I know Penn EA offers fellows a $500 stipend, and I’ve always found this to feel a little odd, and I’m concerned other applicants might feel the same way. Having a stipend makes sense in the context of fellowships generally being paid, but I’m not sure that I would have known that a year ago or that other undergrads would know that fellowships are usually paid. It raises the question, if EA is so focused on effectiveness, why does it make sense to pay people to just learn about EA, especially when no other student group is paying people for things. Why does a student group even have this money to give out? Are you sure EA isn’t a cult?? (Though generally you pay cults, not the other way around.) We’ve been offering incentives in the form of charity gift card credit (for things like referring a friend to apply to the EA Fellowship or applying for career advising from 80,000 Hours) rather than direct cash.
You could probably avoid this reputation risk by marketing it right and making sure the fellowship seems prestigious, so that it seems reasonable to be getting paid. E.g., rather than writing,
Intro Fellowship
Understand the core ideas of effective altruism while earning a $500 stipend.
You’ll have 8 weekly 1-hour discussions with a cohort of 3-5 participants and one facilitator, and earn a $500 stipend. Before attending each discussion, you’ll complete a set of readings (and sometimes a brief written exercise). Application due 9⁄19.
You could instead write something like,
Intro Fellowship
Learn about and reflect on how to maximize your impact
Most of us want to help others, but figuring out the best ways to do that can be difficult. Fellows will read about and discuss ideas from effective altruism about how to do the most good, and start to form a plan on having a more impactful career. All fellows will receive a $500 at the completion of this 8-week program. Applications due 9⁄19.
As for where you could get funding for stipends from, have you asked the EA Infrastructure Fund about whether they would fund this?
If someone asks about where funding is coming from, I think it would be good to say something like,
We get club funding from the Centre for Effective Altruism and EA Infrastructure Fund. They’re largely/partially funded by Open Philanthropy, a foundation which also makes major grants in global poverty relief, climate change, farm animal welfare, and criminal justice reform.
Great points, Michael! Some of these questions (e.g., why does it make sense to pay people for learning about EA?) came up during Penn EA’s fellowships this year.
In my experience as a facilitator, these conversations were almost always productive. I would generally use these moments as opportunities to explain why careers in high-impact cause areas are so valuable. I’d say something like “EA is willing to invest resources into student groups because they’ve seen that student groups (and intro fellowships) can help people apply EA principles in their careers, which is ultimately worth the financial investment. People who resonate with these ideas & take them seriously often go on to have really important careers in AI alignment, biosecurity, animal welfare, and other really important areas.”
This explanation generally seemed persuasive (or at least helped people understand this perspective).
*Also quick note of clarification: Penn EA experimented with $500 stipends this semester. Just to be clear, I don’t believe this is something that Penn EA has ever done in the past, and it might not be something we do in the future.
Hey Michael! I read your comment when you wrote it, but am only replying now :/
Thank you for your thoughts, you raise important questions. One I want to hone in on is:
if EA is so focused on effectiveness, why does it make sense to pay people to just learn about EA
In a way, this seems like the classic question of “how can we convert money into X?”, where X is sometimes organizer time. Here, X is “highly engaged EAs who use an EA mindset to determine their career”. One proposed answer is to give out tons of books. I’m not sure if we have good cost-effectiveness estimates of book giveaways, but we also don’t have cost-effectiveness estimates of paying program participants. Giving out books is reputationally much safer, but in principle it is also “spend money so people learn about EA.”
The second part of your question is “especially when no other student group is paying people for things.” which also seems important. I think I am more and more believing that we should not think about EA groups like other student groups. This transition (and messaging around it) here seems complicated, but I think if done right, we should totally give ourselves space to do things no other student groups are doing.
I know Penn EA offers fellows a $500 stipend, and I’ve always found this to feel a little odd, and I’m concerned other applicants might feel the same way. Having a stipend makes sense in the context of fellowships generally being paid, but I’m not sure that I would have known that a year ago or that other undergrads would know that fellowships are usually paid. It raises the question, if EA is so focused on effectiveness, why does it make sense to pay people to just learn about EA, especially when no other student group is paying people for things. Why does a student group even have this money to give out? Are you sure EA isn’t a cult?? (Though generally you pay cults, not the other way around.) We’ve been offering incentives in the form of charity gift card credit (for things like referring a friend to apply to the EA Fellowship or applying for career advising from 80,000 Hours) rather than direct cash.
You could probably avoid this reputation risk by marketing it right and making sure the fellowship seems prestigious, so that it seems reasonable to be getting paid. E.g., rather than writing,
You could instead write something like,
As for where you could get funding for stipends from, have you asked the EA Infrastructure Fund about whether they would fund this?
If someone asks about where funding is coming from, I think it would be good to say something like,
Great points, Michael! Some of these questions (e.g., why does it make sense to pay people for learning about EA?) came up during Penn EA’s fellowships this year.
In my experience as a facilitator, these conversations were almost always productive. I would generally use these moments as opportunities to explain why careers in high-impact cause areas are so valuable. I’d say something like “EA is willing to invest resources into student groups because they’ve seen that student groups (and intro fellowships) can help people apply EA principles in their careers, which is ultimately worth the financial investment. People who resonate with these ideas & take them seriously often go on to have really important careers in AI alignment, biosecurity, animal welfare, and other really important areas.”
This explanation generally seemed persuasive (or at least helped people understand this perspective).
*Also quick note of clarification: Penn EA experimented with $500 stipends this semester. Just to be clear, I don’t believe this is something that Penn EA has ever done in the past, and it might not be something we do in the future.
Hey Michael! I read your comment when you wrote it, but am only replying now :/
Thank you for your thoughts, you raise important questions. One I want to hone in on is:
In a way, this seems like the classic question of “how can we convert money into X?”, where X is sometimes organizer time. Here, X is “highly engaged EAs who use an EA mindset to determine their career”. One proposed answer is to give out tons of books. I’m not sure if we have good cost-effectiveness estimates of book giveaways, but we also don’t have cost-effectiveness estimates of paying program participants. Giving out books is reputationally much safer, but in principle it is also “spend money so people learn about EA.”
The second part of your question is “especially when no other student group is paying people for things.” which also seems important. I think I am more and more believing that we should not think about EA groups like other student groups. This transition (and messaging around it) here seems complicated, but I think if done right, we should totally give ourselves space to do things no other student groups are doing.