Do you believe LEAN could plausibly benefit and be able to accommodate some level of donation? Would this lead to an expansion of the project in a measurable and impactful way? Whether it would be cities where groups are being seeded receiving more support to grow faster and stronger, or seeding new groups at a greater frequency, could donations to LEAN service this goal?
Yes—in fact, we came to this conclusion a while back after a couple of people suggested that they donate or help fundraise for it, to drive the project forwards. A few generous major donors have enabled our work since April 20th, covering the minimal living costs of several part time team members, including paying for half of my time since July 20th. We’ve shared the money and time spent in the standard .impact format on our project page.
We would indeed benefit from donations, as we could gainfully employ one or two full time staff (anyone who’d like to find out more should contact Peter Hurford, who’s fundraising for 2016, and can arrange tax-deductible donations from many countries). Extra resources would measurably serve both goals you mentioned, as both of them still contain relatively low hanging fruit, which are not otherwise on course to be picked. Of course, these metaphorical fruit aren’t limitless; further seeding and recruitment work specifically would cease being worthwhile if we went beyond one or two full time staff. However, even with other organisations increasingly recognising the value of local groups, we all see there as being plenty of work to be done!
On another note, what do you think LEAN needs to improve the most?
Growing and empowering groups new and old and helping them with their goals of achieving ultimately valuable outcomes. We haven’t done nearly enough work on this. The value of seeding new groups depends on it, and we’re concerned to avoid a meta trap.
Gathering evidence relevant to both our impact generally and what is plausibly the key question mark about this: the impact of local outreach in general. We’re asking all groups in the network about this and will share the results publicly for all to learn from (however flattering or unflattering they might be ;-).
Building the best possible team—ideally concentrating personpower in staff doing more hours each, based in Vancouver.
What makes a great volunteer for LEAN, and what are you looking for in the future?
Sören Mindermann recently interviewed me about this for .impact generally, with a particular focus on LEAN work. He’s writing it up for the Forum as part of his ‘Working at EA organizations’ series, so I’ll largely deferring answering to that. I may add a comment about this here later though, and will briefly say that we’d love to hear from both highly self-driven volunteers with ideas for helping out the whole network and people interested in full time or part time jobs on the team.
Thanks for the questions! To answer them in turn:
Yes—in fact, we came to this conclusion a while back after a couple of people suggested that they donate or help fundraise for it, to drive the project forwards. A few generous major donors have enabled our work since April 20th, covering the minimal living costs of several part time team members, including paying for half of my time since July 20th. We’ve shared the money and time spent in the standard .impact format on our project page.
We would indeed benefit from donations, as we could gainfully employ one or two full time staff (anyone who’d like to find out more should contact Peter Hurford, who’s fundraising for 2016, and can arrange tax-deductible donations from many countries). Extra resources would measurably serve both goals you mentioned, as both of them still contain relatively low hanging fruit, which are not otherwise on course to be picked. Of course, these metaphorical fruit aren’t limitless; further seeding and recruitment work specifically would cease being worthwhile if we went beyond one or two full time staff. However, even with other organisations increasingly recognising the value of local groups, we all see there as being plenty of work to be done!
Growing and empowering groups new and old and helping them with their goals of achieving ultimately valuable outcomes. We haven’t done nearly enough work on this. The value of seeding new groups depends on it, and we’re concerned to avoid a meta trap.
Gathering evidence relevant to both our impact generally and what is plausibly the key question mark about this: the impact of local outreach in general. We’re asking all groups in the network about this and will share the results publicly for all to learn from (however flattering or unflattering they might be ;-).
Building the best possible team—ideally concentrating personpower in staff doing more hours each, based in Vancouver.
Sören Mindermann recently interviewed me about this for .impact generally, with a particular focus on LEAN work. He’s writing it up for the Forum as part of his ‘Working at EA organizations’ series, so I’ll largely deferring answering to that. I may add a comment about this here later though, and will briefly say that we’d love to hear from both highly self-driven volunteers with ideas for helping out the whole network and people interested in full time or part time jobs on the team.