{"id":83652,"date":"2023-09-18T10:39:52","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T10:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=skill_set&#038;p=83652"},"modified":"2024-05-10T13:34:26","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T13:34:26","slug":"organisation-building","status":"publish","type":"skill_set","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/organisation-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Organisation-building"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"toc_container\" class=\"toc_white no_bullets\"><p class=\"toc_title\">Table of Contents<\/p><ul class=\"toc_list\"><li><a href=\"#why-are-organisation-building-skills-valuable\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">1<\/span> Why are organisation-building skills valuable?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#what-does-organisation-building-typically-involve\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">2<\/span> What does organisation-building typically involve?<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#what-skills-are-needed-to-build-organisations\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">2.1<\/span> What skills are needed to build organisations?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#example-people\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">2.2<\/span> Example people<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#how-to-evaluate-your-fit\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">3<\/span> How to evaluate your fit<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#how-to-predict-your-fit-in-advance\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">3.1<\/span> How to predict your fit in advance<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#how-to-tell-if-youre-on-track\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">3.2<\/span> How to tell if you&#8217;re on track<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#how-to-get-started-building-organisation-building-skills\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">4<\/span> How to get started building organisation-building skills<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#find-jobs-that-use-organisation-building-skills\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">4.1<\/span> Find jobs that use organisation-building skills<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#once-you-have-these-skills-how-can-you-best-apply-them-to-have-an-impact\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">5<\/span> Once you have these skills, how can you best apply them to have an impact?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#career-paths-weve-reviewed-that-use-organisation-building-skills\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">6<\/span> Career paths we&#8217;ve reviewed that use organisation-building skills<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<p>When most people think of careers that &#8220;do good,&#8221; the first thing they think of is working at a charity.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, lots of jobs at charities just aren&#8217;t that impactful.<\/p>\n<p>Some charities focus on programmes that don&#8217;t work, like <a href=\"\/career-guide\/most-pressing-problems\/\">Scared Straight<\/a>, which actually caused kids to commit <em>more<\/em> crimes. Others focus on ways of helping that, while thoughtful and helpful, don&#8217;t have much leverage, like knitting individual sweaters for penguins affected by oil spills (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/fact-check\/for-the-birds\/\">this actually happened<\/a>!) instead of funding large-scale ocean cleanup projects.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption\" >\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/sweater-penguin.png\" alt =\"A penguin wearing a knitted sweater\"><figcaption>While this penguin certainly looks all warm and cosy, we&#8217;d guess that knitting each sweater one-by-one wouldn&#8217;t be the <i>best<\/i> use of an organisation&#8217;s time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But there are also many organisations out there \u2014 both for-profit and nonprofit \u2014 focused on pressing problems, implementing effective and scalable solutions, run by great teams, and in need of people.<\/p>\n<p>If you can build skills that are useful for helping an organisation like this, it could well be one of the highest-impact things you can do.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, organisations often need generalists able to do the bread and butter of building an organisation \u2014 hiring people, management, administration, communications, running software systems, crafting strategy, fundraising, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>We call these &#8216;organisation-building&#8217; skills. They can be high impact because you can increase the scale and effectiveness of the organisation you&#8217;re working at, while also gaining skills that can be applied to a wide range of global problems in the future (and make you generally employable too).<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel clearfix no-padding-bottom\">\n<p><strong>In a nutshell:<\/strong> Organisation-building skills \u2014 basically, skills that let you effectively and efficiently build, run, and generally boost an organisation you work for \u2014 can be extremely high impact if you use them to support an organisation working on an effective solution to a pressing problem. There are a wide variety of organisation-building skills, including operations, management, accounting, recruiting, communications, law, and so on. You could choose to become a generalist across several or specialise in just one.