EA Organization Updates: February 2024

tobytrem15 Feb 2024 16:58 UTC
10 points
1 comment7 min readEA link

If you would like to see EA Organization Updates as soon as they come out, consider subscribing to this tag.

Some of the opportunities and job listings we feature in this update have (very) pressing deadlines (see GFI, and CEA’s Career Planning Program).

Opportunities and jobs

Opportunities

Consider also checking opportunities listed on the EA Opportunities Board, and the Opportunities to Take Action tag.

Workshops, courses and fellowships with open applications

  • The Good Food Institute is accepting applications for the 2024 cohort of its Alt Protein Project, which provides students at research universities with an interdisciplinary community to explore alternative protein applications related to their academic expertise [Apply by March 29th, takes 5-10 hours per week].

  • CEA Virtual Programs is now accepting applications for its 6-week Career Planning Program 2024, targeting those interested in EA cause areas [Apply TODAY, February 15th. Runs from March 16th to May 4th, 3 hours a week]. Participants will use an adapted 80,000 Hours’ Career planning template and engage in weekly discussions. The program promotes structured, feedback-focused career planning, ideal for those familiar with effective altruism concepts.

  • EA for Jews will be running another round of the EA and Judaism Intro Fellowship this March! [Apply by March 10th, Runs from March 17th for 8 weeks, takes ~3 hours a week] The fellowship is a virtual program you can do alongside school or work that explores the core ideas of effective altruism and their relationship to Jewish tradition, texts, culture, and history. For any questions, reach out to them at Shalom@eaforjews.org or schedule a 1-1 with Hillel, their Director.

  • Ambitious Impact (Charity Entrepreneurship) has opened applications for two upcoming programs [Apply by April 14, 2024]: CE Incubation Program (apply to one or both dates: August 12 - October 4, 2024 or February-March 2025) and Research Program (September 23- December 13, 2024).

Projects

  • Funding circle aimed at slowing down AI development is seeking participants. Organizer liquidated assets out of concern over short-term existential risk from advanced AI. Seeks earn-to-give philanthropists to discuss monthly donation opportunities to projects focused on pausing or stopping AI progress. Group would coordinate ~$100k+ commitments over 2024. Goal is to foster shared purpose and multiply impact in funding individuals and early-stage efforts in this space. Interested people can DM the organizer, book a call, or fill out a form.

Funding available

  • Rethink Priorities’ Special Projects team provides fiscal support and or services like accounting, hiring, payroll, contracting, visas, fundraising coordination, training, and more to external projects aligned with their mission. They currently support 7 projects and have capacity to take on more in early 2024. Interested projects working in effective altruism should submit an expression of interest form detailing their funding status, operations needs, and alignment.

  • The Centre for Enabling EA Learning and Research (CEEALAR) is inviting applications for subsidised living at their centre in Blackpool, from individuals working on projects to reduce Global Catastrophic Risks.

Job listings

​​Consider also exploring jobs listed on the Job listing (open) tag. For even more roles, check the 80,000 Hours Job Board and our Who’s Hiring? thread.

Anima International

Anthropic

Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative

Center for AI Risk Management & Alignment (CARMA)

Faunalytics

GiveWell

Giving What We Can

Good Food Institute

One for the World

Rethink Priorities

Organisation Updates

The organisation updates are in alphabetical order (T-Z, 0-A-S).

The Humane League

The Humane League’s Open Wing Alliance (OWA) published their year in review blog. OWA, a coalition of 100 member groups across 72 countries, have successfully pressured 138 total companies to eliminate battery cages from their supply chains—resulting in significant improvements in the lives of millions of animals.

In the UK 75% of hens are free from cages, up from 72% in 2022 and 65% in 2021. Thanks to the tireless efforts of THL UK advocates to hold companies accountable for their cage-free commitments, this means that an estimated 285m birds are free from cages.

Thanks to outreach from negotiators at THL UK, major restaurants and foodservice providers including SSP, The Big Table Group, and TGI Fridays have reported progress on their commitments to end the abuse of chickens raised for meat. Already, 28% of the UK chicken supply has adopted the Better Chicken Commitment.

New Incentives

New Incentives published a blog post from one of their field officers, Sanusi Bala Sanusi, describing his efforts to collect data from hard to reach communities.

In 2023, New incentives set the goal of enrolling 1,517,040 infants in the program, hoping to reach at least 80% of the goal. Despite many obstacles, the organization reached 99.92% of this goal, reaching 2.4x more infants than in the previous year.

