I think this is a great initiative, and the new website looks great! I do, however, want to raise something (even if Iâm afraid to be seen as âthat guyâ on the Forum):
We are evolving into Consultants for Impact because we believe this new brand will better enable us to achieve our mission. Our new name gives us greater brand independence and control and provides a more professional presentation. It also enhances our capacity to accurately reflect the diverse philosophical frameworks (including, but not exclusively, Effective Altruism) that can benefit our work. We are excited about this transition and believe it will enable us to better support and inspire consultants dedicated to making a significant social impact.
Maybe this is me over-reacting, but it seems to imply âwe used to have EA in our name, but now EA is a toxic brand, so we removed it to avoid negative associationâ. If instead itâs just because the new is more professional /â just a better name then disregard my comment, but itâs not what you wrote in the post.
There are still EA fingerprints, in terms of people, associated orgs, values and even language all over the website, but almost no mention of EA or the phrase âEffective Altruismâ at all.[1] I also think Effective Altruism does/âcan/âshould accomodate a set of âdiverse philosophical frameworksâ and can still call itself EA.
My fear is that people who are still reasonably thought of as EA[2] start to dissassociate from it, leaving only the most hardcore/âweird/âcore people to hold the brand in an evaporative cooling dynamic (there was on discussion on a now-sadly-deleted post about this where someone shared their reasons for leaving EA which to me seemed to fit this dynamic, my response is here) which damages the movement, the organisation, and its aims, and which is mostly unnecessary if driven by roughly the same set of moral values and empirical beliefs.
I wouldnât necessarily call this misleading, but I think the people CFI is going for would probably be smart enough to figure out the connection with some googling
Thank you both for taking the time to read through our post and engage with us on this milestone! Youâve raised important questions that Iâm happy to speak to briefly here.
@JWS: EACN was founded as a community-building project for consultants whose primary goal was introducing them to EA ideas. Over the years weâve evolved into a talent development organization with a theory of change centered around helping organizations find great hires and consultants find high-impact roles. âConsultants for Impactâ represents who we are and what we do, and helps us establish a broader entry point for our audience. The new brand also provides greater flexibility in messaging, tone, and visual design, which weâve found to be quite useful.
@Bella: We expect to evolve our thinking over the next 12 months and are currently exploring integrating insights from, eg., Ikegai and Flow Theory â hoping to land somewhere a bit more pluralistic than we had been before. We resonate with this piece by Peter Wildeford on focusing on the ideas, and are likely to continue having significant overlap with 80k/âProbably Good on cause prioritization and career choice recommendations, although we may diverge in the future. Consultants for Impactâs core guiding principles, which we donât expect to change, are included here.
One relevant question, I think, is âin practice, will Consultants For Impact discuss, center, or create programming around anything from the diverse philosophical frameworks specifically outside EA?â
I think this is a great initiative, and the new website looks great! I do, however, want to raise something (even if Iâm afraid to be seen as âthat guyâ on the Forum):
Maybe this is me over-reacting, but it seems to imply âwe used to have EA in our name, but now EA is a toxic brand, so we removed it to avoid negative associationâ. If instead itâs just because the new is more professional /â just a better name then disregard my comment, but itâs not what you wrote in the post.
There are still EA fingerprints, in terms of people, associated orgs, values and even language all over the website, but almost no mention of EA or the phrase âEffective Altruismâ at all.[1] I also think Effective Altruism does/âcan/âshould accomodate a set of âdiverse philosophical frameworksâ and can still call itself EA.
My fear is that people who are still reasonably thought of as EA[2] start to dissassociate from it, leaving only the most hardcore/âweird/âcore people to hold the brand in an evaporative cooling dynamic (there was on discussion on a now-sadly-deleted post about this where someone shared their reasons for leaving EA which to me seemed to fit this dynamic, my response is here) which damages the movement, the organisation, and its aims, and which is mostly unnecessary if driven by roughly the same set of moral values and empirical beliefs.
I wouldnât necessarily call this misleading, but I think the people CFI is going for would probably be smart enough to figure out the connection with some googling
Very much âEA-in-ideasâ not âEA-got-funded-by-OpenPhilâ or âEA-went-to-the-right-partiesâ or âEA-has-lots-of-Forum-karmaâ
Thank you both for taking the time to read through our post and engage with us on this milestone! Youâve raised important questions that Iâm happy to speak to briefly here.
@JWS: EACN was founded as a community-building project for consultants whose primary goal was introducing them to EA ideas. Over the years weâve evolved into a talent development organization with a theory of change centered around helping organizations find great hires and consultants find high-impact roles. âConsultants for Impactâ represents who we are and what we do, and helps us establish a broader entry point for our audience. The new brand also provides greater flexibility in messaging, tone, and visual design, which weâve found to be quite useful.
@Bella: We expect to evolve our thinking over the next 12 months and are currently exploring integrating insights from, eg., Ikegai and Flow Theory â hoping to land somewhere a bit more pluralistic than we had been before. We resonate with this piece by Peter Wildeford on focusing on the ideas, and are likely to continue having significant overlap with 80k/âProbably Good on cause prioritization and career choice recommendations, although we may diverge in the future. Consultants for Impactâs core guiding principles, which we donât expect to change, are included here.
One relevant question, I think, is âin practice, will Consultants For Impact discuss, center, or create programming around anything from the diverse philosophical frameworks specifically outside EA?â