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row padding-top padding-bottom bg-off-white\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-12\">\n<h4>Key facts on fit<\/h4>\n<p>In general, signs you&#8217;ll be a great fit include: you often find ways to do things better, really dislike errors, see issues that keep happening and think deeply about fixes, manage your time and plan complex projects, pick up new things fast, and really pay attention to details. But there is a very wide range of different roles, each with quite different requirements, especially in more specialised roles.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2><span id=\"why-are-organisation-building-skills-valuable\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Why are organisation-building skills valuable?<\/h2>\n<p>A well-run organisation can take tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people working on solving the world&#8217;s <a href=\"\/problem-profiles\/\">most pressing problems<\/a> and help them work together far more effectively.<\/p>\n<p>An employee with the right skills can often be a significant boost to an organisation, either by directly helping them deliver an impactful programme or by building the capacity of the organisation so that it can operate at a greater scale in the future. You could, for example, set up organisational infrastructure to enable the hiring of many more people in the future.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s more, organisation-building skills can be applied at most organisations, which means you&#8217;ll have opportunities to help tackle many different global problems in the future. You&#8217;ll also be flexibly able to work on <a href=\"\/articles\/solutions\/\">many different solutions<\/a> to any given problem if you find better solutions later in your career.<\/p>\n<p>As an added bonus, the fact that pretty much all organisations need these skills means you&#8217;ll be employable if you decide to <a href=\"\/articles\/earning-to-give\/\">earn to give<\/a> or step back from doing good all together. In fact, organisational management skills seem like some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/skills-most-employable\/\">most useful<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/highest-paying-jobs\/\">highest paid<\/a> in the economy in general.<\/p>\n<p>It can be even more valuable to help found a new organisation rather than build an existing one, though this is a particularly difficult step to take when you&#8217;re early in your career. (<a href=\"#founding-an-organisation\">Read more on whether you should found an organisation early in your career<\/a>.) See our profile on <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/founder-impactful-organisations\/\">founding impactful organisations<\/a> to learn more.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"what-does-organisation-building-typically-involve\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>What does organisation-building typically involve?<\/h2>\n<p>A high-impact career using organisation-building skills typically involves these rough stages:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Building generally useful organisational skills, such as operations, people management, fundraising, administration, software systems, finance, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Then applying those skills to help build (<a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/founder-impactful-organisations\/\">or found<\/a>) high-impact organisations<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The day-to-day of an organisation-building role is going to vary a lot depending on the job.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a possible description that could help build some intuition.<\/p>\n<p>Picture yourself working from an office or, increasingly, from your own home. You&#8217;ll spend lots of time on your computer \u2014 you might be planning, organising tasks, updating project timelines, reworking a legal brief, or contracting out some marketing. You&#8217;ll likely spend some time communicating via email or chatting with colleagues. Your day will probably involve a lot of problem solving, making decisions to keep things going.<\/p>\n<p>If you work for a small organisation, especially in the early stages, your &#8220;office&#8221; could be anywhere \u2014 a home office, a local coffee shop, or a shared workspace. If you manage people, you&#8217;ll conduct one-on-one meetings to provide feedback, set goals, and discuss personal development. In a project-oriented role, you might spend lots of time developing strategy, or analysing data to evaluate your impact.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"what-skills-are-needed-to-build-organisations\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>What skills are needed to build organisations?<\/h3>\n<p>Organisation builders typically have skills in areas like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/operations-management\/\">Operations management<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Project management (including setting objectives, metrics, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>People management and coaching (Some manager jobs require specialised skills, but some just require general management-associated skills like leadership, interpersonal communication, and conflict resolution.)<\/li>\n<li>Executive leadership (setting and achieving organisation-wide goals, making top-level decisions about budgeting, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Entrepreneurship<\/li>\n<li>Recruiting<\/li>\n<li>Fundraising<\/li>\n<li>Marketing (which also benefits from <a href=\"\/skill-sets\/communication\/\">communications<\/a> skills)<\/li>\n<li>Communications and public relations (which also benefits from <a href=\"\/skill-sets\/communication\/\">communications<\/a> skills)<\/li>\n<li>Human resources<\/li>\n<li>Office management<\/li>\n<li>Events management<\/li>\n<li>Assistant and administrative work<\/li>\n<li>Finance and accounting<\/li>\n<li>Corporate and nonprofit law<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Many organisations have a significant need for generalists who span several of these areas. If your aim is to take a leadership position, it&#8217;s useful to have a shallow knowledge of several.