I’d like to devote my career to serving the world and its inhabitants. Currently working to reduce the suffering of farmed animals. I’m interested in many EA topics in general and always happy to connect to like-minded and non-like minded individuals ;)
SofiaBalderson
Karma: 2,147
Being in the Right Place at the Right Time (When You Are Looking for Opportunities or a Job)
Hey Richie, many thanks for reading and your comment! Appreciate it. I basically agree with you on most of the points.
Really like the additional detail on how engagement should be clearly for the engagement’s sake and not advertised as leading to employment, if it’s increasingly rarely the case, or in the future, when we use it as a tool to keep people in the movement without employment.
Re: management and mentorship: I think I mostly agree with you, but I may be using “management” in a slightly broader sense.
I agree that high-performing, motivated people usually need much less direction and oversight, and that hiring for autonomy matters a lot. In that sense, great people absolutely reduce the need for micromanagement.
Where I still think management remains important, even with very strong people and very advanced AI, is around coordination, prioritisation, decision-making under uncertainty, and looking after the human side of work. Once you have more than a handful of people, someone still needs to hold the whole picture, notice misalignment early, make trade-offs explicit, and ensure people aren’t burning out or duplicating effort.
I also think mentoring and management can blur a bit. Helping people understand context, giving feedback, supporting growth, and creating the conditions for good work are often framed as mentoring, but they’re also core parts of good management.
So I’m less convinced that we’ll “need less management” so much as we’ll need a different kind of management: lighter-touch, more relational, more focused on sense-making and coordination rather than task assignment. AI may reduce some parts of the job, but I’m not sure it replaces the human judgment and care elements that show up as soon as teams scale beyond a few people.
Very much enjoying thinking through this topic and grateful to you for starting the conversation!
How much of a post are you comfortable for AI to write?
Seconding what @huw wrote: I’d be happy for an AI to write a draft, but (at this time) I will never publish something without a thorough review and strong work to put it in my own voice. I will never let a single AI-written word go unreviewed.
Also I usually also ask humans to review my drafts even after I have a first/final pass, and the ideas that I input into the prompt are mine, not just something I asked AI to create. Also, my AI tools know my voice quite well at this point and I’m constantly tweaking the instructions.
thanks a lot Shanil, appreciate you reading! Founder/Ed distinction is quite useful as not all founders should be EDs and not all EDs should be founders. They are definitely very different roles and have different personal fit and skills requirements, even though they often seem to appear together on someone’s job title.
AI, Talent, and the Future of Animal Advocacy
Many thanks Lorenzo! Appreciate the read and agreed that it can be useful to separate the movement role from the job market, especially considering how competitive the roles can be!
Many thanks Dilan! I really appreciate your posts on farmed animal advocacy and I think you are a good example of having a movement role along with your job role!
Many thanks Alex, appreciate you reading! Thanks for linking to this, I will have a read, looks very interesting!
Don’t just have a job role. Have a movement role.
Thank you for sharing this so openly, and for your work on this project over the years! As a fellow community builder, I really recognise how hard this work can be, especially when it comes to funding and impact uncertainty.
I can confirm that what you describe matches the reality for many community builders. I’ve been running Hive on a paid basis for almost three years, and funding has consistently been one of our biggest challenges. Tracking and evidencing impact is also genuinely difficult in community building, even when the work feels clearly valuable on the ground.
Given that context, your decision to transition feels thoughtful and solid. I appreciate you taking the time to reflect on this publicly. I think pieces like this are really important for setting more realistic expectations about what long-term community building actually looks like!
What We Learned Spinning Out a Project (From Hive to Sentient Futures)
How I learn languages: A practical guide from someone who has done it six times
Lessons from My First Year as an Executive Director
Solid advice, concisely put!
I think you may have chosen this title for emphasis, but I would say that applying for jobs can still work and I wouldn’t recommend people to just stop completely, but I agree it’s longer timelines and much lower chances. If I were looking for a job now, I think I would spend 10% applying for jobs and all the rest of the time increasing my surface area for serendipity and doing directly what you’re talking about.
