I’ve been thinking about this! I really have no sense if anyone involved in building the EA movement/EA orgs has sat down and really meticulously thought about narratives, audiences, framing and other elements of building a strong message. Does anyone know if this is being done?
If not, this seems like a potentially really exciting piece of work. If we just look at organisation that had a strong “meme”/message, whether it’s McDonalds or Friday’s for Future, it can really help an org reach their desired outcome. For us this might not be exponential growth in the general public (if we’re concerned about keep strong community values) but exponential growth in certain social groups e.g. donors or talented individuals in specific fields. The consensus on messaging says that emotional narratives work far better than facts and I think that could be an area where EA messaging hasn’t been optimal -as my impression is that we’re far more likely to speak about statistics vs emotional stories of those we’re helping.
One piece of work could be focus groups with the various audiences, high net-worth donors as an example, to figure out what message resonates the most then we try align wider EA orgs that do fundraising around this message. Same could go for recruiting people involved in technical AI safety etc. I get the impression it could be quite high-leverage as having been involved in crowdfunding, the strength of your messaging can make a huge (10x) difference to your results. This is a field where you can be quite rigorous with building narratives based on evidence so seems like a no-brainer for EA-aligned folks.
Would love to hear if any of this work is already being done as I definitely see it as a need in the EA-meta ecosystem. I could see it fitting in with CEA potentially or like you said—external consultancy or non-profit.
I’ve been thinking about this! I really have no sense if anyone involved in building the EA movement/EA orgs has sat down and really meticulously thought about narratives, audiences, framing and other elements of building a strong message. Does anyone know if this is being done?
If not, this seems like a potentially really exciting piece of work. If we just look at organisation that had a strong “meme”/message, whether it’s McDonalds or Friday’s for Future, it can really help an org reach their desired outcome. For us this might not be exponential growth in the general public (if we’re concerned about keep strong community values) but exponential growth in certain social groups e.g. donors or talented individuals in specific fields. The consensus on messaging says that emotional narratives work far better than facts and I think that could be an area where EA messaging hasn’t been optimal -as my impression is that we’re far more likely to speak about statistics vs emotional stories of those we’re helping.
One piece of work could be focus groups with the various audiences, high net-worth donors as an example, to figure out what message resonates the most then we try align wider EA orgs that do fundraising around this message. Same could go for recruiting people involved in technical AI safety etc. I get the impression it could be quite high-leverage as having been involved in crowdfunding, the strength of your messaging can make a huge (10x) difference to your results. This is a field where you can be quite rigorous with building narratives based on evidence so seems like a no-brainer for EA-aligned folks.
Would love to hear if any of this work is already being done as I definitely see it as a need in the EA-meta ecosystem. I could see it fitting in with CEA potentially or like you said—external consultancy or non-profit.