<\/p>\n<p>You can also pick just one skill to specialise in \u2014 especially for areas like law and accounting that tend to be their own track.<\/p>\n<p>Generally, larger organisations have a greater need for specialists, while those with under 50 employees hire more generalists.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"example-people\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Example people<\/h3>\n<aside class=\"well well-person pull-right clearfix align-center  padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<p class=\"no-margin-bottom\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-circle well-person__portrait\" height=300 width=300 src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/clare-donaldson-portrait-300x300.png\" alt=\"Clare Donaldson portrait\"><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"no-margin-top\">Clare Donaldson<\/h4>\n<p>Clare joined <a href=\"https:\/\/leadelimination.org\/\">Lead Exposure Elimination Project<\/a> (LEEP) as its third staff member. She thought that joining LEEP would help build her <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-capital\/\">career capital<\/a> \u2014 especially her skills and connections \u2014 and, more importantly, that lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries is an important, solvable, and highly neglected problem. Since joining, Clare has developed LEEP&#8217;s programmes, managed the team implementing them, and led the hiring for crucial new staff. LEEP has since started working with governments and industry in 16 countries and has successfully advocated for the government in Malawi to monitor levels of lead in paints.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/leadelimination.org\/\" class=\"btn btn-tertiary\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<aside class=\"well well-person pull-right clearfix align-center  padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<p class=\"no-margin-bottom\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-circle well-person__portrait\" height=300 width=300 src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/helen-toner-300x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Helen Toner portrait\"><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"no-margin-top\">Helen Toner<\/h4>\n<p>The Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown was founded by Jason Matheny, Helen Toner, and others. When we interviewed Helen on our podcast, she was in her 20s. CSET raised a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.openphilanthropy.org\/giving\/grants\/georgetown-university-center-security-and-emerging-technology\">$55m grant from Open Philanthropy<\/a> and is possibly the leading think tank working on the intersection of AI and national security.<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/podcast\/episodes\/helen-toner-on-security-and-emerging-technology\/\" class=\"btn btn-tertiary\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<aside class=\"well well-person pull-right clearfix align-center  padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<p class=\"no-margin-bottom\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-circle well-person__portrait\" height=300 width=300 src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Sim-Dhaliwal-e1637238639644.jpeg\" alt=\"Sim Dhaliwal portrait\"><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"no-margin-top\">Sim Dhaliwal<\/h4>\n<p>After studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, Simran spent four years building career capital at Goldman Sachs. Simran eventually decided to apply her skills at an organisation that was more directly impactful \u2014 so she joined Longview Philanthropy as Managing Director, where she&#8217;s in charge of managing and growing the team as well as running the organisation day to day.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<h2><span id=\"how-to-evaluate-your-fit\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>How to evaluate your fit<\/h2>\n<h3><span id=\"how-to-predict-your-fit-in-advance\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>How to predict your fit in advance<\/h3>\n<p>There&#8217;s no need to focus on the specific job or sector you work in now \u2014 it&#8217;s possible to enter organisation-building from a very wide variety of areas. We&#8217;ve even known academic philosophers who have transitioned to organisation-building!<\/p>\n<p>Some common initial indicators of fit might include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>You have an optimisation mindset.<\/strong> You frequently notice how things could be done more efficiently and have a strong internal drive to prevent avoidable errors and make things run more smoothly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You intuitively engage in systems thinking<\/strong> and enjoy going meta. This is a bit difficult to summarise, but involves things like: you&#8217;d notice when people ask you similar questions multiple times and then think about how to prevent the issue from coming up again. For example: &#8220;Can you give me access to this doc&#8221; turns into &#8220;What went wrong such that this person didn&#8217;t already have access to everything they need? How can we improve naming conventions or sharing conventions in the future?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>You&#8217;re reliable, self-directed, able to manage your time well,<\/strong> and you can create efficient and productive plans and keep track of complex projects. <\/li>\n<li>You might also be good at learning quickly and have high attention to detail. