Which cause should I pick?
There is a huge variety of volunteer opportunities available both through structured programs like nonprofits and simpler options like picking up trash in your neighborhood. When you have limited money and time, it makes sense to take a step back and assess the best way to contribute.
Complex problems are often vague and have many possible solutions. The Meta-Problem Method may lead you far away from the dilemma that started your quest. That’s because the method forces you to clarify what you really want and what you are willing to give up. It enables you to compare objectively the possible pathways and their trade offs. It prevents you locking into solutions mode too early and then doubling down on solving a low-yield problem that does not serve your goals as well as the alternatives. At the end of this process, you will have a better understanding of your priorities and how to achieve them.
Steps in the Meta-Problem Method
Dilemma
The high-level issue you are trying to address
Decide where to volunteer to improve your community.
Goal
The changes you want to make to address the dilemma. There are usually many options.
Supporting Goals
- Directly help improve your community
- Change policies to improve your community
Other goals could include limited time invested, feeling fulfilled, and making new friends.
Problem Space
The set of problems you could chose to solve to advance your goals, plus the constraints that hold you back.
Example problems
- Which options are there for volunteering to directly improve your community? Maybe the problem to solve is “What is the biggest need I can see that no one else is addressing?”
- Which options are there for volunteering to change policies to improve your community? Maybe the problem to solve is “Which policies could I reasonably get changed that will help the most?
There are many other potential problems to solve related to volunteering in your community. Each goal has many possible problems we could link to it. Are there other problems linked to these first two goals? Which options come to mind for the other goals?
High-Yield Problems
Sometimes solving one problem helps make progress towards several goals. In this step, we identify these “two-for-the-price-of-one” problems.
Which options will advance more than one goal?
- Volunteering for a specific cause on a day of action will directly help improve your community, limits the time you have to invest, can give you fulfillment, and may even get you that first contact with a possible new friend. However, one-off volunteering is usually not enough to change policies, and limits your total impact.
- Volunteering with an organization on a project to try to change a policy locally might work and improve your community substantially. It could also lead to higher feelings of fulfillment, and give you more time to connect with fellow volunteers. However, there is a risk the project will fail and have no measurable impact on the community, and generally the time investment is higher.
There are many potential solutions that will have varying effects on the set of goals. Which alternatives improve the most important goals? How might the unknown change the right path forward? What other possible solutions are there to address the dilemma?
Problem Selection
Which of the many possible options in the high-yield problem step is the best set to address the dilemma?
- Which solutions make the most sense as a volunteer?
- Which solutions will best address the dilemma?
- Which solutions will deliver the best outcome for the least amount of time, effort and money?
Implement, Learn and Adapt
Check continuously that you are still solving the best problem, as new information emerges.
Observe and learn as you go. As new information reveals itself, check continuously that you’re still solving the right problem.