Part of the problem is there are not that many volunteer spots â even if this worked, it wouldnât scale. There are communities and movements that are designed such that thereâs lots of volunteer work to be done, such that you can provide 1000 volunteer jobs. But I donât think EA is one of them.
Iâve heard a few people from orgs express frustration that people come to them wanting to volunteer, but this feels less like the orgs receive a benefit, and more than the org is creating a training program (at cost to themselves) to provide a benefit to the volunteers.
I agree that EA does not have 1000 volunteer jobs. However, here is a list of some possibilities. I know ALLFED could still effectively utilize more volunteers.
My claim is just that âvolunteer at an orgâ is not a scalable action that it makes sense to be a default thing EA groups do in their spare time. This isnât to say volunteers arenât valuable, or that many EAs shouldnât explore that as an option, or that better coordination tools to improve the situation shouldnât be built.
But I am a bit more pessimistic about it â the last time I checked, many of the times someone had said âhuh, it looks like there should be all this free labor available by passionate people, canât we connect these people with orgs that need volunteers?â and tried to build some kind of tool to help with that, it turned out that most people arenât actually very good at volunteering, and that it requires something more domain specific and effortful to get anything done.
My impression is that getting volunteers is about has hard as hiring a regular employee (much cheaper in money, but not in time and management attention), and that hiring employees is generally pretty hard.
(Again, not arguing that ALLFED shouldnât look for volunteers or that EAs shouldnât volunteer at ALLFED, esp. if my experience doesnât match yours. Iâd encourage anyone reading this whoâs looking for projects to give ALLFED volunteering a look.)
The Middle of the Middle of the funnel is specifically people who I expect to not yet be very good at volunteering, in part because theyâre either young and lacking some core âfigure out how to be helpful and actually helpâ skills, or theyâre older and busier with day jobs that take a lot of the same cognitive bandwidth that EA volunteering would require.
I think the *End* of the Middle of the funnel is more of where âvolunteer at EA orgsâ makes sense. And people in the Middle of the Middle who think they have the âfigure out how to be helpful and helpâ property should do so if theyâre self-motivated to. (If theyâre not self motivated theyâre probably not a good volunteer)
How about volunteering for an EA org?
Part of the problem is there are not that many volunteer spots â even if this worked, it wouldnât scale. There are communities and movements that are designed such that thereâs lots of volunteer work to be done, such that you can provide 1000 volunteer jobs. But I donât think EA is one of them.
Iâve heard a few people from orgs express frustration that people come to them wanting to volunteer, but this feels less like the orgs receive a benefit, and more than the org is creating a training program (at cost to themselves) to provide a benefit to the volunteers.
I agree that EA does not have 1000 volunteer jobs. However, here is a list of some possibilities. I know ALLFED could still effectively utilize more volunteers.
My claim is just that âvolunteer at an orgâ is not a scalable action that it makes sense to be a default thing EA groups do in their spare time. This isnât to say volunteers arenât valuable, or that many EAs shouldnât explore that as an option, or that better coordination tools to improve the situation shouldnât be built.
But I am a bit more pessimistic about it â the last time I checked, many of the times someone had said âhuh, it looks like there should be all this free labor available by passionate people, canât we connect these people with orgs that need volunteers?â and tried to build some kind of tool to help with that, it turned out that most people arenât actually very good at volunteering, and that it requires something more domain specific and effortful to get anything done.
My impression is that getting volunteers is about has hard as hiring a regular employee (much cheaper in money, but not in time and management attention), and that hiring employees is generally pretty hard.
(Again, not arguing that ALLFED shouldnât look for volunteers or that EAs shouldnât volunteer at ALLFED, esp. if my experience doesnât match yours. Iâd encourage anyone reading this whoâs looking for projects to give ALLFED volunteering a look.)
The Middle of the Middle of the funnel is specifically people who I expect to not yet be very good at volunteering, in part because theyâre either young and lacking some core âfigure out how to be helpful and actually helpâ skills, or theyâre older and busier with day jobs that take a lot of the same cognitive bandwidth that EA volunteering would require.
I think the *End* of the Middle of the funnel is more of where âvolunteer at EA orgsâ makes sense. And people in the Middle of the Middle who think they have the âfigure out how to be helpful and helpâ property should do so if theyâre self-motivated to. (If theyâre not self motivated theyâre probably not a good volunteer)