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, different types of organisation-building will require different skills. For example, being a COO or events manager requires greater social and system building skills, whereas working in finance requires fewer social skills, but does require basic quantitative skills and perhaps more conscientiousness and attention to detail.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re <em>really excited<\/em> by a particular novel idea and have lots of energy and excitement for the idea, you might be a good fit for founding an organisation. (Read more about <a href=\"\/career-reviews\/founder-impactful-organisations\/#what-does-it-take-to-succeed\">what it takes to successfully found a new organisation<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>You should try doing some <a href=\"\/career-guide\/personal-fit\/#do-cheap-tests-first\">cheap tests first<\/a> \u2014 these might include talking to someone who works at the organisation you&#8217;re interested in helping to build, volunteering to do a short project, or doing an internship. Then you might commit to working there for 2\u201324 months (being prepared to switch to something else if you don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re on track).<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"how-to-tell-if-youre-on-track\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>How to tell if you&#8217;re on track<\/h3>\n<p>All of these \u2014 individually or together \u2014 seem like good signs of being on track to build  really useful organisation-building skills:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You get job offers (as a contractor or staff) at organisations you&#8217;d like to work for.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re promoted within your first two years.<\/li>\n<li>You receive excellent performance reviews.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re asked to take on progressively more responsibility over time.<\/li>\n<li>Your manager \/ colleagues suggest you might take on more senior roles in the future.<\/li>\n<li>You ask your superiors for their honest assessment of your fit and they are positive (e.g. they tell you you&#8217;re in the top 10% of people they can imagine doing your role).<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re able to multiply a superior&#8217;s time by over 2\u201320X, depending on the role type.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re aiming to build a new organisation, write out some one-page summaries of ideas for new organisations you&#8217;d like to exist and get feedback from grantmakers and experts.<\/li>\n<li>If founding a new organisation, you get seed funding from a major grantmaker, like Open Philanthropy, Longview Philanthropy, EA Funds, or a private donor. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This said, if you <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> hit these milestones, you might still be a good fit for organisation-building \u2014 the issue might be that you&#8217;re at the wrong organisation or have the wrong boss.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"how-to-get-started-building-organisation-building-skills\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>How to get started building organisation-building skills<\/h2>\n<p>You can get started by finding any role that will let you start learning one of the skills listed above. Work in one specialisation will often give you exposure to the others, and it&#8217;s often possible to move between them.<\/p>\n<p>If you can do this at a high-performing organisation that&#8217;s also having a big impact right away, that&#8217;s great. If you&#8217;re aware of any organisations like these, it&#8217;s worth applying just in case.<\/p>\n<p>But, unfortunately, this is often not possible, especially if you&#8217;re fresh out of college, for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The organisations have limited mentorship capacity, so they most often hire people with a couple of years of experience rather than those fresh out of college (though there are exceptions) and often aren&#8217;t in a good position to help you become excellent at these skills.<\/li>\n<li>These organisations usually hire people who already have some expertise in the problem area they&#8217;re working on (e.g. AI safety, biosecurity), as these issues involve specialised knowledge. <\/li>\n<li>We chose our recommended problems in large part <em>because<\/em> they&#8217;re unusually <a href=\"\/articles\/problem-framework\/#how-to-assess-how-neglected-a-problem-is\">neglected<\/a>. But the fact that they&#8217;re neglected also means there aren&#8217;t many open positions or training programmes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a result, early in your career it can easily be worth pursuing roles at organisations that don&#8217;t have much impact in order to build your skills.<\/p>\n<p>The way to do this is to work at any organisation that&#8217;s generally high-performing, especially if you can work under someone who&#8217;s a good manager and will mentor you \u2014 the best way to learn how to run an organisation is to learn from people who are already excellent at this skill.<\/p>\n<p>Then, try to advance as quickly as you can within that organisation or move to higher-responsibility roles in other organisations after 1\u20133 years of high-performance.<\/p>\n<p>It can also help if the organisation is small but rapidly growing, since that usually makes it much easier to get promoted \u2014 and if the organisation succeeds in a big way, that will give you a lot of options in the future.<\/p>\n<p>In a small organisation you can also try out a wider range of roles, helping you figure out which aspects of organisation-building are the best fit for you and giving you the broad background that&#8217;s useful for leadership roles in the future. Moreover, many of the organisations we think are doing the best work on the most pressing problems are startups, so being used to this kind of environment can be an advantage.