Fantastic post and thank you for articulating this! I feel really similarly doing workplace organising—a lot of the value seems to be driven from connecting people to other people that take doing good seriously.
Some people struggle to work out what the EA community is supposed to do for them, or what the point of it all is. For what it’s worth, my experience has been that this confusion extends to all levels of seniority within the community. But for me, participating in the community was the obvious way to counter the attrition Brooks warned of. I tend to agree that you will tend to become more like those around you, but that applies to people other than your colleagues, and you can choose who those people are! Maybe those ‘EAs’ even find what you are doing praiseworthy, but a lot of the power is just in feeling less weird for trying.
I often feel like people working at core EA orgs forget how valuable this is for the vast majority of EAs, who do not work with other EAs. Almost everyone I know outside EA, from my parents to my colleagues to my neighbours, is not seeking to improve the wider world with any significant fraction of their resources. They’re just getting on with their lives and trying to do right by the people they meet. To the extent they are aware of my giving, their attitude is one of curious fascination.
Do you have thoughts on what you’d like to see more of in community building to support E2Gers? I’d be particularly curious about what you think made a difference when you were younger vs now
In terms of things that would have helped when I was younger, I’m pretty on board with GWWC’s new community strategy,[1] and Grace’s thoughts on why a gap opened up in this space. I was routinely working 60-70 hour weeks at the time, so doing something like an EA fellowship would have been an implausibly large ask and a lot of related things seem vibed in a way I would have found very offputting. My actual starting contact points with the EA community consisted of no-obligation low-effort socials and prior versions of EA Global.
In terms of things now, it’s complicated. I suspect anything that prompts people to talk about how much they are giving and/or where is pretty powerful; knowing other traders who were donating 65+% was a real motivation to challenge myself on why I couldn’t do the same or at least get closer, and I suspect I’ve had similar impacts on some others. Obviously, this kind of pressure can go wrong, but when it’s mostly self-directed - ‘why can’t I?’ rather than ‘why don’t you?’ - and bouncing around very high-earning circles I think it nets out pretty positive. Seeing people find constructive things to do with their money also helps counter “Funding Overhang” memes.
Others’ mileage may vary on how much these generalise.
Since my wife is involved with the GWWC London group and I have given a lot of money to GWWC since their reboot, I can’t really claim to be unbiased here.
Absolutely agree—although I’m one of the other GWWC London co-leads so I am also biased here. I think low commitment in person socials are really important and tbh the social proof of meeting people like me who donated significantly was the most important factor for me personally.
I’d would like to see people be a lot more public with their pledges. I personally think Linkedin is underutilised here—adding pledges to the volunteering section your profile is low effort but sets a benchmark.
I’ve personally added my pledge to my email signature, but I think this depends a lot on the kind of role you have, the company you work for and if you think the personal reputation risk is worth the potential upside (influencing someone else to donate more to effective charities).
I think this could be especially powerful for senior people who have a lot of influence but equally I’ve had a few meaningful conversations with people off the back of it.
I’ve got a half-written post on this for this forum series and Alex from @Giving What We Can has created some fantastic banner images for LinkedIn profiles. Some resources from GWWC:
Fantastic post and thank you for articulating this! I feel really similarly doing workplace organising—a lot of the value seems to be driven from connecting people to other people that take doing good seriously.
Do you have thoughts on what you’d like to see more of in community building to support E2Gers? I’d be particularly curious about what you think made a difference when you were younger vs now
In terms of things that would have helped when I was younger, I’m pretty on board with GWWC’s new community strategy,[1] and Grace’s thoughts on why a gap opened up in this space. I was routinely working 60-70 hour weeks at the time, so doing something like an EA fellowship would have been an implausibly large ask and a lot of related things seem vibed in a way I would have found very offputting. My actual starting contact points with the EA community consisted of no-obligation low-effort socials and prior versions of EA Global.
In terms of things now, it’s complicated. I suspect anything that prompts people to talk about how much they are giving and/or where is pretty powerful; knowing other traders who were donating 65+% was a real motivation to challenge myself on why I couldn’t do the same or at least get closer, and I suspect I’ve had similar impacts on some others. Obviously, this kind of pressure can go wrong, but when it’s mostly self-directed - ‘why can’t I?’ rather than ‘why don’t you?’ - and bouncing around very high-earning circles I think it nets out pretty positive. Seeing people find constructive things to do with their money also helps counter “Funding Overhang” memes.
Others’ mileage may vary on how much these generalise.
Since my wife is involved with the GWWC London group and I have given a lot of money to GWWC since their reboot, I can’t really claim to be unbiased here.
Absolutely agree—although I’m one of the other GWWC London co-leads so I am also biased here. I think low commitment in person socials are really important and tbh the social proof of meeting people like me who donated significantly was the most important factor for me personally.
I’d would like to see people be a lot more public with their pledges. I personally think Linkedin is underutilised here—adding pledges to the volunteering section your profile is low effort but sets a benchmark.
I’ve personally added my pledge to my email signature, but I think this depends a lot on the kind of role you have, the company you work for and if you think the personal reputation risk is worth the potential upside (influencing someone else to donate more to effective charities).
I think this could be especially powerful for senior people who have a lot of influence but equally I’ve had a few meaningful conversations with people off the back of it.
I’ve got a half-written post on this for this forum series and Alex from @Giving What We Can has created some fantastic banner images for LinkedIn profiles. Some resources from GWWC:
Donating anonymously: Should we be private or public about giving to charity? · Giving What We Can
Why you should mention the Pledge in your LinkedIn summary · Giving What We Can