I agree, I was speaking to @Jordan Pieters 🔸 about this and I think it’s often unclear whether an EAG or an EAGx is valuable for animal advocates as you can’t see the talks or attendees (I appreciate attendees provide most value at such networking events and it’s hard to see who is going before people have committed to going). Since there are now many more animal welfare-only conferences, I think it’s easier for people to just go to those rather than attend EAGs if they are not sure that it will be relevant for them. To be clear, I think most EAGs will have enough animal welfare attendees for you to meet, but it’s not immediately clear when the conferences are advertised, and it’s also harder to calculate the value of the attending the conference without this knowledge.
Hive’s 2025 in Review and 2026 Plans and Funding Needs
Nice post, thanks for writing it Michelle. Speaking to multiple referees is a good tip.
I especially appreciate the advice to speak to learn about the org you will be joining and the people you will be working with. Very underrated advice. Usually people are so happy to accept the offer, while they should really try to jump on calls with some future collaborators and speak to former employees (which as you said is doubly effective as these people usually have nothing to hold back).
I’d say do mention this when applying for early stage orgs (e.g. AIM or AIM incubated charities) and they really value this attitude. For orgs which don’t have a budget or have a very small budget, it would make a huge difference to hire someone who is good and doesn’t cost too much. Also it may mean that in some cases you will be hired over some people simply because you are the best in that range of pay (assuming you are).
I’d say that for bigger, more established orgs it shouldn’t make a difference, as 30-50k probably don’t matter to them as much as hiring the very best person, especially for harder to hire roles, so they are more likely to choose someone a bit better than you even if they have to pay them a fully salary. I probably won’t mention this until the interview, where I’d ask them what salary sacrifice or payroll donation options they have because that’s something that you’d like to do.
Also should you get a job where you end up getting paid a lot less than everyone else, ideally give your employer plenty of notice (e.g. 3-6 months), because once they start relying on you, it may take them ages to not just find someone to replace you but to also fundraise for the normal salary, assuming they don’t have it in the budget. And for a small org it can be very stressful. Sure it’s the leadership responsibility to account for that ideally, but it can be very helpful to plan, especially considering some smaller non-profits don’t have long runways.
On a personal note, I’m unsure what your financial situation is, but I’d also consider making sure that you have enough savings to last you should you lose your impactful job (e.g. 12-24 months of expenses), as it can take ages to find a new one even if you have more experience. You can also use this time to volunteer as I personally found it invaluable for my org when people who are well-off financially could volunteer 20-40h. It made a huge difference to us in the first few years.
I agree with Rebecca, and I also really appreciated the thoughtful points from Julia Wise and DenkerBerger.
I wanted to add a few personal reflections, replying to your post and your comment.
In practice, I don’t think EA funders are likely to provide ongoing grants to people whose productivity has significantly declined. Funding is usually tied to impact, not years of service. That’s why I think it’s our personal responsibility to prepare for retirement, rather than expecting the movement to support us later in life.
I used to think similarly to you — that climate change or other global risks might make saving for retirement pointless. But when I looked more closely at the data, I realised that’s not certain at all. I started contributing to a pension and found it can actually be very tax-efficient (in the UK, it can save up to nearly 50% of what you’d otherwise pay in tax).
If you start early, you don’t need to contribute much — even 3–5% can make a big difference over time, plus your workplace is likely to match it, so it’s “free money”. I regret not starting sooner because now I have to contribute more to catch up.
I also agree with Julia that life can change a lot as you age. You may want to help a family member or do an unpaid project you are passionate about. Also, when you’re older, health issues or other needs may come up more often. My father-in-law recently needed a £16k hip replacement and had to remortgage his house to pay for it. Having savings for unexpected expenses like that can be life-changing.
Another reason I want to be financially stable in later life is that it gives me more freedom to choose how to make an impact — for example, mentoring younger people, helping a new charity get started, or volunteering on my own terms.
I know it can feel discouraging to think about aging or being less productive, but many people find new ways to contribute meaningfully later in life. Having some financial security can make that easier and less stressful.
Some people may be able to rely on family support or inheritance, but for most of us, starting early with small pension contributions may be a good choice.
Thanks for writing this. Really interesting. I find it quite insightful that you got the job that wasn’t advertised out of all the jobs you applied for. I think that currently the advertised jobs are too competitive to feel like it’s worth applying, even though of course it can be worth it for a small number of people, but great job on listing your details on the database that you were picked up. Enjoy your new role!