<\/p>\n<p>One option within this category we especially recommend is to consider becoming an <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/startup-early-employee\/\">early employee at a tech startup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you pick well, working at a tech startup gives you many of the advantages of working at a small, growing, high-performing organisation mentioned above, while also offering high salaries and an introduction to the technology sector. (This is even better if you can find an organisation that will let you learn about artificial intelligence or synthetic biology.)<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve advised many people who have developed organisation-building skills in startups and then switched to nonprofit work (or earned to give), while having good backup options.<\/p>\n<p>That said, smaller organisations have downsides such as being more likely to fail and less mentorship capacity. Many are also poorly run. So it&#8217;s important to pick carefully.<\/p>\n<p>Another option to consider in this category is <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/working-at-an-ai-lab\/\">working at a leading AI lab<\/a>, because they can often offer good training, look impressive on your CV, and let you learn about AI. That said, you&#8217;ll need to think carefully about whether your work could be accelerating <a href=\"\/articles\/ai-capabilities\/\">the risks from AI as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most common ways to build these skills is to work in large tech companies, <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/management-consulting\/\">consulting<\/a> or professional services (or more indirectly, to train as a <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/should-you-go-to-law-school\/\">lawyer<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/front-office-finance\/\">in finance<\/a>). These are most useful for learning how to apply these skills in very large corporate and government organisations, or to build a speciality like accounting. We <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/alternatives-to-consulting\/\">think there are often more direct<\/a> ways to do useful work on the problems we think are most pressing, but these prestigious corporate jobs can still be the best option for some.<\/p>\n<p>However, it&#8217;s important to remember you can build organisation-building skills in <em>any<\/em> kind of organisation: from nonprofits to academic research institutes to government agencies to giant corporations. What most matters is that you&#8217;re working with people who have this skill, who are able to train you.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"founding-an-organisation\">Should you found your own organisation early in your career?<\/h4>\n<p>For a few people, founding an organisation fairly early in your career could be a fantastic career step. Whether or not the organisation you start succeeds, along the way you could gain strong organisation-building (and other) skills and a lot of career capital.<\/p>\n<p>We think you should <a href=\"\/articles\/be-more-ambitious\/\">be ambitious<\/a> when deciding career steps, and it often makes sense to <a href=\"\/articles\/career-exploration\/#1-pursue-upside-options-a-rational-reason-to-aim-high\">pursue high-upside options first<\/a> when you&#8217;re doing some career exploration.<\/p>\n<p>This is particularly true if you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have an idea that you&#8217;ve seriously thought about, stress tested, and got positive feedback on from relevant experts<\/li>\n<li>Have real energy and excitement <em>for your idea<\/em> (not for the idea of <em>being an entrepreneur<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>Understand that you&#8217;re likely to fail, and have good backup plans in place for that<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It can be hard to figure out if your idea is any good, or if you&#8217;ll be any good at this, in advance. One rule of thumb is that if, after six months to a year of work, you can be accepted to a top incubator (like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ycombinator.com\/\">Y Combinator<\/a>), you&#8217;re probably on track. But if you can&#8217;t get into a top incubator, you should consider trying to build organisation-building skills in a different way (or try building a completely different skill set).<\/p>\n<p>There are many downsides of working on your own projects. In particular, you&#8217;ll get less direct feedback and mentorship, and your efforts will be spread thinly across many different types of tasks and skills, making it harder to develop specialist expertise.<br \/>\nTo learn more, see our article on <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/founder-impactful-organisations\/\">founding new projects tackling top problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"find-jobs-that-use-organisation-building-skills\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Find jobs that use organisation-building skills<\/h3>\n<p>See our <strong>curated<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/jobs.80000hours.org\/?refinementList%5Btags_skill%5D%5B0%5D=Management&amp;refinementList%5Btags_skill%5D%5B1%5D=Operations\">list of job opportunities for this path<\/a>, which you can filter by &#8216;management&#8217; and &#8216;operations&#8217; to find opportunities in this category (though there will also be jobs outside those filters where you can apply organisation-building skills).<\/p>\n<p><script>\n    function getLocationString(arr) {\n      if (arr.length <= 3) { \n        return arr.join(\"<br \/>\");\n      }\n      return arr.slice(0, 3).join(\"<br \/>\") + \"...