Episode Details

“AIM’s new charity taxonomy” by Aidan Alexander, Morgan Fairless, Ambitious Impact

Published 1 month, 2 weeks ago

This taxonomy is written from AIM's perspective, but it may be helpful more broadly:

If you're starting a new charity, incubating others, or doing charity idea research: The taxonomy gives you a structured way to think about which ideas to pursue, what founder profile fits, and what research and support each idea needs. This is the audience the rest of the post is most directly written for.
If you're at an established org: You can use the taxonomy two ways: (1) To categorize new programs, interventions or strategic pivots (which can be thought of like new charities) with implications for research, staffing and timelines; (2) To map your existing portfolio of interventions to different parts of the taxonomy, with implications for how to think about and manage each intervention.
If you're a funder or grantmaker: The taxonomy may help you think and communicate about how different kinds of organizations will have different journeys to impact (different timelines, milestones and risk profiles), and why holding them to the same standards can sometimes be counterproductive.

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Outline:

(00:12) 0. I dont work at AIM.. why care about this?

(01:25) 1. Why a Taxonomy Matters

(04:29) 2. Target Outcome × Mechanism

(04:34) 2.1. The dimensions

(04:38) 2.1.1. Target outcome

(05:51) 2.1.2. Mechanism

(07:18) 2.2. Implications

(07:33) 3. The Execute-Persuade Spectrum

(07:38) 3.1. The spectrum

(09:14) 3.1.1. Detour: Even execution-dominant ideas involve persuasion

(10:57) 3.2. Collaborative vs. adversarial persuasion

(11:57) 3.3. Implications

(16:12) 4. The Explore-Exploit Spectrum

(16:17) 4.1. The spectrum

(17:43) 4.2. Implications

(22:12) 5. Conclusion

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First published:
May 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/We4tpvNypH5pyhiaD/aim-s-new-charity-taxonomy

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