
Ask HN: What do you do to have more positive social impact? - md_
Let&#x27;s say you were a fairly comfortable mid-level engineer type at a big tech company. You&#x27;d been doing it, or something like it, for more than a decade, and you have a fair amount of financial freedom, no dependents, and a lot of angst about American and European politics, inequality, and the fact that you&#x27;re not really helping.<p>You can give away more of your salary than you do, or try to seek a job (which may not fully utilize your professional skills) in the non-profit sector. Or just read &quot;Enlightenment Now&quot; and convince yourself it&#x27;s not really all that bad.<p>What do you do? How do you move the needle in a meaningful way on the social issues you care about?
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Broken_Hippo
If I were in that situation, I would do one of a few things:

1\. Donate more to charities that I respect because they are better prepared
to help than I am. Furthermore, if possible, volunteer in some way in your
local community. What you do for volunteer work depends on the local
community's needs. The main thing with this is to do things regularly, but it
doesn't actually have to be fundraising. Bonus points if you can use your
professional skills to help somewhere out - but if not, no worries, there is
usually plenty to do.

2\. Get involved in politics, up to and including running for office. Make
sure folks have actual choice on the local ballot for all positions. Recruit
like-minded folks if you can, especially for those positions that only one
candidate is running (in total). You can even volunteer to work the polls
and/or making sure disadvantaged folks can get to the polling places - among
other imaginative things. This provides some catalyst for longer-term change.

The option with a non-profit job is completely up to you. In the end, it will
still be a job, so I'd take care to make sure you'll enjoy the work (as much
as possible). I'd likely keep my eyes open to see if the right opportunity
comes about.

