Thanks for this Peter. Definitely an important area for more work, and this has lots of great ideas for us to work on!
I’m not sure I agree that there more people wanting conversations than are willing to talk. Giles’ ‘buddy’ system seemed to yield a bunch of people happy to chat to new effective altruists, but very few people with questions (that was my impression anyway, as a ‘buddy’ who didn’t end up having any conversations).
I think I’d actually characterise Giving What We Can a bit less as focusing on getting people to first hear about effective altruism, and a bit more as focusing on the problem of how to get people from having heard about it to acting on it. We’re planning to hire Luke Ilott in June, the largest part of whose job will be reaching out to people who have had some contact with the idea of giving effectively, and chatting/answering questions/addressing concerns/seeing how the person could get more involved. Our current outreach is also focused heavily on local groups (led by Jon Courtney). These seem both good ways of introducing people to the ideas, and also good ways to get people more engaged with them. Since GWWC is first and foremost a community, we’re hopefully in somewhat of a good position to support people in the process of going from liking the sound of effective altruism, to really putting effective altruism into practice.
On finding people with questions. If I think I could find people who wanted to talk about EA stuff who should they be put in touch with? Is there a clear contact for this? What if I am fairly sure that the conversation would be of low value?
As someone who runs an EA chapter if I get messages from people reasonably often. In the past I have offered to meet people to talk about EA stuff one-on-one and have had this offer taken up. I no longer make this offer due to lack of time. But having someone (ideally someone local) who could meet people could help outreach in London.
As someone who runs an EA chapter if I get messages from people reasonably often. In the past I have offered to meet people to talk about EA stuff one-on-one and have had this offer taken up. I no longer make this offer due to lack of time. But having someone (ideally someone local) who could meet people could help outreach in London.
Thanks for this Peter. Definitely an important area for more work, and this has lots of great ideas for us to work on! I’m not sure I agree that there more people wanting conversations than are willing to talk. Giles’ ‘buddy’ system seemed to yield a bunch of people happy to chat to new effective altruists, but very few people with questions (that was my impression anyway, as a ‘buddy’ who didn’t end up having any conversations). I think I’d actually characterise Giving What We Can a bit less as focusing on getting people to first hear about effective altruism, and a bit more as focusing on the problem of how to get people from having heard about it to acting on it. We’re planning to hire Luke Ilott in June, the largest part of whose job will be reaching out to people who have had some contact with the idea of giving effectively, and chatting/answering questions/addressing concerns/seeing how the person could get more involved. Our current outreach is also focused heavily on local groups (led by Jon Courtney). These seem both good ways of introducing people to the ideas, and also good ways to get people more engaged with them. Since GWWC is first and foremost a community, we’re hopefully in somewhat of a good position to support people in the process of going from liking the sound of effective altruism, to really putting effective altruism into practice.
On finding people with questions. If I think I could find people who wanted to talk about EA stuff who should they be put in touch with? Is there a clear contact for this? What if I am fairly sure that the conversation would be of low value?
As someone who runs an EA chapter if I get messages from people reasonably often. In the past I have offered to meet people to talk about EA stuff one-on-one and have had this offer taken up. I no longer make this offer due to lack of time. But having someone (ideally someone local) who could meet people could help outreach in London.
This is what I’ve been setting up for the new local presences I’ve been creating, and for existing EA groups. I’ll put contact details for these local people up on the list and map of EA groups soon.