometimes. Other times, selecting people more generously then ensuring you have good enough training systems to develop them up to do a good job is what you should focus on—suddenly apparent talent bottlenecks looks like a training capability skills gap.
Needless to say, when you’re surveying 7 people they have reason to be concerned that they’ll be identifiable from their responses. I will be abstaining from providing details shared with me from the past charity starter including their main concerns because I’m not in a position to judge if they’d be identifiable from that, but would encourage you to collect such feedback. I think it’s safe enough to say that they weren’t from the most recent cohort
That makes sense—if you could encourage them to reach out to me we would be extremely interested in their feedback. I agree that such feedback is very valuable. We collect feedback throughout and immediately after the program from everyone who participated. This is the main way we improve the program for future years. It’s not perfect, nothing is, but we are always trying to get better.
Re non discriminatory hiring, I don’t think the ‘we have neurodivergent staff’ angle is the way to go (ala ‘my best friend is black’ response) - you might just be selecting for neurodivergence in the same direction.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear…. what I was trying to say is that if we have a fairly neurodiverse staff and groups of participants, both of whom had to go through the hiring process, that is evidence that the process doesn’t systematically filter them out.
For that reason, there is merit in say deferring to a resume and work experience which can illustrate that sometimes. Other times, selecting people more generously then ensuring you have good enough training systems to develop them up to do a good job is what you should focus on—suddenly apparent talent bottlenecks looks like a training capability skills gap.
We do put some weight in CVs and work experience and we also think it’s important to look for additional data. We feel that deferring solely to resumes or work experience could bias against some candidates. For example, younger or candidates who have had fewer opportunities in life may otherwise have very good predispositions. As we often say, we look for potential. We think that if we judged based primarily on CVs, that would filter out a lot of people who could do amazing work in the future, but just haven’t had the chance to prove themselves yet.
Ultimately we want to find great people and help them do great things. We’re definitely not perfect and both the individuals in our team and our processes can, and we hope, will, continue to improve. We’re always open to updating and if there are evidence-based practices out there, that we can learn from or adopt, we’re all ears. Again please send them to judith@charityentrepreneurship.com
I have no particular dog in this fight, but I’m not surprised about the lack of feedback. I come from a digital market/advocacy background, and most EAs strike me as very self-censoring by nature. Point is valid, though.
For the commitment part, I’d say it depends. I do think “career capital” means very different things in this context. If you’re optimising for climbing the career ladder, I’d say CE is of marginal value. I would not advise someone trying to find a full-time role in an EA org do this versus spend time upskilling+taking an EA-adjacent role. CE itself isn’t super well-known, so no strong benefit if you want to work in FAANG/Big Law/consulting. But for the founders CE is looking for, I think it’s super valuable. A lot of founder work is essentially the same thing: making forms, recruiting+HR, spreadsheets, filling out legal documents. Even if you’re not super interested in the cause areas, the skills are valuable to learn.
Finally, as someone who is both neurodiverse and from an underrepresented region, I do not strongly relate to your final point. Sure, the repeated assurances that “you should take this weird assessment bc we really know how to spot good founders” is weird, but I didn’t get an “excluded” vibe while applying. If anything, I’d say that relative to other EA applications I’ve experienced, I felt like I wasn’t disadvantaged outright just because I’m not from an EA hub/a prestigious uni EA club.
This is subject to change, but that’s my take.
To add context, the significance of the point on career capital, is that building broad career capital was the hand wavy advice the community ala 80,000 hours would give people. Not sure if they do now
Hahaha yeah I think they still do. I mean … saying that is non-controversial, likely to be some net positive and unlikely to be a net negative. Factor in the randomness of job apps+the early career uncertainty common in young people and it kind of is the lowest common denominator advice.
In that sense I’d agree. CE is not obvious career capital to most employers. However, I would also add that as experience starting successful advocacy orgs/nonprofits is underrated by employers/HR who underrate the resilience, problem solving and adaptability required for founding stuff. Because you’re essentially responsible for multiple roles at first, and then successfully teaching/coordinating people to take over those roles. So really, if being a founder is underrated by employers, then a good incubator to be a founder would also be underrated.
Anyway, my main point is that CE and entrepreneurship in general is low-EV if you’re simply optimising for effort-vs-career-capital. However, that doesn’t say much about whether CE achieves its goals (incubating highly effective charities and creating effective founders).
