My current (May 2023) plan to do good in the world (ft my uncertainties)

Inspired by the question in the EA conference applications, I would be so curious to see other people’s answers

Context

I’ve just finished my accountancy qualification and have seconded from the transfer pricing team into a product/sales enablement role for our B2B SaaS and tech enabled tax service delivery product. I am really enjoying it and think that I’m gaining skill so much faster than in my previous role (I think it was far too admin heavy and there was too much pressure on chargeable hours).

I’m currently 24 and only a four years into my career so I think my aims for now are around skills building and testing my fit for different career paths.

I applied for the Charity Entrepreneurship incubation program recently on a whim when I saw that they were going to provide detailed feedback. Honestly, I found the process incredibly insightful (shout out to the CE team who apparently have been iterating on it for years -it’s fantastic!) so if you’re thinking about it then I’d apply. They got me to do a weighted factor analysis of my career options (included it here in case it is helpful for anyone) and it really helped me clarify my thoughts and be more ambitious.

I was actually very relieved to get rejected just before the final interview round. I didn’t feel ready to leave my supportive corporate job and think I would have felt morally obligated to do it if CE let me into the program. But I am really grateful for the experience because it increased my ambition (love their term Ambitious Altruism). People leadership and organisation building are career paths I’m taking quite seriously now. Plus the rejection email is the best I’ve ever seen, full of sensible next steps and encouragement to keep going*.

Goals

You can check out my specific goals here, but my broad goals for the next 6 months are to:

• Take care of myself and build up a 6-month runway fund (as noted above, I’ve had mental health difficulties that I only recently discovered were AuDHD so it is important to give myself time to adjust and figure out the accommodations I need to get me to my best)

• Gain people management, product, and sales skills through the available trainings and mentorship offered by my corporate employer.

• Build up the EY Ambitious Altruism Network (with help from EACN) and try to get it to the stage where it has enough infrastructure to survive without me

• Explore the opportunities for EA ideas to influence ESG reporting and CSR policies at EY (our tagline is “Building a Better Working World”) and write up my findings for other people working at major corporates.

• Continue making connections with accountants interested in EA and build up a resource on why accountants are needed in the EA movement

• Improve my writing and communication skills through my blog (see this post for a list of writing I’m taking ownership of)

• Work on community building in London

  • For those that don’t know, I run the following;

    • a monthly EA Women and Underrepresented Genders social on the first Tuesday of the month,

    • a Quarterly Life Review day on the first Sunday of every quarter

    • Have run my first and am hoping to start running monthly GWWC and effective giving meet-ups (with fundraisers and hopefully some speakers)

  • HMU if you’d like to come to them!!

My uncertainties

• Whether to focus on gaining more skills and experience or start working directly

• How to effectively communicate and build community around effective altruism

• Whether it is a worthwhile idea to try to influence corporate social responsibility policies

• How to build a sustainable infrastructure for the EY Ambitious Altruism Network

• Should I take some time out to work out what I want to do?

My writing backlog

I’ve just moved flat which has been INCREDIBLY stressful. I want to get back into the flow of writing so I’m going to post my backlog here for accountability. Let me know which ones you’d be excited about - will probably prune the list as I go.

• My selfish reasons for donating 10% of my income

• WTF is a lacto-vegetarian or why I gave up my beloved ribs

• TL;DR explainer on Colour Seasons

• Why I am still going out to bat for the effective altruism movement

• My EA origin story - taking myself seriously

• Actionable altruism (why I think the key differentiator of the EA movement is the execution)

• Mutual aid and self-care

• AuDHD piece

• My Sort-Out-Your-Life Masterdoc

• Some practical suggestions on how you (yes, you) can create a culture of belonging in the Effective Altruism community

  • The EA movement, unfortunately, appears to be effective at making people feel like they don’t belong

• The absolute basics of emotional intelligence

• The absolute basics of feminist theory

  • Also, really loved this post and agree with a lot of it: Things that can make EA a good place for women - EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org)

  • Shout out to Habiba’s ally post too

• Minimum Viable Event Organising

• Class and EA (exploration of cultural capital and class privilege)

• What I want more EA folks to understand about neurodiversity as the movement gets bigger

• Why I think there should be more accountants in EA and my plan for making that easier

• Why people that love Left-Tube (Contrapoints, F.D Signifier, Shaun, Lindsey Ellis, Philosophy Tube and HBomberguy) might be interested in EA

• Concepts and models from consultancy that are generalisable to most people trying to do good effectively

• If you’re early career and interested in Effective Altruism, why getting a stable corporate job is probably a good idea for a few years and how you can get the most out of it

• A defence of business school students and why EA probably need more people with a hustle mindset

• Girlbossing for Good (inspired by this Qualy meme)

  • I think I would like this to be my personal post but I’d love thoughts if you’d be excited about it

• Making young people in EA LessUseless