Right now I think of EA Netherlands as the national organisation for effective altruism. Our mission is to build a community of and for effective altruists in the Netherlands. We mainly do this through:
outreach and education (target group: proto-EAs), e.g., media engagement, social media, intro programme, etc.
organising (target group: local group organisers), e.g., 1-1 support, training, etc.
GCR fieldbuilding (target group: GCR professionals), e.g. AIS retreat, etc.
network development (target group: existing EAs), e.g., EAGx, EA office, etc.
Models I use to guide my thinking: mobilising and organising + SMS, ND, FB, and PUPO). I don’t really think of us as running a national group, which is how CBG recipients are often described.
We aren’t currently a membership organisation but (without having looked into it much yet) I tentatively think we ought to be.
I don’t think ‘professional association’ is quite the right framing—mainly because it feels a bit weird to think of professional effective altruists. Maybe EA ought to be just a research field, but it’s more than that at the moment.[1]
Therefore, from this list of civil society institutions (which includes professional associations), I’d say we’re more like a voluntary association or a social movement organisation, similar to the NAACP or a national Greenpeace organisation.
GCR feels more analogous to psychology. Both are primarily research fields, both have people who work on them professionally, so I think it makes sense for both to have professional associations.
These examples at the end are interesting and worth me mulling over. I do get the sense that Greenpeace or the NAACP would do many of the things you do
Interesting question! Some quick thoughts below.
Right now I think of EA Netherlands as the national organisation for effective altruism. Our mission is to build a community of and for effective altruists in the Netherlands. We mainly do this through:
outreach and education (target group: proto-EAs), e.g., media engagement, social media, intro programme, etc.
organising (target group: local group organisers), e.g., 1-1 support, training, etc.
GCR fieldbuilding (target group: GCR professionals), e.g. AIS retreat, etc.
network development (target group: existing EAs), e.g., EAGx, EA office, etc.
Models I use to guide my thinking: mobilising and organising + SMS, ND, FB, and PUPO). I don’t really think of us as running a national group, which is how CBG recipients are often described.
We aren’t currently a membership organisation but (without having looked into it much yet) I tentatively think we ought to be.
I don’t think ‘professional association’ is quite the right framing—mainly because it feels a bit weird to think of professional effective altruists. Maybe EA ought to be just a research field, but it’s more than that at the moment.[1]
Therefore, from this list of civil society institutions (which includes professional associations), I’d say we’re more like a voluntary association or a social movement organisation, similar to the NAACP or a national Greenpeace organisation.
GCR feels more analogous to psychology. Both are primarily research fields, both have people who work on them professionally, so I think it makes sense for both to have professional associations.
These examples at the end are interesting and worth me mulling over. I do get the sense that Greenpeace or the NAACP would do many of the things you do