Of course! Although this is a list of organizations who are INVOLVED in that sector, not necessarily doing the contract work. There's a bit of a spectrum.

Independent Nonprofit Consultants (https://thomasappleyard.com/nonprofit-consultants) and is based in Canada. 

IMMA Collective helps its independent-consultant members collaborate on opportunities (https://www.immacollective.com/).

SOCIAL PURPOSE CONSULTANTS - there are a variety of companies like this, but I'm fairly sure you're not asking about that now. However, I suspect that many are collections/networks of consultants. 

SUPPORT - These may be useful to contact for more info on the landscape and if looking to expand your network of target audience.

Probably Good https://probablygood.org/ is more general career like 80K Hours vs specific to contracts. 

High Impact Professionals (https://highimpactprofessionals.org) is similar in that it's not specific to contractors, but more impact careers generally.

Consultants for Good (https://www.consultants4good.com/) is more about creating a community. 

Consultants for Impact (http://consultantsforimpact.org) is a network with career advising, support etc.  

I think I may be missing some. Anyway, I hope this is helpful and what you were looking for. 

On the Margin, I'd like more funding to

I think there should be more research to understand if funded initiatives are helpful or harmful (and by how much). Otherwise we may be wasting resources.

Thanks for writing this, Emily!  I have had many similar thoughts and am part of a few groups for those who do contract work for cause-based organizations. I wkk ok next what they have to say about uptake. I started doing consulting, contract, and fractional marketing and communications because I wanted to try my fit in different organizations, and because I felt that the kinds of organizations I wanted to work with didn’t have much money to afford a full-time me (with many years of experience and a wide range of skills sets), but could afford smaller or fractional engagements. I thought I could do more good this way. It has proven to be not as impactful as I’d have liked. I’m trying to improve my targeting so that I can do more good, instead of just “get work”.

If there’s a way I can help, let me know! Perhaps I’m wrong about my assumptions, but they are similar to yours about hiring being expensive and  that full-time commitments can be a risk for organizations. 

To your questions:

• Could you do freelance work if you wanted to? Yes but the barriers are just that the freelance opportunities for someone with my skill set seem few and far between
• Does the country you live in make it easy to try out freelancing? Canada is good for this. Except that we no longer qualify for employment insurance or get other benefits, though healthcare is freely available
• Would you be open to freelance work? I’m already doing it!
• Could your work (e.g. in operations, communications) be projectised?  Yes, even the strategy work I do can be done as a project. I offer a few different models including marketing and communications function set-up, project based work, and fractional engagements
• Does your role need a lot of org-specific context? To some degree, yes. Some organizations have much of it written down in an accessible format, and in some cases, I’d be creating that context. That’s part of my offering. And in some projects (often campaign-based) sufficient context is easily come by and can rely on general best practices for execution
• What worries would you have in taking on freelance work? Not getting paid :) Which does, in fact, happen. With little information about the company’s finances, it’s hard to know ahead of time how secure they are.   It takes a long time to take a delinquent client to court, and may not result in full payment, even if you have a good contract.

Yes, exactly, Emily! And in fact, if I thought I knew WHAT to do then I would start that company. I just don't for sure know what is needed. Maybe I need to be partnered with someone who has a really good idea. Or maybe I just need to start something and see if the need is there? I suppose that's what the start-up idea funding is meant to help with.

Karen, nice to see you here after the CE Career transition course! Keep at it, my friend. You will find your place. There's a puzzle out there that is looking for YOU as the perfect-fitting piece. Would love to know how it evolves for you!

Is THAT the problem? Not being involved in the hiring, I actually didn't know WHO was getting hired. If they are the most qualified and the most capable of creating the positive outcome I'm hoping for, then I'm happy for them and the system. 

My experience is that I have ALSO been told that there is a need for people with my skills (communications) and I've followed a similar trajectory described in the post and, so far, have not experienced that bottlenecks that have been described. I have 20+ years in communications, most of it in advanced technologies. I have worked in EA and for AI safety organizations. It seems to me that there is a miscommunication about the need in the sector.

