Tell me what to do in the next months

By Cassidy @ 2024-10-24T11:15 (+51)

→ TL;DR: 10+ years experience in tech, operations and management - please pitch me why and how I can best help your org/project. 😊

Hi everyone,

I have the rare opportunity to spend the next several months on whatever seems to be the most impactful thing for me to do.

So I'm looking for your ideas and help in finding that. The requirements are:

This skilled volunteering/project/opportunity should optimally last more than 1 month, due to logistics/onboarding time cost. 

It also should use my skill set in the best/biggest way possible; which mostly lie in Tech Management areas. You can find my English CV here.

Coming from a Tech background, I could e.g. help with planning, designing and testing your software project. Thus also consulting on Tech, Product, Management and Strategy areas. I'm also interested in helping your org with organizational procedures, optimizing and automating processes.

On the other hand however, while I have coding and social media experience, doing that all day would most likely not be very efficient. Most of these skills I have solely for the purpose of being a better manager and consulting in these areas, not for end-use.

Most volunteer opportunities I've seen are intended to help people gain skills and only require little time commitment, meaning others will most likely benefit more from them. Thus also e.g. research work that I don't have experience in, would not be a good fit for me.

I've attended several EAGxConferences, Webinars and other events and have been involved for a while. Taking a break from contributing via E2G, I mean this as a serious offer to focus my time on fitting unpaid skilled volunteering opportunities.

If you need somebody like me - or know somebody who does, please reach out. Thank you 😊

Charlotte Darnell @ 2024-10-25T10:55 (+4)

This sounds really cool! I'd love to hear about what you end up doing. 

Minor thought - It might be worth changing the title of this post. I initially clicked on this expecting someone looking for career advice, I wasn't expecting someone generously offering so much of their time and expertise. I expect there might be a bunch of orgs or projects that don't click on it because they don't have specific career takes for others, but who would be interested or have ideas of other projects that could benefit from your help. 

Cassidy @ 2024-10-25T13:09 (+2)

Hi Charlotte, Do you have any suggestions for a title? I didn't really know what else to call it without sounding like a salesman, too clickbaity or pretentious. ^^" I've received a handful of email with the current text/title.

harfe @ 2024-10-25T15:44 (+1)

I think sounding like a salesman is ok here.

Maybe something like "Which orgs would benefit from my unpaid labor?" or "Offer: I can work on your project for free for some months (Tech/Operation/Management)".

Chris Leong @ 2024-10-24T22:16 (+4)

Would you consider organising an AI Safety mentorship program? Selecting participants and matching them to mentors sounds like it would match up with your skills. It wouldn’t take a huge amount of work and there’s a decent chance it counterfactually shifts a few people’s careers into AIS and accelerate other people’s careers. PM’s open if interested.

Cassidy @ 2024-10-25T10:38 (+1)

Hi Chris, Thanks for comment - I've sent you a DM.

JuanGarcia @ 2024-10-25T15:40 (+3)

At ALLFED we are always looking for new volunteers and external collaborators: see the ALLFED research project database.

I know you wrote that new types of research are not really what you are looking for, but I leave the link in case you are interested, and we sometimes also take volunteers to work on areas other than research and policy.

Cassidy @ 2024-10-27T10:14 (+1)

Thanks for the link!

Henri Thunberg 🔸 @ 2024-10-30T03:17 (+2)

Hi Cassidy!

Thanks for being so generous in offering up your time for EA initiatives, I hope you find a good fit that is full of both impact and meaning :) You might be interested in helping out in the Nordic effective giving landscape, where I am Chairman for Ge Effektivt.

At Gi Effektivt and Ge Effektivt in Norway/Sweden respectively, we work to fundraise for charities recommended by GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators, and Giving Green. You might be familar either with us or counterparts from other countries like Effektiv Spenden or Ayuda Efectiva. The total money raised is a few million dollars per year, with significant increase in the past year.

Norway and Sweden share backend and most aspects of frontend, and we have a full-time CTO who is significantly capacity constrained. It sounds like you have skills that could come in handy, and I think we could have the right size where you'd get the right kind of support/counterpart to get you leverage on your time – and still an org small enough that you could make an impressive difference in a few months.

Happy to answer any questions at an initial stage, but in case interested I think it would be even more useful would be for you to speak to our CTO to get an idea of whether you could be helpful and if the projects excite you. You can either DM me here, email henri[at]geeffektivt.se, or reach out to the technical team directly.

Cassidy @ 2024-10-30T14:58 (+2)

Hi Henri, Thanks for your comment and suggestion. I have contacted Hakon, assuming that's the CTO you mean. :)

Angelina Li @ 2024-10-28T14:57 (+2)

Good luck finding a good volunteering project! Consider reaching out to 80K for advice? ( https://80000hours.org/speak-with-us/ ) I wonder if they might have a good sense of which orgs might be excited to use your support.

Cassidy @ 2024-10-29T21:16 (+1)

Hi Angelina, thanks for the link. Didn't think that was fitting for me, considering they already rejected me twice in the past with reasons being that they mostly work with students. 😀 But I can give it another shot.

nil @ 2024-10-30T20:23 (+1)

Hi Cassidy! Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering may still be looking for volunteers, as far as I know. If this sounds interesting to you, consider contacting them. All the best!