EA - About my job: GiveWell Philanthropy Advisor by maggie.lloydhauser

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: About my job: GiveWell Philanthropy Advisor, published by maggie.lloydhauser on September 13, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.OverviewI've been a Philanthropy Advisor at GiveWell for two years. This role is a better job for me than I thought I could find, and GiveWell is a better workplace than I knew existed.I'm often asked what a typical day in my role is like. Because my day to day is (delightfully) varied, I'll instead share what a typical month looks like as a Philanthropy Advisor. I'll also share some thoughts on my pathway to this role and its impact on GiveWell's work.A GiveWell Philanthropy Advisor is best compared to a Major Gifts Officer at other institutions, though there are some key differences. Big-picture, my role is to fundraise for our top charities as well as for non-top charity grants (such as those funded from our All Grants Fund) that may align with a specific donor's priorities. I primarily do this by maintaining relationships with a portfolio of donors.Unlike my preconceived notion of what fundraising entailed, my job does not require cold outreach or making awkward asks of existing donors. Instead, I try to get to know my donors, learning about what motivates them in their giving, helping them stay up to date with our research, sharing organizational updates, and occasionally presenting them with giving opportunities that seem strongly aligned with their philanthropic goals and interests. When I accepted this role, I worried that it would require me to be interpersonally disingenuous or that I'd have to make funding opportunities seem like surer bets than they really are; I've been delighted to find that our donors are genuinely easy to connect with and that GiveWell's values of transparency and truth-seeking translate to extreme honesty with donors about the risks and uncertainties of different grants.The jobIn a typical month, my responsibilities break down as follows:Communication with donors: In a typical month, I'm likely to send an update to each of the donors I know. This is often part of a natural ongoing conversation, but if I'm not specifically in touch with a donor already, I might reach out with an interesting article, share an impact report for their most recent gift, or get their feedback on some of our work. I also answer inbound donor questions from people seeking GiveWell's expertise and have a lot of calls with donors (over 100 per year). The volume of donor calls I have in a typical month varies greatly, clustering at the end of the year when many donors have questions about our work as they make annual giving decisions. These calls range from in-depth research conversations to logistical conversations about estate planning or giving mechanics to intense conversations about long-term philanthropic and financial goals and challenges. As relationships grow, we might also have more personal calls to catch up.Following GiveWell's research: In order to keep donors informed about our work, I have to stay up to date with it myself! I spend a lot of time listening in on research meetings, reading research documents for various grants, and asking our researchers questions about the specifics of different programs. A donor call can go in any direction - it's not uncommon for a donor to ask about a research decision we made years before my tenure at GiveWell began or about our position on a research area we have yet to publish public materials on - so keeping abreast of our research is a core component of the job. Depending on my workload, I might also lead the process of drafting a grant proposal.This requires a deep dive into the supporting documents for a specific grant and then condensing a lot of technical materials into a donor-facing format that highlights the intervention, considers the benefits, risks, and unce...