\";\n    }\n  <\/script><script>\n    function getUniqueCompanyJobs(jobs, limit) {\n      const uniqueCompanies = new Set();\n      const uniqueJobs = [];\n      const additionalJobs = [];\n      for (const job of jobs) {\n          const company = job.company_name;\n          if (!uniqueCompanies.has(company)) {\n              uniqueCompanies.add(company);\n              uniqueJobs.push(job);\n          } else {\n              additionalJobs.push(job);\n          }\n      }\n      return uniqueJobs.concat(additionalJobs).slice(0, limit);\n    }\n  <\/script><script>\n    window.addEventListener(\"load\", function() {\n        const container = document.querySelector(\"#vacancies-1\");\n        if (container) {\n          const searchClient = algoliasearch(\"W6KM1UDIB3\", \"d1d7f2c8696e7b36837d5ed337c4a319\");\n          searchClient.initIndex(\"jobs_prod\"); \n          const search = instantsearch({\n            indexName: \"jobs_prod\",\n            searchClient,\n          });\n          search.addWidget(\n            instantsearch.widgets.configure({\n              facetFilters: [[\"tags_skill:Management\",\"tags_skill:Operations\"]],\n              hitsPerPage: 10,\n            })\n          );\n          search.addWidget({\n            render(options) {\n              const results = getUniqueCompanyJobs(options.results.hits, 5);\n              results.forEach(item => {\n                item.post_pk = DOMPurify.sanitize(item.post_pk);\n                item.company.logo_url = DOMPurify.sanitize(item.company.logo_url);\n                item.title = DOMPurify.sanitize(item.title);\n                item.company.name = DOMPurify.sanitize(item.company.name);\n                item.card_locations = DOMPurify.sanitize(getLocationString(item.card_locations));\n                item.posted_at_relative = DOMPurify.sanitize(item.posted_at_relative);\n              });\n              container.innerHTML = results.map(item => {\n                return `<\/p>\n<li class=\"vacancy border\">\n                    <a href=\"https:\/\/jobs.80000hours.org\/?jobPk=${item.post_pk}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"vacancy-summary pt-2 pb-2\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"col-12\">\n<div class=\"row\" style=\"position: relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-8\" style=\"overflow: hidden;\">\n<div class=\"vacancy__org-logo\">\n                              <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"${item.company.logo_url}\">\n                            <\/div>\n<div class=\"vacancy__job-title-and-org-name\">\n<h5 class=\"vacancy__job-title tw--line-clamp-2\">${item.title}<\/h5>\n<p class=\"vacancy__org-name tw--line-clamp-2\">${item.company.name}<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"col-sm-4 text-right hidden-xs vacancy__location-and-date-listed\">\n<p class=\"pr-1\">${item.card_locations}<br \/>${item.posted_at_relative}<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>                    <\/a>\n                  <\/li>\n<p>`;\n              }).join(\"\");\n            }\n          });\n          search.start();\n        }\n      });\n    <\/script><\/p>\n<ul id=\"vacancies-1\" class=\"!tw--p-0 no-visited-styling\"><\/ul>\n<p><a href=https:\/\/jobs.80000hours.org\/?refinementList%5Btags_skill%5D%5B0%5D=Management&refinementList%5Btags_skill%5D%5B1%5D=Operations class=\"btn btn-primary\" target=\"_blank\">View all opportunities<\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"once-you-have-these-skills-how-can-you-best-apply-them-to-have-an-impact\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Once you have these skills, how can you best apply them to have an impact?<\/h2>\n<p>The problem you work on is probably the <a href=\"\/articles\/your-choice-of-problem-is-crucial\/\">biggest driver of your impact<\/a>, so the first step is to decide <a href=\"\/articles\/comparing-problems-yourself\/\">which problems you think are most pressing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve done that, the next step is to identify the highest-potential organisations working on your top problems.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, look for organisations that:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Implement an <a href=\"\/articles\/solutions\/\">effective solution<\/a>, or <a href=\"\/articles\/solutions\/#hits-based-vs-data-driven-approaches\">one that has a good chance of having a big impact<\/a> (even if it might not work)<\/li>\n<li>Have the potential to grow<\/li>\n<li>Are run by a great team<\/li>\n<li>Are in need of your skills<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>These organisations will most often be nonprofits, but they could also be research institutes, political organisations, or for-profit companies with a social mission.<\/p>\n<p>For specific ideas, see <a href=\"https:\/\/jobs.80000hours.org\/organisations\">our list of recommended organisations<\/a>. You can also find longer lists of suggestions within each of our <a href=\"\/problem-profiles\/\">problem profiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, see if you can get a job at one of these organisations that effectively uses your specific skills. If you can&#8217;t, that&#8217;s also fine \u2014 you can apply your skills elsewhere, for example through <a href=\"\/articles\/earning-to-give\/\">earning to give<\/a>, and be ready to switch into working for a high-impact organisation in the future.