Part of the problem is there are not that many volunteer spots ā even if this worked, it wouldnāt scale. There are communities and movements that are designed such that thereās lots of volunteer work to be done, such that you can provide 1000 volunteer jobs. But I donāt think EA is one of them.
Iāve 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 āvolunteer at an orgā is not a scalable action that it makes sense to be a default thing EA groups do in their spare time. This isnāt to say volunteers arenāt valuable, or that many EAs shouldnāt explore that as an option, or that better coordination tools to improve the situation shouldnāt be built.
But I am a bit more pessimistic about it ā the last time I checked, many of the times someone had said āhuh, it looks like there should be all this free labor available by passionate people, canāt we connect these people with orgs that need volunteers?ā and tried to build some kind of tool to help with that, it turned out that most people arenāt 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 shouldnāt look for volunteers or that EAs shouldnāt volunteer at ALLFED, esp. if my experience doesnāt match yours. Iād encourage anyone reading this whoās 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 theyāre either young and lacking some core āfigure out how to be helpful and actually helpā skills, or theyāre 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 āvolunteer at EA orgsā makes sense. And people in the Middle of the Middle who think they have the āfigure out how to be helpful and helpā property should do so if theyāre self-motivated to. (If theyāre not self motivated theyāre probably not a good volunteer)
How about volunteering for an EA org?
Part of the problem is there are not that many volunteer spots ā even if this worked, it wouldnāt scale. There are communities and movements that are designed such that thereās lots of volunteer work to be done, such that you can provide 1000 volunteer jobs. But I donāt think EA is one of them.
Iāve 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 āvolunteer at an orgā is not a scalable action that it makes sense to be a default thing EA groups do in their spare time. This isnāt to say volunteers arenāt valuable, or that many EAs shouldnāt explore that as an option, or that better coordination tools to improve the situation shouldnāt be built.
But I am a bit more pessimistic about it ā the last time I checked, many of the times someone had said āhuh, it looks like there should be all this free labor available by passionate people, canāt we connect these people with orgs that need volunteers?ā and tried to build some kind of tool to help with that, it turned out that most people arenāt 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 shouldnāt look for volunteers or that EAs shouldnāt volunteer at ALLFED, esp. if my experience doesnāt match yours. Iād encourage anyone reading this whoās 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 theyāre either young and lacking some core āfigure out how to be helpful and actually helpā skills, or theyāre 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 āvolunteer at EA orgsā makes sense. And people in the Middle of the Middle who think they have the āfigure out how to be helpful and helpā property should do so if theyāre self-motivated to. (If theyāre not self motivated theyāre probably not a good volunteer)