Thanks for writing this! A couple of random thoughts
I’m also surprised by the cost of these CEP retreats ($1,500+ per attendee). Assuming the organizer’s salary is already provided for, I expected the cost for the average attendee to be closer to $300-$750.
Also, I respect the establishment of a scoring system, but the weightings seem problematic. For instance, “someone reports starting a project in an EA-aligned cause area” receives a score of 50, and “someone meets someone who inspires them to take an opportunity or cause area more seriously” receives a score of 1.
That’s not intuitive to me. I would much prefer 50 people attending a retreat/EAGx and reporting they felt inspired to take a cause area or opportunity more seriously over 1 person reporting they started a new project. “Projects” are just too vague, but maybe you have something more specific in mind?
Scoring systems like this will affect how community builders design events. e.g. Say I’m an events organizer and I want funding from the CEA events team. I know the CEA events team prefers projects over updated cause prioritization at 50:1. Then I’m going to shape my event in a way that makes starting new projects an especially large (plausibly) the largest focus of my event. Is that your intent? Are there already guidelines on how community builders should think about this?
On (2), my guess is that the 1-point category covers a broad range of events, some of which are worth significantly more than 2% of starting the median project, and some of which are very unlikely to lead to any real-world impact at all.
On (3), I’d note that it may be inadvisible to evaluate community builders on a 50:1 ratio even assuming that is the funders’ true preference. If the super-high scoring item is uncommon enough, its existence during a period being evaluated may be a fairly weak predictor of whether it would be present in a future period. For instance, I care a whole lot more about airplane crashes than near-misses, but the number of near-misses in the past few years might be a stronger predictor of future crashes than the number of crashes in the past few years.
Assuming the organizer’s salary is already provided for
That isn’t always the case. For some, the costs included organizer salary which is a significant expense. But yes, I agree the retreats I looked at weren’t super cost-efficient (not that they necessarily should’ve been) and that retreat organizers can aim for lower.
“Projects” are just too vague, but maybe you have something more specific in mind?
Yes, I do mean something like “a project which generated full-time work for at least two people for several months”, not just “updating a website”. Note that I rarely used this scoring so I don’t think the definition here will swing the results much.
I’m going to shape my event in a way that makes starting new projects an especially large (plausibly) the largest focus of my event. Is that your intent?
Tentatively yes; I think new community members should be encouraged to take actions and try things out, though thinking about cause prioritization and engaging with the ideas thoroughly is probably a first step they need to take anyway so I’m not sure that should change how you think about presenting ideas.
Note that, unfortunately, the CEA events team won’t be making grants any more (see later post in the sequence).
Thanks for writing this! A couple of random thoughts
I’m also surprised by the cost of these CEP retreats ($1,500+ per attendee). Assuming the organizer’s salary is already provided for, I expected the cost for the average attendee to be closer to $300-$750.
Also, I respect the establishment of a scoring system, but the weightings seem problematic. For instance, “someone reports starting a project in an EA-aligned cause area” receives a score of 50, and “someone meets someone who inspires them to take an opportunity or cause area more seriously” receives a score of 1.
That’s not intuitive to me. I would much prefer 50 people attending a retreat/EAGx and reporting they felt inspired to take a cause area or opportunity more seriously over 1 person reporting they started a new project. “Projects” are just too vague, but maybe you have something more specific in mind?
Scoring systems like this will affect how community builders design events. e.g. Say I’m an events organizer and I want funding from the CEA events team. I know the CEA events team prefers projects over updated cause prioritization at 50:1. Then I’m going to shape my event in a way that makes starting new projects an especially large (plausibly) the largest focus of my event. Is that your intent? Are there already guidelines on how community builders should think about this?
On (2), my guess is that the 1-point category covers a broad range of events, some of which are worth significantly more than 2% of starting the median project, and some of which are very unlikely to lead to any real-world impact at all.
On (3), I’d note that it may be inadvisible to evaluate community builders on a 50:1 ratio even assuming that is the funders’ true preference. If the super-high scoring item is uncommon enough, its existence during a period being evaluated may be a fairly weak predictor of whether it would be present in a future period. For instance, I care a whole lot more about airplane crashes than near-misses, but the number of near-misses in the past few years might be a stronger predictor of future crashes than the number of crashes in the past few years.
Thanks JD!
That isn’t always the case. For some, the costs included organizer salary which is a significant expense. But yes, I agree the retreats I looked at weren’t super cost-efficient (not that they necessarily should’ve been) and that retreat organizers can aim for lower.
Yes, I do mean something like “a project which generated full-time work for at least two people for several months”, not just “updating a website”. Note that I rarely used this scoring so I don’t think the definition here will swing the results much.
Tentatively yes; I think new community members should be encouraged to take actions and try things out, though thinking about cause prioritization and engaging with the ideas thoroughly is probably a first step they need to take anyway so I’m not sure that should change how you think about presenting ideas.
Note that, unfortunately, the CEA events team won’t be making grants any more (see later post in the sequence).