EA community building relies heavily on a few large donors. This creates risk.
One way to reduce that risk is to broaden the funding base. Membership models might help.[1]
Many people assume EA will only ever appeal to a small slice of the population, and so this funding would never amount to anything significant. However, I think people often underestimate how large a “small slice” can be.
Take the Dutch mountaineering association. A mountaineering club in one of the flattest countries on Earth doesn’t exactly scream mass appeal.
So, how many members do you think it has?
Around 80,000. That alone brings in roughly €4 million in membership contributions—about 70% of its total annual income.[2]
Even niche communities can fund themselves if enough people are engaged.
On the income side of the ledger, having more members might help. But the more members you have, the more you need to spend on member-service activities (i.e., whatever it is that you’re offering that makes people want to pay the membership fee).
On the one hand, I don’t think that member-service activity expenditure would scale linearly with increased membership. On the other hand, current spend on meta / community building activities is far more than €50/involved person. So my assumption is that—at best—the marginal costs of serving additional members would be equal to the membership revenue. A meta in which the spend per average member was anywhere close to that would be a very different meta indeed.
You’re right that EA’s current meta budget works out to far more than €50 per “involved person”—but that average includes the highly engaged core: people attending conferences, receiving 1-1 support, travel grants, and significant staff time.
A low-touch “supporter” tier is a different product entirely. If you ask someone for €50/year just to back the mission, receive a newsletter, and gain access to certain events, the marginal cost is minimal: card fees, a CRM entry, an occasional email, maybe a €5 welcome sticker. Even doubling every line item puts the cost at €10–20, leaving €30–40 net per person.
We could keep the high-cost, high-impact activities funded by major donors, while using a supporter tier as a lightweight way for sympathisers to express commitment and reduce funding concentration risk.
I think an organization like that is plausible, but I get the sense that it is a much different animal than the Dutch mountaineering association.
Although the financial breakdown is sparse (and I can’t read Dutch), a glance at the website suggests the association offers a lot of activities and other sources of value for its members—which I am guessing are significantly more costly than a card, sticker, e-mail, and so on. If you’re even moderately interested in mountaineering, it makes sense that joining would provide you with a lot of value. Thus, I wouldn’t be surprised that a large fraction of people who are moderately interested in mountaineering join.
That doesn’t strike me as the right joining-percentage base rate for an organization in which members don’t get much to show for their membership fees. For example, one might consider the number of individuals who support the free / open source software movement versus the number who are paying members of a FOSS software organization. If the conversion rate of interested people into membership of a sticker-and-card organization is rather low, you need a rather large group of interested people to end up with a sizable membership.
Don’t get me wrong; a membership organization with 80,000 people would be great! I just don’t see that a low-cost membership organization as a likely way to reduce net funding pressures.
I think you might be overestimating how much the NKBV offers as part of the basic membership. Most of their trips and courses, etc., are paid add-ons. What the €50 fee actually gets you is fairly lightweight: a magazine, eligibility to join trips (not free), discounted access to mountain huts (because the NKBV helps fund them), inclusion in their group insurance policy, and a 10% discount with a Dutch outdoor brand.
That’s not nothing, but it’s modest and it shows that people will pay for affiliation, identity, and access to a community infrastructure, even if the tangible perks are limited.
The EA equivalent could be things like discounted or early access to EAG(x) events, member-only discussion groups, or eligibility to complete advanced courses offered by national EA associations. If multiple countries coordinated, pooled membership fees could help subsidise international EA public goods such as the Forum, EAG(x) events, group support infrastructure, etc.
I think the key point is this: the NKBV shows that people are willing to pay for affiliation, even if the direct perks are modest, as long as the organisation feels valuable to their identity and goals. EA can plausibly do the same.
The EA equivalent could be things like discounted or early access to EAG(x) events, member-only discussion groups, or eligibility to complete advanced courses offered by national EA associations.
Maybe, but this sounds to me a lot like erecting new pay gates for engagement with the community (both the membership fee and any extra fee for the advanced courses, etc.). Maybe that’s unavoidable, but it does carry some significant downsides that aren’t present with a mountaineering club (where the benefits of participation are intended to flow mainly to the participant rather than to third parties like animals or future people)
It also seems at tension with the current recruitment strategy by increasing barriers/friction to deeper engagement. And it seems that people most commonly become interested in EA in their 20s, an age at which imposing financial barriers to deeper engagement may be particularly negative. While I think people would be okay lowering pay gates based on certain objectively-applied markers of merit or need, I am not confident that this could be done in a way that both didn’t impede “core” recruitment and that “supporter” members experienced as fair and acceptable. Most people don’t want to pay for something others are getting for free / near-free without a sufficiently compelling reason.
You’re right to flag the risks of introducing pay gates. I agree it would be a mistake to charge for things that are currently core to how people first engage, especially given how many people first get involved in their 20s when finances are tight.
I think the case for a supporter membership model rests on keeping those core engagement paths free (intro courses, certain events, 1-1 advice, etc.), while offering membership as an optional way for people to express support, get modest perks, and help fund infrastructure.
I also think the contrast you draw between the two (mountaineering clubs = self-benefit, EA = other-benefit) is too simplistic. Most people who get involved in EA do so because they want to become more effective at helping others. That’s a deeply personal goal. They benefit from gaining clarity, support, and a community aligned with their values. EA resources serve them, not just the ultimate beneficiaries.
Likewise, mountaineering clubs aren’t purely self-serving either — they invest in safety standards, trail access, training, and other mountaineering public goods that benefit non-members and future members.
In both cases, people pay to be part of something they value, which helps them grow and contribute more, and then the thing they value ends up growing as well.
