Hey Gidon and Sella, thanks so much for posting this strategy document! It’s very well-written, and I like and agree with the vision of EA Israel. I also like your emphasis on onboarding, branding strategy, and having multiple goals, and how your group does a pre-mortem.
I’m also just very impressed with how much EA Israel has done since Q4 2018, which is around the time EA Philippines was started as well. I did not know that EA Israel was running this many activities. It’s great that your community also has a bias to action as well—I am thinking that EA Philippines should do something similar.
Here are just a few things I wanted to say or ask:
1. It seems like you’ve made a customized version of CEA’s concentric circles / funnel model when you talked about your member categorization, which is your board, contributors, participants, and followers. Is it correct that people in your participants category need to be volunteering for EA Israel or be currently participating in a reading group? If so, it seems like your funnel is more for measuring how engaged people are with EA Israel, and not about how proficient they are with EA or if they’re trying to live this out in their career or donations. I am thinking that EA Israel should also have separate “funnel metrics” where you categorize people based on CEA’s concentric circles / funnel model. The recent 2020 EA groups survey asks for these metrics, so it would be useful for EA Israel to post and measure its funnel metrics on that too. This would also help you measure the size and quality of the EA community in Israel.
2. Do you and your board have any thoughts on how big you want EA Israel or your funnel to be 5 years from now, i.e. how many are board members, contributors, and participants to EA Israel? Or how many sub-groups you’d like, and what type of sub-groups these would be (i.e. cause-specific, profession-specific, or university groups)? I think this could be an important thing to include or think through as part of your vision, or as long-term metrics you want to target.
3. I think something missing from your vision is if EA Israel plans on setting up university groups. Does EA Israel have any plans on this so far? I think it’s okay for EA Israel not to try setting this up within the next 12 months, but I think it should be a goal within the next 2-5 years. University groups are a bigger part of CEA’s strategy now, and I think it would be good to put in your vision that you aim to have university groups.
4. What do you think is EA Israel’s current % of time allocation between community building vs. direct work projects? Do you have a sense of what should be the ideal allocation for EA Israel across the two, or across your different projects?
Hi Brian, thanks for the kind words and the insightful feedback!
Here are my thoughts on the points you raise (not necessarily coordinated or representative of EA Israel in general):
1. I totally agree with your point about having separate metrics for proficiency with EA vs. engagement with EA Israel. In practice, our contributors and participants groups are actually some mix between these two metrics. For example, EAs professionally working in high-priority paths were often included in them (if they were interested) even if they were not actively engaging with EA Israel. All of this is to say—I don’t think we’re neglecting people who are proficient or involved in EA in practice, but this only strengthens the case for referencing these metrics explicitly.
2. I agree there is room for some more longterm planning. To be honest, it has been very long since it was unclear whether EA Israel would survive months, let alone years. It was only fairly recently, when Gidi started working part time (and received CEA’s community building grant which allowed him to do so), that we’ve been able to more meaningfully organize and plan. We’ve started with defining this strategy, which focuses mostly on the upcoming year, and have not yet done meaningful longer term planning (and will probably only do so after our new mode of operation settles a bit). Regarding many of your specific questions, such as the number of sub-groups, and how those would be divided—I genuinely don’t know, and prefer an experimental/empirical approach rather than trying to dictate our end goal from first principles.
3. I think the comment about student groups is a great point, and wanted to share a few thoughts on this. Students are actually our top-priority audience group, and a majority of our outreach efforts are focused on students (including a new academic course, a new fellowship, thesis consulting with effective thesis and more). In fact, reading this comment I re-read the strategy doc and was surprised to find out students are not mentioned even once given how much we prioritize and discuss outreach to students internally. I think we should definitely update this fact as part of our strategy. The other when referring to student groups is the specific framework, for which student groups are one possibility. I am generally in favor of this, though less certain as to whether this is the right way for us to try and get students involved. Formal student groups are less common and popular in Israel than in many other countries (see David’s comment about some reasons why), so we’re still thinking about how to onboard and organize students. We’re going to try fellowships this year, there are also “cells” which are groups of students organizing to take action on a specific topic (e.g. sustainability, or various political groups). Long story short, engaging students is one of our top priorities, though we’re still not willing to commit to a specific framework for doing so.
4. I would roughly estimate that about 80% of our time is dedicated to community building & outreach, while only about 20% of time is dedicated to direct work projects. In terms of the optimal ratio, this is a bit challenging to phrase in a way that isn’t misleading. As we mention in the strategy doc, a main driver of our involvement in direct work projects is new members’ interest in doing them, and the fact that we think it’s a good way to get people more involved. Since one of our top priorities is to grow the pipeline of people becoming deeply involved, and (given our strategy) this would have the effect of having more people working on direct-work projects (at least in the early stages of their involvement), then I would love to see the percentages of direct work projects go up. However, I would not want people working on community building & outreach to switch to working on direct-work projects.
Thanks again, and please keep the questions and feedback coming!
I won’t address all of these, especially since I’m not deeply involved in all of them, but on #3, there has been some discussion, and they are doing some work on this. We are trying to start such groups, but it’s different than most other countries. This is mostly because college is done post-mandatory military service, starting at age 21 or older, and usually even later than that, so the students more career focused. That gives less time for activities like EA groups.
