Testing an idea - forming cross-functional teams around social impact projects

By Elli @ 2026-02-10T22:45 (+2)

I have a background in Innovation & Business Information Management and a consuming need to take action and drive social change. I believe that a small group of highly motivated people can identify problems and solve them in collaborative ways.

Lately, I've seen this happening several times in my circle: people having a good idea which was discussed a couple of times, but then abandoned due to lack of commitment, structure, and needed expertise. I also know of early-stage NGOs struggling to find the right fit in terms of skills and to form core teams in order to push their projects forward. 

So I'm now exploring whether there's appetite for something I haven't quite found elsewhere: a space where people with early-stage social impact ideas can form small, cross-functional teams to actually develop and potentially launch them together - not just discuss them.

The gap I see: if you have an idea but lack certain skills (technical, operational, domain expertise), it's hard to find collaborators to pressure-test feasibility and build it out. You also need an infrastructure that helps you commit to it, collaborate effectively, and actually move forward. Most platforms are either discussion forums, job boards, or formal accelerators.

I'm thinking of running a pilot session - a virtual meetup where:

Would this interest you? Either as someone with an idea, or someone wanting to contribute skills to social impact work?

Curious for honest feedback - does this fill a real need or am I solving a problem that doesn't exist? If you don't like the idea, please briefly explain why in the comments.

Would really appreciate receiving critical input (whether positive or negative) rather than down/upvotes only. Thank you!

Benevolent_Rain @ 2026-02-11T04:07 (+3)

Have you read AIM (formerly Charity Entrepreneurship) material? They have a book out on starting a non-profit. If you read that and present this idea either absorbing lessons from that or clearly arguing why this idea is still good, I think that might make it easier for readers here to assess your idea and potentially consider joining. As well as some more detail on your background perhaps. I am a bit sad that you get downvoted as a newcomer - we want people to join and be agentic which is exactly what you are doing.

Elli @ 2026-02-11T12:40 (+1)

Dear Benevolent_Rain, thank you very much for your valuable feedback. I already incorporated some of your points in my post and will definitely consider making bigger changes after reading the book you suggested. At the same time, this post is also meant to test whether this high-level concept can potentially have traction at all before I deep dive into the details. If I get mostly downvotes and none shows interest, that's also feedback for me as it might mean that this idea is not viable as it is currently. 

Brad West🔸 @ 2026-02-11T19:20 (+2)

This is a worthwhile idea and I appreciate you putting it out there. Team formation and skills matching are real bottlenecks. That said, for ideas that fall outside established EA cause areas or existing frameworks, the bigger bottleneck is often upstream of team formation: getting even modest funding to explore feasibility in a rigorous way. Volunteer energy and cross-functional collaboration are valuable, but they tend to dissipate without some resource runway. Your model might be even stronger if it included a pathway for connecting promising early-stage ideas to funders willing to back basic exploration, not just to collaborators.