Open Philanthropy

Open Philanthropy announced a new cause area in its Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio: Global Public Health Policy.

Santosh Harish, who oversees South Asian air quality grantmaking within this new cause area, appeared on the 80,000 Hours podcast to discuss the harms of air pollution and the regulatory landscape in India.

As they often do, Open Philanthropy program staff members made end-of-year recommendations for individual donors looking for organizations to support.

Rethink Priorities (RP)

The Global Health and Development Department recently published four research briefs on their previously commissioned research into:

  • Larval source management as a way to reduce vector diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.

  • The effectiveness of family planning interventions, especially those on the Family Planning High Impact Practices List, in low- and middle-income countries.

  • Vitamin A supplementation, an intervention that involves providing vitamin A capsules to children aged 6 to 59 months every four to six months to avoid deficiency.

  • How to calculate the long-term income effects of childhood malaria cases.

For more information on RP’s work and services in this space, please visit their website. Note that they are currently hiring a Global Health and Development Director (apply here by February 25).

80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours announced Niel Bowerman as their next CEO.

The 80,000 Hours Podcast released:

  • An interview with Emily Oster on what the evidence actually says about pregnancy and parenting

  • An interview with Nathan Labenz on recent AI breakthroughs and navigating the growing rift between AI safety and accelerationist camps

80,000 Hours also released a blog post about practical steps to form better habits in your life and career.

Anima International

Following a three-year-long pressure campaign led in the UK by Anima International and The Humane League UK, the UK supermarket Morrisons announced that they will reduce stocking density to 30 kg/​m2 for all own-brand fresh chicken meat by 2024, putting them in line with the space requirement criteria of the European Chicken Commitment. The commitment, secured as a result of Anima International’s recent dialogue with Morrisons, should affect around 50–60 million animals per year.

Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI)

BERI has published their goals and predictions for 2024.

Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA)

CEA is spinning out of Effective Ventures.

They expect to start hiring for their new operations team over the coming months, and will have various job postings live soon—likely across finance, legal, staff support, and other areas. If you’re potentially interested in these types of roles, you can fill out the expression of interest form here.

Effective Altruism Funds

The EA Infrastructure Fund has made 121 grants totalling $3.5M in 2023. They announced their new tentative plan to focus on Principles-First EA. To answer questions about the new plan, as well as other donor and community inquiries, they ran an Ask Me Anything. They are also fundraising. You can donate to them here.

The Long-Term Future Fund has given out 196 grants totaling $6.6M in 2023. They’ve finished their End-of-Year fundraising, including filling up their Open Phil matching. They are also in the process of hiring a new full-time fund chair.

Faunalytics

Faunalytics released a new Study Replication Guide. In this guide the organisation explains how to replicate six of their most popular animal advocacy studies.

They’ve also published a new, two-part series: Unpacking Chile’s Animal Industrial Complex. Part one focuses on fishing and aquaculture and part two covers the livestock industry.

Faunalytics has updated their Research Library with articles on a variety of animal advocacy topics including the challenge of measuring individual fish welfare, and a look at how people feel about non-speciesist language.

Fish Welfare Initiative

Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI) recently published their 2023 in Review post.

Those interested in a month-by-month view of FWI’s work can also subscribe to their newsletter (see the latest edition).

GiveWell

Givewell held two recorded in-person events:

Teryn Mattox, Director of Research at GiveWell, wrote a guest essay for Emily Oster’s Substack, ParentData, on the effectiveness of kangaroo mother care (KMC). KMC is intended to be a low-cost alternative to conventional neonatal intensive care for low-birth-weight infants.

GiveWell recently updated its reports on two of its top charities and its interventions. Reviews of the mass distribution of insecticide-treated nets and the Against Malaria Foundation, which implements net campaigns, have been updated. As have its review of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) and Malaria Consortium, which supports SMC campaigns.

Giving What We Can

Infectious Generosity, the new book by Chris Anderson, features the GWWC Pledge as a key call to action. Learn more about the book and the reference to GWWC in their post on the Forum.

Giving What We Can redesigned and revamped their pledge page which now features more photos of members and some research on what we could achieve if more people donated 10% of their income.

They also launched their GWWC stats dashboard designed exclusively for pledgers.

Good Food Institute

GFI have published a new blog sharing 9 GFI thought leaders’ reflections on alternative protein trends in the year ahead.

tobytrem15 Feb 2024 16:58 UTC
10 points
1 comment7 min readEA link