So it sounds like “recruit outside your immediate social network” and “be welcoming” may be equally important? You seem to have had some success with the “recruit outside your immediate social network” part—what has worked for you?
Random unrelated note: one interpretation of “be welcoming” is “suppress weird ideas to avoid scaring away newcomers”. I think this approach has benefits, but it also has a few important costs. First, weird ideas will get discussed anyway. If getting classified as a newcomer makes you not privy to those discussions, and you can tell, you won’t feel welcomed. Second, weird ideas bind people together. The modern world is a lonely place, and people want meaningful group cohesion. That’s why Crossfit is such a hit. Absent exercising really hard together, we should use whatever we’ve got. Third, weird ideas are an important part of EA, and if someone dislikes weird ideas, that’s evidence that they’re not a good fit. Therefore, I propose that instead of suppressing weird ideas, we share them with newcomers as though they are being let in on a secret.
Recruit outside your social network: We teach a DeCal (student taught course) about Effective Altruism that is posted on a list of DeCals that all Berkeley students can see, and we play speed Giving Games with random students who are walking down Sproul plaza. The class has been pretty successful; the speed Giving Games not so much (most successes there are with people who already know someone in the club). I’ll be posting a retrospective about EA Berkeley soon with more details. TL;DR: This is hard to do.
I would say “be welcoming” is more important—there’s already a small base rate of people outside standard EA social networks that have some interest in EA. Currently I think a very large proportion of them (>80%) end up not becoming a part of EA. (Compared to ~50% for standard EA demographics.) Bringing that number down would be very helpful, and I think is more tractable.
Re: random unrelated note: That makes sense, but I will say that my impression of “be welcoming” is not “suppress weird ideas”, I’ve said more about this in a comment above.
So it sounds like “recruit outside your immediate social network” and “be welcoming” may be equally important? You seem to have had some success with the “recruit outside your immediate social network” part—what has worked for you?
Random unrelated note: one interpretation of “be welcoming” is “suppress weird ideas to avoid scaring away newcomers”. I think this approach has benefits, but it also has a few important costs. First, weird ideas will get discussed anyway. If getting classified as a newcomer makes you not privy to those discussions, and you can tell, you won’t feel welcomed. Second, weird ideas bind people together. The modern world is a lonely place, and people want meaningful group cohesion. That’s why Crossfit is such a hit. Absent exercising really hard together, we should use whatever we’ve got. Third, weird ideas are an important part of EA, and if someone dislikes weird ideas, that’s evidence that they’re not a good fit. Therefore, I propose that instead of suppressing weird ideas, we share them with newcomers as though they are being let in on a secret.
Recruit outside your social network: We teach a DeCal (student taught course) about Effective Altruism that is posted on a list of DeCals that all Berkeley students can see, and we play speed Giving Games with random students who are walking down Sproul plaza. The class has been pretty successful; the speed Giving Games not so much (most successes there are with people who already know someone in the club). I’ll be posting a retrospective about EA Berkeley soon with more details. TL;DR: This is hard to do.
I would say “be welcoming” is more important—there’s already a small base rate of people outside standard EA social networks that have some interest in EA. Currently I think a very large proportion of them (>80%) end up not becoming a part of EA. (Compared to ~50% for standard EA demographics.) Bringing that number down would be very helpful, and I think is more tractable.
Re: random unrelated note: That makes sense, but I will say that my impression of “be welcoming” is not “suppress weird ideas”, I’ve said more about this in a comment above.