Whether CE achieves its goals doesn’t matter to me—whether a) CE is a more cost effective donation opportunity than others or b) they’re the most impactful career step in expected value—those are the decision centric questions that matter
Hi! Thanks for the feedback and for sharing your concerns. I agree that it is a good idea to get a sense of the program from past incubatees. Our incubatees often attend EAGs, so that is a good opportunity and we always encourage that. That being said, I’m surprised by what you say. To explain why, I copied results from a survey conducted after the most recent program in 2022:
Charity Incubation Program:
Foundation Program:
As you can see, people are generally very positive about the experience. When we analyze the reasons why someone applied, one of the most common answers is because they talked with a CE incubatee and they gave a glowing review. In fact, we have had people who decided to participate in the program twice, and people who didn’t get in the first time, so they upskilled, applied again, got in and started a great charity.
When we look at the data from earlier years, there was one person who scored it 3⁄7, so maybe you came across that person. As they explained in the survey, the reason for that was that very early in the program they decided to not start a charity and therefore the rest of the program wasn’t a good fit. We of course would love to know why the incubatee was critical. If you would like to pass that feedback on to us, you can either DM me on the forum or email me at karolina@charityentreprenuership.com and the program and application team will have a look at that.
In general, we improve the program and the application each year (e.g., we now offer financial stipends during and after the program, and adjust content based on feedback from participants), and we are always open to suggestions.
I think it is a cool idea to publish various quantitative data from post-program surveys, thanks for the idea!
We try to help participants as much as possible—we offer a financial stipend not only during the program, but also a bit before and after, so it is not a financial burden for them. The majority of people start a charity and receive seed funding after the program. In the most recent program, all but one person started a charity and received generous seed grants. The one person who didn’t was offered a job at CE and will join the next program again. In previous years, the participants found that they have many more EA job opportunities and better career prospects after the program than before—often, they have multiple job offers from EA-aligned organizations that they didn’t have before. I think it is different if someone wants to come back to the corporate world or work in a non-EA institution, where I think something like participation in the CE IP will be a weaker signal. If you have further suggestions on how we can support people post program, let us know.
I agree that our application process is rather rigid, we have been optimizing it over the years. When it comes to neurodivergent candidates, a couple of members of the CE team are neurodivergent, including staff in leadership positions and in the program vetting team. We have had a couple of participants in the program who were non-neurotypical as well. I would be extremely surprised if the process systematically filtered out people based on their neurodiversity. However, if there are any adjustments we can make to the process to accommodate individual applicant needs that emerge from their neurotype, we are happy to do it. In that case, just email Judith, our vetting specialist and she will discuss accommodating the process, her email is judith@charityentreprenuership.com
Thanks for the reply. Needless to say, when you’re surveying 7 people they have reason to be concerned that they’ll be identifiable from their responses. I will be abstaining from providing details shared with me from the past charity starter including their main concerns because I’m not in a position to judge if they’d be identifiable from that, but would encourage you to collect such feedback. I think it’s safe enough to say that they weren’t from the most recent cohort
Re non discriminatory hiring, I don’t think the ‘we have neurodivergent staff’ angle is the way to go (ala ‘my best friend is black’ response) - you might just be selecting for neurodivergence in the same direction. I think the fact your hiring process specifically seeks out peoples ability on your selection tests is the problem, because that gauges skills without the broader context of a persons life, where they may be able to adapt to disability and other circumstances. For that reason, there is merit in say deferring to a resume and work experience which can illustrate that sometimes. Other times, selecting people more generously then ensuring you have good enough training systems to develop them up to do a good job is what you should focus on—suddenly apparent talent bottlenecks looks like a training capability skills gap.
That makes sense—if you could encourage them to reach out to me we would be extremely interested in their feedback. I agree that such feedback is very valuable. We collect feedback throughout and immediately after the program from everyone who participated. This is the main way we improve the program for future years. It’s not perfect, nothing is, but we are always trying to get better.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear…. what I was trying to say is that if we have a fairly neurodiverse staff and groups of participants, both of whom had to go through the hiring process, that is evidence that the process doesn’t systematically filter them out.
We do put some weight in CVs and work experience and we also think it’s important to look for additional data. We feel that deferring solely to resumes or work experience could bias against some candidates. For example, younger or candidates who have had fewer opportunities in life may otherwise have very good predispositions. As we often say, we look for potential. We think that if we judged based primarily on CVs, that would filter out a lot of people who could do amazing work in the future, but just haven’t had the chance to prove themselves yet.
Ultimately we want to find great people and help them do great things. We’re definitely not perfect and both the individuals in our team and our processes can, and we hope, will, continue to improve. We’re always open to updating and if there are evidence-based practices out there, that we can learn from or adopt, we’re all ears. Again please send them to judith@charityentrepreneurship.com
Great points well made