Yeah, as you conclude in your second paragraph, I wouldn’t describe CEA as simply “funding the meta cause area”. They don’t control major grant budgets (unlike Open Phil or EA Funds (although they have just announced EA Funds will become part of CEA)), and they’re not primarily in the business of choosing which projects get resourced (apart from choosing which EAGx events and national orgs get funding). Instead, their theory of change centres on building community infrastructure that helps two broad groups:
People unfamiliar with EA but who might be interested (via online courses, effectivealtruism.org, media relations, and supporting organisers doing outreach)
People already in the EA community (via EAG(x) events, the Forum, community health, and supporting organisers building communities)
I agree that democratising grant-making feels more experimental than democratising community building, although I do find manifund, participatory budgeting, and other forms of democratised resource allocation to be interesting.
Yeah, as you conclude in your second paragraph, I wouldn’t describe CEA as simply “funding the meta cause area”. They don’t control major grant budgets (unlike Open Phil or EA Funds (although they have just announced EA Funds will become part of CEA)), and they’re not primarily in the business of choosing which projects get resourced (apart from choosing which EAGx events and national orgs get funding). Instead, their theory of change centres on building community infrastructure that helps two broad groups:
People unfamiliar with EA but who might be interested (via online courses, effectivealtruism.org, media relations, and supporting organisers doing outreach)
People already in the EA community (via EAG(x) events, the Forum, community health, and supporting organisers building communities)
I agree that democratising grant-making feels more experimental than democratising community building, although I do find manifund, participatory budgeting, and other forms of democratised resource allocation to be interesting.