Okay, good. It seemed like I was picking up a bit of silicon-valley-style-impact centrism, and I leapt on it maybe more than I should have.
Stay mainstream until you’ve demonstrated success in the unconventional is advice I’ve heard from many successful heterodox academics, so I absolutely believe it’s excellent advice.
Harlem childrens’ fund is a very local charity. It’s promoting its ideas globally, but the actual work is going on locally. Any other sort of individual outreach/social-work-like charity tends to be local (think homeless shelter’s women’s shelters, community centers, etc). Many legal aid organizations are fairly local, or are highly autonomous regional branches of national organizations. A lot of aid can only legitimately be delivered face-to-face (even if many of these organizations could benefit from digital technologies, they will still remain face-to-face at their core).
In corporate roles, there’s many ways to make an impact, especially if your organization is fairly functional. If you’re one of the better salespeople in your org, multiply your impact by mentoring others. If you’re in a functional unit serving others inside your business, you probably have more requests than you could satisfy in a lifetime. Figure out which ones will make the most impact for the least effort. I’m not really talking about outsize impact, I’m just talking about better-than-average. In a low risk environment.
Okay, good. It seemed like I was picking up a bit of silicon-valley-style-impact centrism, and I leapt on it maybe more than I should have.
Stay mainstream until you’ve demonstrated success in the unconventional is advice I’ve heard from many successful heterodox academics, so I absolutely believe it’s excellent advice.
Harlem childrens’ fund is a very local charity. It’s promoting its ideas globally, but the actual work is going on locally. Any other sort of individual outreach/social-work-like charity tends to be local (think homeless shelter’s women’s shelters, community centers, etc). Many legal aid organizations are fairly local, or are highly autonomous regional branches of national organizations. A lot of aid can only legitimately be delivered face-to-face (even if many of these organizations could benefit from digital technologies, they will still remain face-to-face at their core).
In corporate roles, there’s many ways to make an impact, especially if your organization is fairly functional. If you’re one of the better salespeople in your org, multiply your impact by mentoring others. If you’re in a functional unit serving others inside your business, you probably have more requests than you could satisfy in a lifetime. Figure out which ones will make the most impact for the least effort. I’m not really talking about outsize impact, I’m just talking about better-than-average. In a low risk environment.