Many thanks to @Felix_Werdermann 🔸 @Engin Arıkan and @Ana Barreiro for your feedback and comments on this, and for the encouragement from many people to finally write this up into an EA forum post.
For years, much of the career advice in the Effective Altruism community has implicitly (or explicitly) suggested that impact = working at an EA nonprofit. That narrative made sense when the community and its talent pool were smaller. But as EA grows, it's worth reassessing whether we’re overconcentrating on nonprofit careers, a trend that may be limiting our community's impact and leaving higher-leverage opportunities on the table.
Why Now?
As the EA movement has grown, it has attracted far more talent than the nonprofit sector can realistically absorb. This creates an urgent need to develop alternative pathways for talented, mission-aligned people. Under the current status quo, many end up feeling frustrated after going through multiple [...]
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Outline:
(00:51) Why Now?
(02:06) Important Caveats
(03:20) The argument for roles outside of non-profits
(03:25) Institutions Dwarf Nonprofit Capacity
(05:19) Salaries Are Covered Outside the Movement
(06:12) Counterfactual Impact Is Often Greater
(06:57) A Healthier Distribution of Talent
(07:54) Why This Might Be Wrong Advice
(08:24) The Challenges of External Roles
(10:13) Why These Risks Still Seem Worth Taking
(10:57) Why Steering Everyone Toward Nonprofits Might Hurt the EA Community
(11:03) Nonprofit Roles Are Saturated
(11:27) Nonprofits Have Low Absorbency
(12:24) Too Many Advising Channels, One Bottlenecked Funnel
(12:49) Nonprofits are not a good fit for everyone, and they may be a much better fit for roles in other sectors.
(13:31) Important Final Caveats
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First published:
October 16th, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FAmCmCavZ5vTzbRcM/why-many-eas-may-have-more-impact-outside-of-nonprofits-in
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