Hey Gidon and Sella, thanks so much for posting this strategy document! It’s very well-written, and I like and agree with the vision of EA Israel. I also like your emphasis on onboarding, branding strategy, and having multiple goals, and how your group does a pre-mortem.
I’m also just very impressed with how much EA Israel has done since Q4 2018, which is around the time EA Philippines was started as well. I did not know that EA Israel was running this many activities. It’s great that your community also has a bias to action as well—I am thinking that EA Philippines should do something similar.
Here are just a few things I wanted to say or ask:
1. It seems like you’ve made a customized version of CEA’s concentric circles / funnel model when you talked about your member categorization, which is your board, contributors, participants, and followers. Is it correct that people in your participants category need to be volunteering for EA Israel or be currently participating in a reading group? If so, it seems like your funnel is more for measuring how engaged people are with EA Israel, and not about how proficient they are with EA or if they’re trying to live this out in their career or donations. I am thinking that EA Israel should also have separate “funnel metrics” where you categorize people based on CEA’s concentric circles / funnel model. The recent 2020 EA groups survey asks for these metrics, so it would be useful for EA Israel to post and measure its funnel metrics on that too. This would also help you measure the size and quality of the EA community in Israel.
2. Do you and your board have any thoughts on how big you want EA Israel or your funnel to be 5 years from now, i.e. how many are board members, contributors, and participants to EA Israel? Or how many sub-groups you’d like, and what type of sub-groups these would be (i.e. cause-specific, profession-specific, or university groups)? I think this could be an important thing to include or think through as part of your vision, or as long-term metrics you want to target.
3. I think something missing from your vision is if EA Israel plans on setting up university groups. Does EA Israel have any plans on this so far? I think it’s okay for EA Israel not to try setting this up within the next 12 months, but I think it should be a goal within the next 2-5 years. University groups are a bigger part of CEA’s strategy now, and I think it would be good to put in your vision that you aim to have university groups.
4. What do you think is EA Israel’s current % of time allocation between community building vs. direct work projects? Do you have a sense of what should be the ideal allocation for EA Israel across the two, or across your different projects?
Hi Brian, thanks for the kind words and the insightful feedback!
Here are my thoughts on the points you raise (not necessarily coordinated or representative of EA Israel in general):
1. I totally agree with your point about having separate metrics for proficiency with EA vs. engagement with EA Israel. In practice, our contributors and participants groups are actually some mix between these two metrics. For example, EAs professionally working in high-priority paths were often included in them (if they were interested) even if they were not actively engaging with EA Israel. All of this is to say—I don’t think we’re neglecting people who are proficient or involved in EA in practice, but this only strengthens the case for referencing these metrics explicitly.
2. I agree there is room for some more longterm planning. To be honest, it has been very long since it was unclear whether EA Israel would survive months, let alone years. It was only fairly recently, when Gidi started working part time (and received CEA’s community building grant which allowed him to do so), that we’ve been able to more meaningfully organize and plan. We’ve started with defining this strategy, which focuses mostly on the upcoming year, and have not yet done meaningful longer term planning (and will probably only do so after our new mode of operation settles a bit). Regarding many of your specific questions, such as the number of sub-groups, and how those would be divided—I genuinely don’t know, and prefer an experimental/empirical approach rather than trying to dictate our end goal from first principles.
3. I think the comment about student groups is a great point, and wanted to share a few thoughts on this. Students are actually our top-priority audience group, and a majority of our outreach efforts are focused on students (including a new academic course, a new fellowship, thesis consulting with effective thesis and more). In fact, reading this comment I re-read the strategy doc and was surprised to find out students are not mentioned even once given how much we prioritize and discuss outreach to students internally. I think we should definitely update this fact as part of our strategy. The other when referring to student groups is the specific framework, for which student groups are one possibility. I am generally in favor of this, though less certain as to whether this is the right way for us to try and get students involved. Formal student groups are less common and popular in Israel than in many other countries (see David’s comment about some reasons why), so we’re still thinking about how to onboard and organize students. We’re going to try fellowships this year, there are also “cells” which are groups of students organizing to take action on a specific topic (e.g. sustainability, or various political groups). Long story short, engaging students is one of our top priorities, though we’re still not willing to commit to a specific framework for doing so.
4. I would roughly estimate that about 80% of our time is dedicated to community building & outreach, while only about 20% of time is dedicated to direct work projects. In terms of the optimal ratio, this is a bit challenging to phrase in a way that isn’t misleading. As we mention in the strategy doc, a main driver of our involvement in direct work projects is new members’ interest in doing them, and the fact that we think it’s a good way to get people more involved. Since one of our top priorities is to grow the pipeline of people becoming deeply involved, and (given our strategy) this would have the effect of having more people working on direct-work projects (at least in the early stages of their involvement), then I would love to see the percentages of direct work projects go up. However, I would not want people working on community building & outreach to switch to working on direct-work projects.
Thanks again, and please keep the questions and feedback coming!
I won’t address all of these, especially since I’m not deeply involved in all of them, but on #3, there has been some discussion, and they are doing some work on this. We are trying to start such groups, but it’s different than most other countries. This is mostly because college is done post-mandatory military service, starting at age 21 or older, and usually even later than that, so the students more career focused. That gives less time for activities like EA groups.