Perhaps part of the problem is that it's such a nascent field that there are not enough organizations to support the work that needs to be done to ensure that AI goes well. As we know, it's progressing so rapidly, and the worry has always been that humans and our systems (being somewhat "slow" or at least linear in our ability to change) won't/can't keep up with the exponential rates of change required by the technology. I think we can expect that this type of change in the workforce should continue as new technologies often DO have this effect on the workforce.

It is important to signal to our communities our areas of expertise and interest -- hence, the "writing publicly" prompt. However, while necessary, it's not sufficient for finding my particular fit in the sector, even as a communications leader. For all of us, I believe the "signalling" is more just evidence of the reskilling that's required.

If the bottleneck doesn't exist, then perhaps that's a good thing. It's evidence that the sector is well staffed and the systems in place have been doing their job well. Then my role is to do the most good I CAN. If that means I don't work in AI safety, but that there are more qualified people doing that work instead, then I can be assured that our AI future will go well ;)

In the meantime, I continue to work on the projects that come my way that can do the "most good". I congratulate all of us who are bringing our best intentions to the world -- we can't help but make it better. 

I wanted to leave both the "changed my mind" and "made me laugh" emojis! :) 

Originally, I didn't like the idea that AIs should help everyone equally, including potentially terrorists or other bad actors. 

While that seems problematic, I guess that would avoid having to make moral judgements at all about people, which would likely have good outcomes, generally. For everyone.

What I get from this piece is something that keeps coming up: AI is "just" teaching us about ourselves. (In quotes because it's no small feat.) Which may just be my confirmation bias, but there are many signals here. And if that is true, does that mean that the answer to the threats from AI -- the pathway to AI safety and governance -- may have much to do with how we deal with human threats?

I recognize we don't program humans in the same way, but our culture DOES train us to think and act in certain ways. And certain factors do incentivize us to act outside of those norms. And we are all, essentially, black boxes in these advanced-computational brains.

If that's true, to take it further in a positive direction: Does that mean it will be EASIER to deal with the threats because it is faster to program the changes? With humans, it can take generations of cultural shift to change norms.

Lots of counter arguments I can think of. But just a curious thought to mull over.

I really appreciated this post — it made me stop and think about something I hadn’t spent much time on before. The question of what would need to be true for me to act made me pause because  I don’t have a clear answer. Other than voting (which obviously doesn’t change the situation elsewhere), I’m not sure what tangible, effective actions are available, or how to recognize early warning signs of something with such outsized opportunity for negative outcomes.

In my work in communications, I often think about how much impact conversations themselves can have — especially when they happen across divides. People are more likely to reconsider their views when they feel genuinely listened to, not argued with. So for me, part of “taking action” might mean practicing and teaching that kind of listening. Creating more understanding rather than more polarization.
It sounds small next to the scale of the problem, but open, honest dialogue feels like an early form of prevention — something that can keep space open for cooperation and empathy. When I (or we) talk about it at scale, that’s at least something I/we can do within the scope of my/our abilities. And that’s what I like about this forum: it gives us a place to discuss what might feel too charged or intimidating to bring up elsewhere.

I don’t have a grand strategy to add, but I did want to share this small perspective: that maybe the act of conversation itself is a worthwhile contribution.

Wow: pre-early bird already SOLD OUT 07/23?! Nice job, Vancouver! Gotta get my butt there!

So exciting to see so many NEW EA conferences (Nigeria, Cape Town, Bengaluru, and Toronto). I'm on EA Canada's EAGxToronto organizing team and I see how much work it is to organize these events. Looking forward to attending my first one Aug 16-18. Then maybe I will apply for Boston's EAG in Nov! Are there any concerns about nearby conferences cannibalizing each others' potential audiences? Is there a maximum number of conferences that we think will produce the most effective outcome? I'm interested to know how CEA thinks about these things.