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"career-paths-weve-reviewed-that-use-organisation-building-skills\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Career paths we&#8217;ve reviewed that use organisation-building skills<\/h2>\n<p>These are some reviews of career paths we&#8217;ve written that use &#8216;organisation-building&#8217; skills:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/operations-management\/\">Operations management<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/working-at-effective-altruist-organisations\/\">Helping build the effective altruism community<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/articles\/earning-to-give\/\">Earning to give<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/founder-impactful-organisations\/\">Founding new projects tackling top problems<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/executive-assistant-for-an-impactful-person\/\">Become an executive assistant for someone doing especially high-impact work<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/effective-non-profits\/\">Working at effective nonprofits<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/research-management\/\">Research management<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"tw--mt-6 tw--p-3 tw--pt-2 tw--bg-gray-lighter tw--rounded-md \">\n<h3 class=\"no-toc\">\t\t<a class=\"no-visited-styling tw--text-off-black hover:tw--text-off-black hover:tw--no-underline focus:tw--text-off-black\" href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/\">\t\t\t<small>Read next:&nbsp;<\/small>\t\t\tExplore other useful skills\t\t<\/a>\t<\/h3>\n<div class=\"tw--grid xs:tw--grid-flow-col tw--gap-3\">\n<div class=\"xs:tw--order-last tw--pt-1\">\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/\">\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tajines_in_a_pottery_shop_in_Morocco-720x448.jpg\" alt=\"Decorative post preview\" width=\"720\" height=\"448\">\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">\n<div class=\"tw--pb-3\">\n<p>Want to learn more about the most useful skills for solving global problems, according to our research? See our list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/\" class=\"btn btn-primary\">Continue &rarr;<\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"well visible-if-not-newsletter-subscriber margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<h3 class=\"no-toc\">Plus, join our newsletter and we&#8217;ll mail you a free book<\/h3>\n<p>Join our newsletter and we&#8217;ll send you a free copy of <em>The Precipice<\/em> \u2014 a book by philosopher Toby Ord about how to tackle the greatest threats facing humanity. <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/free-book\/#giveaway-terms\">T&#038;Cs here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<form data-80k-object-id=\"\" data-80k-form-action=\"newsletter__subscribe\" action=\"\/\" method=\"post\" class=\"form-newsletter-signup form-newsletter-signup-step-1 margin-bottom-smaller\">\n<div class=\"mc-field-group input-group compact-input-group \"> <input type=\"email\" value=\"\" name=\"email\" required class=\"form-control email\" placeholder=\"Email address\" id=\"input_email\"> <span class=\"submit input-group-btn input-group-btn-right\"> <input type=\"submit\" id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" value=\"GET THE BOOK\" class=\"btn btn-primary \" \/> <\/span> <\/div>\n<div> <input name=\"_eightyk_action\" value=\"mailchimp_add_subscriber\" type=\"hidden\"> <input name=\"redirect_path_after_step_2\" value=\"\/newsletter\/welcome\/\" type=\"hidden\"> <\/div>\n<div style=\"position: absolute; left: -5000px;\"> <input type=\"text\" name=\"b_abc12f58bbe8075560abdc5b7_43bc1ae55c\" tabindex=\"-1\" value=\"\"> <\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74868,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[fn 1]Whether to focus on nonprofits or for-profits is a difficult question.\r\n<br>\r\nNonprofits lack a good feedback mechanism from success to greater funding, which means they're normally less scalable.\r\n<br>\r\nHowever, a major advantage of nonprofits is that they can tackle the issues that get most neglected by other actors, such as addressing market failures, carrying out research that doesn't earn academic prestige, or doing political advocacy on behalf of disempowered groups such as animals or future generations.\r\n<br>\r\nWithin our recommended problems, we think there's probably a greater need for more people willing to work at or found top nonprofits. But for-profits can also be very impactful.\r\n[\/fn]\r\n"},"categories":[300,419,1041,343,392,412,529,1299,1188,404,1336],"class_list":["post-83652","skill_set","type-skill_set","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-building-effective-altruism","category-career-capital","category-consulting","category-finance","category-found-a-tech-startup","category-founder-of-new-projects","category-lawyer","category-non-technical-roles-in-leading-ai-labs","category-operations-at-high-impact-orgs","category-organisation-building-at-effective-nonprofits","category-skills"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Organisation-building - 80,000 Hours<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find out how to help build and boost great organisations through skills like management, operations, legal and financial oversight, entrepreneurship and fundraising.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/organisation-building\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Organisation-building\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Find out how to help build and boost great organisations through skills like management, operations, legal and financial oversight, entrepreneurship and fundraising.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/organisation-building\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"80,000 Hours\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/80000Hours\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-10T13:34:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/nikola-johnny-mirkovic-HNsytirZYQg-unsplash-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Find out how to help build and boost great organisations through skills like management, operations, legal and financial oversight, entrepreneurship and fundraising.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@80000hours\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"16 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/organisation-building\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/skills\/organisation-building\/\",\"name\":\"Organisation-building - 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