Thank you very much for taking the time to write this, @Melanie Brennan 🔹 and @Anthony L ! It must have been difficult at this time of turmoil.
First, congratulations on all you (and past CBers) have accomplished in Barcelona and in Spain more generally. Your recap in this post clearly shows that much was done, and I think your sustained work has probably created a lot of positive impact.
Second, I think this post is important for reminding all of us that EA community building is at a strange place: it is clearly important, but it is also very hard to get funding for. Like many other roles in EA, we (counting myself) are precarious workers, relying on yearly renewals and decent-if-you-can-live-frugally salaries. Off the top of my head, I’d say with confidence that fewer than 50 people in the world do principles-first EA community building as their main source of income. And I think perhaps fewer than 30 have been at it for more than 2 years.
Good luck to both of you, and looking forward to see the switch to a community/​volunteering-led system works out!
Thanks Guillaume! Honestly, writing it was both hard and weirdly cathartic. The precarity aspect didn’t hit me until I was in it… the yearly renewal anxiety, the lack of feedback, the feeling of building things on sand. Less than 50 people globally is crazy! Sometimes I wonder if that’s by design or just how things turned out to be.
Really appreciate you taking the time. Means a lot from someone who’s been going through this longer. We’ll see how the volunteer model works as it’s an experiment, really, and hopefully we can share learnings either way.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this, @Melanie Brennan 🔹 and @Anthony L ! It must have been difficult at this time of turmoil.
First, congratulations on all you (and past CBers) have accomplished in Barcelona and in Spain more generally. Your recap in this post clearly shows that much was done, and I think your sustained work has probably created a lot of positive impact.
Second, I think this post is important for reminding all of us that EA community building is at a strange place: it is clearly important, but it is also very hard to get funding for. Like many other roles in EA, we (counting myself) are precarious workers, relying on yearly renewals and decent-if-you-can-live-frugally salaries. Off the top of my head, I’d say with confidence that fewer than 50 people in the world do principles-first EA community building as their main source of income. And I think perhaps fewer than 30 have been at it for more than 2 years.
Good luck to both of you, and looking forward to see the switch to a community/​volunteering-led system works out!
Thanks Guillaume! Honestly, writing it was both hard and weirdly cathartic. The precarity aspect didn’t hit me until I was in it… the yearly renewal anxiety, the lack of feedback, the feeling of building things on sand. Less than 50 people globally is crazy! Sometimes I wonder if that’s by design or just how things turned out to be.
Really appreciate you taking the time. Means a lot from someone who’s been going through this longer. We’ll see how the volunteer model works as it’s an experiment, really, and hopefully we can share learnings either way.