Upvoted. As for any post of this length, I’d recommend a bullet-point summary at the top, alongside any action items you’d like readers to take.
I’m enthusiastic about the idea of a project platform. The EA survey might be a good place to gather data on what’s out there (plus whatever info people upload directly to the site).
My impression is that most projects don’t have lasting impact outside of skill-building, but a few volunteer-founded initiatives (the EA Newsletter, the Giving Tuesday Project) have really impressed me, and I’m sure there are good projects I haven’t discovered yet.
That’s a great idea, I’ll include a summary with action items on future long posts. Do you think I should edit a summary into the current post?
I hadn’t considered using the EA Survey as a data gathering mechanism. My initial thought is that the survey administrators might not want to include project-related questions in the survey because it might be beyond the scope of the survey, add a lot of additional questions to the survey, and not apply to many respondents. Did you have something specific in mind about what adding project-related info to the survey would look like?
Perhaps the word “project” has a different connotation than I intended. We’re seeking to support the highest impact early ventures, and included in that classification would be the past early-stage versions of every currently existing EA organization. Do you think a different term would be appropriate? The naming is very much a work in progress; I was thinking of the EA Initiatives Platform, EA Coordination Platform, or simply the Altruism.vc Platform among many potential names.
The EA Angel Group has received proposals that would match “startup” more than “project.” The majority of proposals have already received funding prior to applying to us, have teams actively working on the proposal, and have some degree of traction.
Yes, I definitely endorse editing summaries into long posts, both to help future readers and to establish good norms for other posters! :-)
For the EA Survey note, I was responding to this part of your post:
It may be the case that an even broader platform that applies to the entire EA community, encompassing all community members and EA organizations, would be even better for increasing the impact of the effective altruism movement.
I don’t know whether the Survey would welcome questions about projects, but you could ask. I’m thinking of something like: “Have you ever worked on an independent/volunteer EA project that wasn’t run by a larger EA organization, whether or not the project is still going?”, and then, if they say “yes”, a link to a spreadsheet/form where they can add some details. The exact wording of the question will be determined by the way you decide to define “project”.
The purpose of a survey question would be to catch lesser-known projects, including some that failed—there are still lessons to learn in those cases. Gathering data on something like the early history of currently successful orgs would look very different, I imagine.
Upvoted. As for any post of this length, I’d recommend a bullet-point summary at the top, alongside any action items you’d like readers to take.
I’m enthusiastic about the idea of a project platform. The EA survey might be a good place to gather data on what’s out there (plus whatever info people upload directly to the site).
My impression is that most projects don’t have lasting impact outside of skill-building, but a few volunteer-founded initiatives (the EA Newsletter, the Giving Tuesday Project) have really impressed me, and I’m sure there are good projects I haven’t discovered yet.
That’s a great idea, I’ll include a summary with action items on future long posts. Do you think I should edit a summary into the current post?
I hadn’t considered using the EA Survey as a data gathering mechanism. My initial thought is that the survey administrators might not want to include project-related questions in the survey because it might be beyond the scope of the survey, add a lot of additional questions to the survey, and not apply to many respondents. Did you have something specific in mind about what adding project-related info to the survey would look like?
Perhaps the word “project” has a different connotation than I intended. We’re seeking to support the highest impact early ventures, and included in that classification would be the past early-stage versions of every currently existing EA organization. Do you think a different term would be appropriate? The naming is very much a work in progress; I was thinking of the EA Initiatives Platform, EA Coordination Platform, or simply the Altruism.vc Platform among many potential names.
The EA Angel Group has received proposals that would match “startup” more than “project.” The majority of proposals have already received funding prior to applying to us, have teams actively working on the proposal, and have some degree of traction.
Yes, I definitely endorse editing summaries into long posts, both to help future readers and to establish good norms for other posters! :-)
For the EA Survey note, I was responding to this part of your post:
I don’t know whether the Survey would welcome questions about projects, but you could ask. I’m thinking of something like: “Have you ever worked on an independent/volunteer EA project that wasn’t run by a larger EA organization, whether or not the project is still going?”, and then, if they say “yes”, a link to a spreadsheet/form where they can add some details. The exact wording of the question will be determined by the way you decide to define “project”.
The purpose of a survey question would be to catch lesser-known projects, including some that failed—there are still lessons to learn in those cases. Gathering data on something like the early history of currently successful orgs would look very different, I imagine.