Will not comment on the content of your vision of EAN, I’m sure you see and know more than I do about the specifics of EA community building, what works and what does not. My thoughts are rather structural, mainly because it seems like much of the next actions in the new future are exploration (generation solution ideas, interviews, etc.).
1. Is the dutch context so different that we have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for solutions that work? Why can we not learn from and copy the strategies and programmes that we have the most solid evidence of working from other national EA orgs?
2. Is there a specific reason why we are now questioning the effectiveness of programmes and our understanding of community needs? Asking specifically since it seems like it would help in focussing your priorities to decide what level of evidence you need to see before you are willing to commit to a specific approach for a pre-defined amount of time before re-evaluating. Not that you should be blind to feedback or doubts during such a commitment phase, but rather would respond by improving the quality of the programme in the areas of doubt (instead of questioning whether it is even worth it).
Thanks Jari, great questions! Also congrats on your first comment!!
1. National orgs haven’t done much experimentation with programme development, so there isn’t much to copy. EA Switzerland recently bolted on an impact cohort to their trad intro programme, which looks promising, and EA UK are going to try and replicate it, so one option would be to just copy that, and I’m considering that. In the past 6 months or so, EA Israel has been trying to build an intro programme from the ground up, but that’s more focused on students and young professionals. CEA’s virtual programme hasn’t been updated significantly in years. CEA’s bootcamp or HIP’s IAP are interesting candidates for copying BUT they’re online and are mostly about helping people switch careers, rather than generally helping people increase their impact/onboarding people to the community.[1]
2. We think we might be able to do more. Last year, we experimented with various GTM strats, and got some decent results (140% increase in completions). But our CAC was a bit high, and this might be an indicator we don’t have PMF. We’re also worried that, as our target audience has changed, the intro course is less likely to produce the outcomes we’re looking for.
It might be the case that we end up doing something similar regardless because, when we interview our target audience, we discover they just really want career programmes. If that’s the case, then we should probably just copy what HIP and CEA are doing (with some adaptations).
Will not comment on the content of your vision of EAN, I’m sure you see and know more than I do about the specifics of EA community building, what works and what does not. My thoughts are rather structural, mainly because it seems like much of the next actions in the new future are exploration (generation solution ideas, interviews, etc.).
1. Is the dutch context so different that we have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for solutions that work? Why can we not learn from and copy the strategies and programmes that we have the most solid evidence of working from other national EA orgs?
2. Is there a specific reason why we are now questioning the effectiveness of programmes and our understanding of community needs? Asking specifically since it seems like it would help in focussing your priorities to decide what level of evidence you need to see before you are willing to commit to a specific approach for a pre-defined amount of time before re-evaluating. Not that you should be blind to feedback or doubts during such a commitment phase, but rather would respond by improving the quality of the programme in the areas of doubt (instead of questioning whether it is even worth it).
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Jari, great questions! Also congrats on your first comment!!
1. National orgs haven’t done much experimentation with programme development, so there isn’t much to copy. EA Switzerland recently bolted on an impact cohort to their trad intro programme, which looks promising, and EA UK are going to try and replicate it, so one option would be to just copy that, and I’m considering that. In the past 6 months or so, EA Israel has been trying to build an intro programme from the ground up, but that’s more focused on students and young professionals. CEA’s virtual programme hasn’t been updated significantly in years. CEA’s bootcamp or HIP’s IAP are interesting candidates for copying BUT they’re online and are mostly about helping people switch careers, rather than generally helping people increase their impact/onboarding people to the community.[1]
2. We think we might be able to do more. Last year, we experimented with various GTM strats, and got some decent results (140% increase in completions). But our CAC was a bit high, and this might be an indicator we don’t have PMF. We’re also worried that, as our target audience has changed, the intro course is less likely to produce the outcomes we’re looking for.
It might be the case that we end up doing something similar regardless because, when we interview our target audience, we discover they just really want career programmes. If that’s the case, then we should probably just copy what HIP and CEA are doing (with some adaptations).