It seems to me that people are spending a lot of time (as in months and months!) applying for extremely oversubscribed things that they hope will gain them experience and a track record. EA is getting bottlenecked by application evaluation.
The huge personal resource investment needed to make you look good and succeed on a really competitive resume, interview, application process etc—can probably be better spent on effective volunteering, assuming you’re *actually* relatively good at the work. The counterfactual difference in world impact is huge—rather than being a resource investment you’re a resource contributor. And it will also gain you experience and a track record.
On a related note re: CEEALAR, anyone who wants to do some fundraising for effective charities is welcome to come upskill, connect, and get productive at CEEALAR for the Effective Giving Organiser Retreat 6th-9th February 2026 at the EA Hotel, Blackpool, UK. This retreat is free, with all meals and accommodation included. Run by me, with appearances from One for the World and Giving What We Can. https://​​forms.gle/​​E4Kqp32TUnG4DcVa7 to sign up. Disclaimer: I paid CEEALAR for this event out of my pledge money because it’s part of the work I’m doing to get effective giving volunteer fundraising back on the EA community map.
Lastly I want to agree that CEEALAR is amazingly cost-efficient and impactful, and the fact that they have to go through this song and dance every single year it seems (thereby distracting their organisers from cracking on with the object-level work of training and incubating EAs and EA organisations) is clearly a major red flag about the short-termist nature of EA’s grantmaking systems for anyone looking to set up physical EA infrastructure in future. I would like CEEALAR to be able to stop applying and get to work.
I agree with this.
It seems to me that people are spending a lot of time (as in months and months!) applying for extremely oversubscribed things that they hope will gain them experience and a track record. EA is getting bottlenecked by application evaluation.
The huge personal resource investment needed to make you look good and succeed on a really competitive resume, interview, application process etc—can probably be better spent on effective volunteering, assuming you’re *actually* relatively good at the work. The counterfactual difference in world impact is huge—rather than being a resource investment you’re a resource contributor. And it will also gain you experience and a track record.
On a related note re: CEEALAR, anyone who wants to do some fundraising for effective charities is welcome to come upskill, connect, and get productive at CEEALAR for the Effective Giving Organiser Retreat 6th-9th February 2026 at the EA Hotel, Blackpool, UK. This retreat is free, with all meals and accommodation included. Run by me, with appearances from One for the World and Giving What We Can. https://​​forms.gle/​​E4Kqp32TUnG4DcVa7 to sign up. Disclaimer: I paid CEEALAR for this event out of my pledge money because it’s part of the work I’m doing to get effective giving volunteer fundraising back on the EA community map.
Lastly I want to agree that CEEALAR is amazingly cost-efficient and impactful, and the fact that they have to go through this song and dance every single year it seems (thereby distracting their organisers from cracking on with the object-level work of training and incubating EAs and EA organisations) is clearly a major red flag about the short-termist nature of EA’s grantmaking systems for anyone looking to set up physical EA infrastructure in future. I would like CEEALAR to be able to stop applying and get to work.