EA community building relies heavily on a few large donors. This creates risk.
One way to reduce that risk is to broaden the funding base. Membership models might help.[1]
Many people assume EA will only ever appeal to a small slice of the population, and so this funding would never amount to anything significant. However, I think people often underestimate how large a “small slice” can be.
Take the Dutch mountaineering association. A mountaineering club in one of the flattest countries on Earth doesn’t exactly scream mass appeal.
So, how many members do you think it has?
Around 80,000. That alone brings in roughly €4 million in membership contributions—about 70% of its total annual income.[2]
Even niche communities can fund themselves if enough people are engaged.
For now I’m putting to one side the question of whether having a membership model would distort community building incentives.
These figures are taken from their multi-year plan, available here.
On the income side of the ledger, having more members might help. But the more members you have, the more you need to spend on member-service activities (i.e., whatever it is that you’re offering that makes people want to pay the membership fee).
On the one hand, I don’t think that member-service activity expenditure would scale linearly with increased membership. On the other hand, current spend on meta / community building activities is far more than €50/involved person. So my assumption is that—at best—the marginal costs of serving additional members would be equal to the membership revenue. A meta in which the spend per average member was anywhere close to that would be a very different meta indeed.
You’re right that EA’s current meta budget works out to far more than €50 per “involved person”—but that average includes the highly engaged core: people attending conferences, receiving 1-1 support, travel grants, and significant staff time.
A low-touch “supporter” tier is a different product entirely. If you ask someone for €50/year just to back the mission, receive a newsletter, and gain access to certain events, the marginal cost is minimal: card fees, a CRM entry, an occasional email, maybe a €5 welcome sticker. Even doubling every line item puts the cost at €10–20, leaving €30–40 net per person.
We could keep the high-cost, high-impact activities funded by major donors, while using a supporter tier as a lightweight way for sympathisers to express commitment and reduce funding concentration risk.
I think an organization like that is plausible, but I get the sense that it is a much different animal than the Dutch mountaineering association.
Although the financial breakdown is sparse (and I can’t read Dutch), a glance at the website suggests the association offers a lot of activities and other sources of value for its members—which I am guessing are significantly more costly than a card, sticker, e-mail, and so on. If you’re even moderately interested in mountaineering, it makes sense that joining would provide you with a lot of value. Thus, I wouldn’t be surprised that a large fraction of people who are moderately interested in mountaineering join.
That doesn’t strike me as the right joining-percentage base rate for an organization in which members don’t get much to show for their membership fees. For example, one might consider the number of individuals who support the free / open source software movement versus the number who are paying members of a FOSS software organization. If the conversion rate of interested people into membership of a sticker-and-card organization is rather low, you need a rather large group of interested people to end up with a sizable membership.
Don’t get me wrong; a membership organization with 80,000 people would be great! I just don’t see that a low-cost membership organization as a likely way to reduce net funding pressures.
I think you might be overestimating how much the NKBV offers as part of the basic membership. Most of their trips and courses, etc., are paid add-ons. What the €50 fee actually gets you is fairly lightweight: a magazine, eligibility to join trips (not free), discounted access to mountain huts (because the NKBV helps fund them), inclusion in their group insurance policy, and a 10% discount with a Dutch outdoor brand.
That’s not nothing, but it’s modest and it shows that people will pay for affiliation, identity, and access to a community infrastructure, even if the tangible perks are limited.
The EA equivalent could be things like discounted or early access to EAG(x) events, member-only discussion groups, or eligibility to complete advanced courses offered by national EA associations. If multiple countries coordinated, pooled membership fees could help subsidise international EA public goods such as the Forum, EAG(x) events, group support infrastructure, etc.
I think the key point is this: the NKBV shows that people are willing to pay for affiliation, even if the direct perks are modest, as long as the organisation feels valuable to their identity and goals. EA can plausibly do the same.
Maybe, but this sounds to me a lot like erecting new pay gates for engagement with the community (both the membership fee and any extra fee for the advanced courses, etc.). Maybe that’s unavoidable, but it does carry some significant downsides that aren’t present with a mountaineering club (where the benefits of participation are intended to flow mainly to the participant rather than to third parties like animals or future people)
It also seems at tension with the current recruitment strategy by increasing barriers/friction to deeper engagement. And it seems that people most commonly become interested in EA in their 20s, an age at which imposing financial barriers to deeper engagement may be particularly negative. While I think people would be okay lowering pay gates based on certain objectively-applied markers of merit or need, I am not confident that this could be done in a way that both didn’t impede “core” recruitment and that “supporter” members experienced as fair and acceptable. Most people don’t want to pay for something others are getting for free / near-free without a sufficiently compelling reason.
You’re right to flag the risks of introducing pay gates. I agree it would be a mistake to charge for things that are currently core to how people first engage, especially given how many people first get involved in their 20s when finances are tight.
I think the case for a supporter membership model rests on keeping those core engagement paths free (intro courses, certain events, 1-1 advice, etc.), while offering membership as an optional way for people to express support, get modest perks, and help fund infrastructure.
I also think the contrast you draw between the two (mountaineering clubs = self-benefit, EA = other-benefit) is too simplistic. Most people who get involved in EA do so because they want to become more effective at helping others. That’s a deeply personal goal. They benefit from gaining clarity, support, and a community aligned with their values. EA resources serve them, not just the ultimate beneficiaries.
Likewise, mountaineering clubs aren’t purely self-serving either — they invest in safety standards, trail access, training, and other mountaineering public goods that benefit non-members and future members.
In both cases, people pay to be part of something they value, which helps them grow and contribute more, and then the thing they value ends up growing as well.