“From a Side Project to a Funded Organisation: My Story and What I’ve Learned [EAGx Virtual 2024 Keynote]” by SofiaBalderson

I tend to send the recording of this talk quite a lot when I’m asked to share my story about how I started Hive, so I thought for folks’ convenience I’d make it into a post so that it's more scannable. Some of the info is a bit outdated, I tried to include updates in brackets. I included some slides to help demonstrate the point, but you can find all my slides in the resource section below.

Hi everyone, and thank you for coming to my talk! I’m Sofia Balderson, co-founder of Hive—a global community for farmed animal advocates. Hive connects people to increase their impact, and we’re best known for:

• Hive Slack – an active online space with over 3,000 animal advocates
• Hive Highlights – our bi-weekly newsletter with ~3,000 subscribers featuring the latest news, research, and impact opportunities in the movement

We also host [...]

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Outline:

(01:32) Disclaimers:

(02:03) Talk Overview

(02:27) 1. Identifying the Right Problem

(03:46) 2. Finding the Right Team

(04:58) 3. Building a Minimal Viable Product (MVP)

(06:37) 4. Measuring Impact

(07:54) 5. Funding and Rejections

(09:08) 6. Lessons in Fundraising

(09:13) Build relationships before you ask for money

(09:50) Learn to cope with rejections--they're not personal

(10:27) 7. Deciding Whether to Commit

(11:44) Q&A section:

(19:16) Resources

(19:43) Want to get more support for your project or get in involved in farmed animal advocacy?

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First published:

July 21st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4qsjWrHDpyQLRfJB4/from-a-side-project-to-a-funded-organisation-my-story-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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