PV: Running an EA org day, for example, “Effective Thesis day”

[Jonas Hallgren]

Time estimate: 5-20 hours during 3-10 weeks

This is quite similar to hosting a smaller conference but a bit easier. For example, if one finds themselves at a university during May. It might be good to have an Effective Thesis${}^{TM}$ day as people would be in the process of choosing a thesis topic. The EA group or individual would first advertise Effective Thesis${}^{TM}$ by tabling with coffee in order to make people listen to an introduction of Effective Thesis${}^{TM}$ and then later on in the day have a lecture and/​or a workshop on a university. One can develop this for a bunch of different organisations, such as Charity Entrepreneurship${}^{TM}$ or GiveWell${}^{TM}$ or any other brand-name${}^{TM}$ day.

Step by step guide

1. Contact the local university or venue provider and ask if you can use their locations for a lecture and a discussion afterwards. Don’t finalise the deal here however as you still need to make sure you get funding.

   1. Time estimate: 3-10 hours over 3-5 weeks

2. Apply for funding from EA funds or CEA if you can’t take the cost as a one-off event

   1. Time estimate: 1-3 hours over 1-3 weeks

3. Plan out the event with a spokesperson from the org or someone who has done it before

   1. Time estimate 3-15 hours over 2-4 weeks

4. Buy food and refreshments for the event and ensure that you have the requisite amount of volunteers. If you don’t have enough volunteers then ask around for help from EAs in your area.

   1. Time estimate: 1-4 hours over 1-3 weeks

5. Market the event using whatever marketing device you found most successful so far. If you’re uncertain we recommend tabling, which is setting up a table and giving people free coffee or snacks for you to introduce them to the conference and EA in general.

[Jackson Wagner]

This seems like the best starter project of the three you’ve posted. It seems fun and low-cost, and scales well from “just hanging out at a table with some pamphlets, talking to passers-by about EA” to more ambitious things like running a workshop or doing a talk/​presentation for a group. Running a whole conference at a university sounds awesome, but I’d feel hesitant to start planning a big event without first getting some demonstrated interest from smaller events like this.

Websites and introductory material might be a great idea, but it’s vague as described (what kind of websites and material do we need, exactly?), and in many cases it seems like existing websites (such as this very Forum) could handle hosting the desired content, unless there needs to be some interactive element to the page.

Overall, it’s hard for me to vote on these as better or worse ideas in general—some website projects would probably be great ideas while others might not be worthwhile. Also, people have different skills, so some groups might find creating a website easier than putting on a workshop, and others vice versa. All three of these seem like worthy projects for university groups to consider. I like how you provide step-by-step guides—perhaps your site should also link to any writeups you can find from groups that have put on conferences, etc, in the past?