Thanks for writing this Ozzie! :) I think lots of things about the EA community are confusing for people, especially relationships between organizations. As we are currently redesigning EA.org it might be helpful for us to add some explanation on that site. (I would be interested to hear if anyone has specific suggestions!)
From my own limited perspective (I work at CEA but don’t personally interact much with OP directly), your impression sounds about right. I guess my own view of OP is that it’s better to think of them as a funder rather than a collaborator (though as I said I don’t personally interact with them much so haven’t given this much thought, and I wouldn’t be surprised if others at CEA disagree). They have their own goals as an organization, and it’s not necessarily bad if those goals are not exactly aligned with the overall EA community. My understanding is that it’s very standard for projects to adapt their pitches for funders that do not have the same goals/​values as them. For example, I’m not running the Forum in a way that would maximize career changes[1] (TBH I don’t think OP would want me to do this anyway), but it’s helpful to include data we have about how the Forum affects career changes when writing a funding proposal[2]. In fact, no one at OP has ever asked me to maximize career changes as a requirement before or after receiving funding, nor do I recall anyone at OP ever asking me to make any changes to the Forum (OP staff do provide feedback but I personally weigh those mostly relative to how much I think they understand the Forum — for example, I’d probably weigh Lizka’s feedback higher than anyone at OP).
I acknowledge that this is complicated by the fact that CEA likely has a unique relationship with OP (due to our large size relative to other community building orgs, long history working in this space, and the fact that our current CEO used to work at OP), so I expect that my own experience with OP does not necessarily generalize to other fundees. Also OP is the overwhelmingly largest funder for EA community building, and so the extent to which they are not aligned with the overall EA community does matter, as money straightforwardly gives them power and influence, though I don’t personally have a good picture of the practical effects.
I think that having these discussions in a public community space is valuable, so I appreciate you sharing this here!
For the sake of this comment, I’m assuming that Ozzie’s description accurately describes OP’s view, though I have never talked with anyone at OP about this so I don’t actually know if it’s accurate.
Thanks for writing this Ozzie! :) I think lots of things about the EA community are confusing for people, especially relationships between organizations. As we are currently redesigning EA.org it might be helpful for us to add some explanation on that site. (I would be interested to hear if anyone has specific suggestions!)
From my own limited perspective (I work at CEA but don’t personally interact much with OP directly), your impression sounds about right. I guess my own view of OP is that it’s better to think of them as a funder rather than a collaborator (though as I said I don’t personally interact with them much so haven’t given this much thought, and I wouldn’t be surprised if others at CEA disagree). They have their own goals as an organization, and it’s not necessarily bad if those goals are not exactly aligned with the overall EA community. My understanding is that it’s very standard for projects to adapt their pitches for funders that do not have the same goals/​values as them. For example, I’m not running the Forum in a way that would maximize career changes[1] (TBH I don’t think OP would want me to do this anyway), but it’s helpful to include data we have about how the Forum affects career changes when writing a funding proposal[2]. In fact, no one at OP has ever asked me to maximize career changes as a requirement before or after receiving funding, nor do I recall anyone at OP ever asking me to make any changes to the Forum (OP staff do provide feedback but I personally weigh those mostly relative to how much I think they understand the Forum — for example, I’d probably weigh Lizka’s feedback higher than anyone at OP).
I acknowledge that this is complicated by the fact that CEA likely has a unique relationship with OP (due to our large size relative to other community building orgs, long history working in this space, and the fact that our current CEO used to work at OP), so I expect that my own experience with OP does not necessarily generalize to other fundees. Also OP is the overwhelmingly largest funder for EA community building, and so the extent to which they are not aligned with the overall EA community does matter, as money straightforwardly gives them power and influence, though I don’t personally have a good picture of the practical effects.
I think that having these discussions in a public community space is valuable, so I appreciate you sharing this here!
For the sake of this comment, I’m assuming that Ozzie’s description accurately describes OP’s view, though I have never talked with anyone at OP about this so I don’t actually know if it’s accurate.
Note that I care about improving the world, and I think that getting people to do high-impact jobs is in fact a good way to make the world better.