The Rethink Charity team is excited to share that SoonKhen (“SK”) OwYong has been confirmed by the Board of Directors as Executive Director. SK brings to Rethink Charity a passion for positive social impact, a dedication to improving efficiency, and technical and leadership experience gained as a software engineer in fintech startups. He is based in Vancouver, Canada.
Rethink Charity’s team shrank significantly and unexpectedly this year, a change we shared in June. SK joined amidst these changes, starting as Operations Engineer in May. His immediate refinements to our CRM and bookkeeping systems improved the fidelity of our data and accelerated our regranting and operations work. He played a key role in fulfilling several of Rethink Charity’s essential responsibilities amidst greatly reduced staff bandwidth.
Over the last few months Baxter Bullock has been transitioning out of his staff role, after five years of service as Co-Founder and Executive Director. Rethink Charity made significant progress under Baxter’s leadership: Rethink Priorities was incubated until it was ready to launch as an independent entity. Students for High-Impact Charity was launched, and then wound down when continuing the project no longer made sense. Rethink Charity navigated periods of financial uncertainty through efforts to diversify funding sources. RC Forward grew from a small program in 2017 into a successful donation platform; it’s so far moved over $18 million CAD to high-impact charities, thanks to improved operations as well as the generosity of thousands of donors across Canada. Baxter also fostered a balanced and supportive culture within our remote team–for example, through employee engagement and effectively hiring.
Although Baxter has stepped down from his role as Executive Director, he will remain involved with the organization as a board member, actively supporting SK in his new role. We are grateful for Baxter’s service and dedication over the past five years, and for his work to co-found Rethink Charity. We will miss his presence on the core team, and wish him the best of luck in all of his future endeavors.
Our team is indebted to Rethink Charity’s Board of Directors for their dedicated support and guidance through this transition. The Board collaborated with our team to consider multiple options for leadership. The Executive Director role was offered to SK based on his abilities, values, understanding of our projects, and his ambition to lead an organization that fulfills a need in the effective altruism community.
This change in leadership and staff coincides with changes to Rethink Charity’s strategy, which we will share in a forthcoming announcement. We are excited for SK to lead our team to grow Rethink Charity’s positive impact.
— The Rethink Charity Team