Thank you for this article.
My own concern is that I’ve personally had little access to guidance on movement building (in the Netherlands) from people more experienced/knowledgeable on this area.
I’ve therefore have had to try to understand the risks and benefits for considerations like EA’s ‘strictness’ vs. the number of people it appeals to myself. I don’t think someone with a ‘coordinator’ role like me should be expected to rigorously compile and evaluate research on movement building by him or herself.
My default position with which I started last year was to get as many concrete EA actions happening immediately as possible (e.g. participants, donations, giving pledges, career changes, etc.) to create the highest multiplier that I could. What intuitively follows from that is to do lots of emotionally appealing marketing (and get on TV if possible). I’ve encountered other people at other local groups and national organisations who seemed to think this way at least in part (I’m probably exaggerating this paragraph slightly, also to drive home my point).
I’d like to point out that in the last year, EA Flanders, EA France, EA Australia and EA Netherlands (and probably others which I’ve missed) have launched. Also, the number of local groups still seem to be growing rapidly (I count 313 on EA Hubs though some are missing and some are inactive). I think it would be a mistake to (implicitly) assume that the entrepreneurial people taking initiative here will come to conclusions that incorporate the currently-known risks and benefits to the future impact of the EA movement by themselves.
If the CEA Research Division is building an expertise in this area, I would suggest it starts giving the option to these individual leaders of grassroots local & national groups (with say member count >20) to do short Skype calls where it can share and discuss its insights on movement building as it’s relevant in each local context.
I’d happily connect CEA researchers with other interested national group leaders to test this out (and be the first to sign up myself). Feel free to send me a quick message at remmeltellenis(at}gmail{dot)com
(an alternative is to go through CEA Chapters/the Group Organisers call.)
Edits: some spelling & grammar nitpicks, further clarification and call-to action.
Thank you for this article. My own concern is that I’ve personally had little access to guidance on movement building (in the Netherlands) from people more experienced/knowledgeable on this area. I’ve therefore have had to try to understand the risks and benefits for considerations like EA’s ‘strictness’ vs. the number of people it appeals to myself. I don’t think someone with a ‘coordinator’ role like me should be expected to rigorously compile and evaluate research on movement building by him or herself.
My default position with which I started last year was to get as many concrete EA actions happening immediately as possible (e.g. participants, donations, giving pledges, career changes, etc.) to create the highest multiplier that I could. What intuitively follows from that is to do lots of emotionally appealing marketing (and get on TV if possible). I’ve encountered other people at other local groups and national organisations who seemed to think this way at least in part (I’m probably exaggerating this paragraph slightly, also to drive home my point).
I’d like to point out that in the last year, EA Flanders, EA France, EA Australia and EA Netherlands (and probably others which I’ve missed) have launched. Also, the number of local groups still seem to be growing rapidly (I count 313 on EA Hubs though some are missing and some are inactive). I think it would be a mistake to (implicitly) assume that the entrepreneurial people taking initiative here will come to conclusions that incorporate the currently-known risks and benefits to the future impact of the EA movement by themselves.
If the CEA Research Division is building an expertise in this area, I would suggest it starts giving the option to these individual leaders of grassroots local & national groups (with say member count >20) to do short Skype calls where it can share and discuss its insights on movement building as it’s relevant in each local context.
I’d happily connect CEA researchers with other interested national group leaders to test this out (and be the first to sign up myself). Feel free to send me a quick message at remmeltellenis(at}gmail{dot)com (an alternative is to go through CEA Chapters/the Group Organisers call.)
Edits: some spelling & grammar nitpicks, further clarification and call-to action.