With that being said, if and when having a positive impact on the world and satisfying community members does come apart, we want to keep our focus on the broader mission.
I understand the primary concern posed in this comment to be more about balancing the views of donors, staff, and the community about having a positive impact on the world, rather than trading off between altruism and community self-interest. To my ears, some phrases in the following discussion make it sound like the community’s concerns are primarily self-interested: “trying to optimize for community satisfaction,” “just plain helping the community,” “make our events less of a pleasant experience (e.g. cutting back on meals and snack variety),” “don’t optimize for making the community happy” for EAG admissions).
I don’t doubt that y’all get a fair number of seemingly self-interested complaints from not-satisfied community members, of course! But I think modeling the community’s concerns here as self-interested would be closer to a strawman than a steelman approach.
I understand the primary concern posed in this comment to be more about balancing the views of donors, staff, and the community about having a positive impact on the world, rather than trading off between altruism and community self-interest. To my ears, some phrases in the following discussion make it sound like the community’s concerns are primarily self-interested: “trying to optimize for community satisfaction,” “just plain helping the community,” “make our events less of a pleasant experience (e.g. cutting back on meals and snack variety),” “don’t optimize for making the community happy” for EAG admissions).
I don’t doubt that y’all get a fair number of seemingly self-interested complaints from not-satisfied community members, of course! But I think modeling the community’s concerns here as self-interested would be closer to a strawman than a steelman approach.