Neglectedness: Why Overlooked Problems Can Offer Great Opportunities

Overlooked opportunities

When people set out to improve the world, they often focus on the most famous, salient and popular issues. These well-known issues—like climate change or mental health—often have major opportunities for impact. However, because they are so popular, they are likely to receive a lot of attention, money, and people interested in working in them. This means that it may be harder to make a significant impact in the field.

For instance, imagine you could donate to two effective charities—one addressing a popular cause and the other tackling a lesser-known issue. Both are doing valuable work, but fewer people and organizations are focusing on the less well-known problem. Where might your donation go further? All else being equal, your contribution is likely to make a bigger impact in the more neglected cause.

Neglectedness is the extent to which a cause, organization, or intervention is scarce in resources. A core part of the ITN Framework, it is an important measure in estimating how promising different opportunities are to work or invest in. 

Cost-effectiveness

Taking neglectedness into account is especially useful when we can’t measure cost-effectiveness directly. In this case, we often use heuristics (or approximations) to try to estimate whether the proposal in question is a worthy investment.

Due to the common phenomenon of diminishing returns, neglectedness helps us identify opportunities to make a bigger impact. The first resources invested in a certain goal are often the most cost-effective, achieving high potential impact for relatively little resources. After that, additional resources are likely to be less cost-effective. This is because we (and others) tend to go for the “low-hanging fruit”—or the most cost-effective opportunities—and only get around to less cost-effective investments afterwards. 

How does this apply to your career?

Neglectedness also plays a big role in career decision-making, especially when considering counterfactual impact (or what would happen if we didn’t take a certain job or action). If a cause is well-supported, someone else might step in if you don’t. But in neglected areas, your unique contribution could have a far greater impact.

For instance, just as it might make sense to donate to an underfunded charity, it might also make sense to pursue a career in a field or problem that lacks people working on it—provided that it’s both important and effective.

When evaluating neglectedness to estimate cost-effectiveness, you might focus on specific resources that are under-invested, like political advocacy, research time, or outreach efforts. Different causes can be neglected in different ways; some may have plenty of money but not enough skilled professionals, while others may need more funding but have enough talent.

Rough estimates

While neglectedness is a helpful tool for estimating cost-effectiveness, it’s still just that—an estimate. A more neglected cause isn’t automatically a better one. Some causes are under-resourced because they aren’t particularly promising. The tricky part is figuring out how much neglectedness should factor into your decisions, but many people overlook it entirely, focusing on popular issues without realizing how much more difference their resources could make in a neglected area.

In short, paying attention to neglectedness can help you find underappreciated opportunities to make a bigger impact with your time, money, and talents.

Additional resources

• Paul Christiano on neglectedness and impact
• Open Philanthropy’s Cause Selection overview
• Is Neglectedness a Strong Predictor of Marginal Impact?