I think this is a great perspective on the future of EA and as SBF’s trial is about to explode across world media and bring a new wave of negative mentions of EA, people I know who are building effective giving org’s while considering themselves within EA are also choosing to use the term Effective Giving more broadly in their communications because the term EA is facing an extended bad press cycle. I deeply regret this reality but it’s the nature of how things work these days.
The other thing this presentation touches on and I will discuss it with my own twist is that we’ve somewhat abandoned our fundraising core…and I think many EA’s have failed to grasp how big fundraising is to our core essence and place in the world. Early EA full of STEM people did the remarkable job of pushing evidence based impact to the fore of the whole philanthropic world. If you read outside of EA in other philanthropic circles all you hear about is effective impact. It’s a classic success story of a small movement changing the bigger narrative in its field. And one of the proofs of this is how so many people decided to rely upon EA charity evaluators for their donations and we built up a massive amount of funds spread over 50+ fundraising organizations.
One of the things that always amazes me about EA is how many take this massive success for granted. It is almost without precedent that a small group of philosophy and STEM activists build up billions of dollars of funds. That just doesn’t happen. Most movements struggle for years. Having 25-50 million dollars is considered a hugely successful movement. Many EA’ers making 100K plus as altruists have no clue that is not how altruists in the past got paid…a career in altruism meant you made very little money, it was like you were choosing to donate the huge portion you weren’t getting paid as your sacrifice for doing good.
This isn’t just a case of an older generation perspective being jealous of a younger generations success…this lack of awareness of the actual core accomplishment of EA in the world leads to mistakes because when you are not operating in reality you are guaranteed to make choices that won’t work.
When you have billions of dollars under your management in todays world it gives you a weight in public forums that is not based in your philosophical work, but based in your clout. This allowed the philosophers who did great things in building EA to go back to their roots and spin out new esoteric concepts totally shifting EA in its second wave toward Longtermism and X-risk and away from charity and fundraising. This was a mistake because it was built on clout and not a long career building the philosophical foundations. Which lead to problems.
I believe the third wave of EA should be to now build upon its true foundation of fundraising leadership and to take it out to a bigger and broader audience. The new EA cannot continue as a mostly STEM elite group. That doesn’t fit the mission. A broader more mature effective giving movement reaching all the millions of wealthy donors has to have a culture that is more welcoming to those donors.
I have been in movements that have had to change from their early core culture to a broader more mature culture as they’ve grown and it’s a painful thing for many who bemoan the loss of the little tight knit community they loved. And I’m sympathetic, but it’s the same sympathy you feel for a sad teenager having to leave their friends and school because their parents got an important new job far away. It’s a painful loss but it’s just life.
As a non STEM person I will tell you this forum is not a welcoming place. This is not new information, I’ve read here and spoken to people who all know it. It’s time to open EA up to more arts and humanities people, to more mid and later career people and as I’ve argued elsewhere to probably guffaws from EA readers, to more average people that are not elite. This is the kind of balance that will change the culture and make EA more welcoming to all the people it needs to draw in to go where it needs to go.
We will surely always need a STEM core to do charity evaluations and to continue a healthy subsection of philosophical thinking about X-risk and Longtermism or whatever it evolves into. I love and value that work, but it’s not what EA actually is in the world.
What EA actually is, is the network of local groups CEA supports, the charity evaluation work and the many funds relying on their work, the various think tank research org’s, the efforts to help people work in effective impact jobs and both the charities EA supports and the new ones it starts. That’s what EA is and we now need to get a whole bunch of new people involved in and supporting all that…and to get those people we have to do some new things like more creative marketing, make documentary films and other creative media to spread the vision and inspire imaginations, and change the culture to make it more welcoming to non-STEM people. To do all that we need more artists and creatives and more average people and more mid and senior career people.
I think this is a great perspective on the future of EA and as SBF’s trial is about to explode across world media and bring a new wave of negative mentions of EA, people I know who are building effective giving org’s while considering themselves within EA are also choosing to use the term Effective Giving more broadly in their communications because the term EA is facing an extended bad press cycle. I deeply regret this reality but it’s the nature of how things work these days.
The other thing this presentation touches on and I will discuss it with my own twist is that we’ve somewhat abandoned our fundraising core…and I think many EA’s have failed to grasp how big fundraising is to our core essence and place in the world. Early EA full of STEM people did the remarkable job of pushing evidence based impact to the fore of the whole philanthropic world. If you read outside of EA in other philanthropic circles all you hear about is effective impact. It’s a classic success story of a small movement changing the bigger narrative in its field. And one of the proofs of this is how so many people decided to rely upon EA charity evaluators for their donations and we built up a massive amount of funds spread over 50+ fundraising organizations.
One of the things that always amazes me about EA is how many take this massive success for granted. It is almost without precedent that a small group of philosophy and STEM activists build up billions of dollars of funds. That just doesn’t happen. Most movements struggle for years. Having 25-50 million dollars is considered a hugely successful movement. Many EA’ers making 100K plus as altruists have no clue that is not how altruists in the past got paid…a career in altruism meant you made very little money, it was like you were choosing to donate the huge portion you weren’t getting paid as your sacrifice for doing good.
This isn’t just a case of an older generation perspective being jealous of a younger generations success…this lack of awareness of the actual core accomplishment of EA in the world leads to mistakes because when you are not operating in reality you are guaranteed to make choices that won’t work.
When you have billions of dollars under your management in todays world it gives you a weight in public forums that is not based in your philosophical work, but based in your clout. This allowed the philosophers who did great things in building EA to go back to their roots and spin out new esoteric concepts totally shifting EA in its second wave toward Longtermism and X-risk and away from charity and fundraising. This was a mistake because it was built on clout and not a long career building the philosophical foundations. Which lead to problems.
I believe the third wave of EA should be to now build upon its true foundation of fundraising leadership and to take it out to a bigger and broader audience. The new EA cannot continue as a mostly STEM elite group. That doesn’t fit the mission. A broader more mature effective giving movement reaching all the millions of wealthy donors has to have a culture that is more welcoming to those donors.
I have been in movements that have had to change from their early core culture to a broader more mature culture as they’ve grown and it’s a painful thing for many who bemoan the loss of the little tight knit community they loved. And I’m sympathetic, but it’s the same sympathy you feel for a sad teenager having to leave their friends and school because their parents got an important new job far away. It’s a painful loss but it’s just life.
As a non STEM person I will tell you this forum is not a welcoming place. This is not new information, I’ve read here and spoken to people who all know it. It’s time to open EA up to more arts and humanities people, to more mid and later career people and as I’ve argued elsewhere to probably guffaws from EA readers, to more average people that are not elite. This is the kind of balance that will change the culture and make EA more welcoming to all the people it needs to draw in to go where it needs to go.
We will surely always need a STEM core to do charity evaluations and to continue a healthy subsection of philosophical thinking about X-risk and Longtermism or whatever it evolves into. I love and value that work, but it’s not what EA actually is in the world.
What EA actually is, is the network of local groups CEA supports, the charity evaluation work and the many funds relying on their work, the various think tank research org’s, the efforts to help people work in effective impact jobs and both the charities EA supports and the new ones it starts. That’s what EA is and we now need to get a whole bunch of new people involved in and supporting all that…and to get those people we have to do some new things like more creative marketing, make documentary films and other creative media to spread the vision and inspire imaginations, and change the culture to make it more welcoming to non-STEM people. To do all that we need more artists and creatives and more average people and more mid and senior career people.