Hiya! I work on data stuff at CEA. I used to be the content lead on the EA Global team at CEA, and before that I did economic consulting. Here’s an old website I might update at some point.
Think I’m making a mistake? Want to give me feedback? Here’s my admonymous. You can also give feedback for me directly to my manager, JP Addison.
Thanks Aaron! I think I’m now a bit confused what a prospective funder would be funding.
Is it something like, the volunteer group would run a hiring round (managed by anyone in particular?) for a part-time leader (maybe someone in the group?), but no one specifically has raised their hand for this? And then perhaps that person could deploy some of the $15k to hire a research associate if they’d like?
I respect that this is an early stage idea y’all are just trying to get started / don’t have all the details figured out yet, just trying to understand (mostly for the sake of any prospective funders) who they would be betting on etc. :)
Also: I’m so excited someone is trying to take a crack at this issue. Suffering caused by screwworms does seem immense. I feel a bit unsure on the specifics of how this project will evolve, but I’m rooting for you! <3
The “show up” spirit feels emblematic of a quality I love about EAs. It reminds me of this quote I like: “Often, the important things are accomplished not by those best suited to do them, or by those who ought to be responsible for doing them, but by whoever actually shows up.”
Thank you for sharing the update! :)
Funding/time:
Our volunteer team members have other commitments and can only dedicate ~5 hours per week to this project. To make significant progress, we need people working full-time, which requires funding.
Proposed solution:
$15,000 for a part-time program director, and a research associate. With the capacity to expand to 100k for a full-time team
If you are an individual donor interested in funding us, drop us a message!
Do you have a prospective director in mind, and how many hours / for how long would they work? Same question for your research associate. $15k to cover 2 part time roles seems quite low to me, especially since this would have to also include healthcare, taxes, etc. that an employer wouldn’t pay for!
I’m also generally curious who has been leading this project, if anyone in particular! :)
<3 This is so lovely @Allan_Saldanha! I think it is such a lovely and remarkable thing about our community that so many people have been quietly living their lives and just giving their 10, 20, 40, 75(!) percent to causes they care about, some now over the course of 10+ years. “Generous and thoughtful giving is normal here” continues to be one of my favorite facts about EAs :’)
Thanks for doing this AMA!
Kind of curious if you looked into this—obviously no pressure to share before you’re ready though, I was just scrolling through some old comments :) Good luck on your work!
Oh! Well I’m sorry for spreading misinformation :) Thanks for the correction!
Quick pushback: overhead is a part of the costs needed to make this product (good management is needed to keep systems running)[1] and ignoring that leads to weird conclusions.
e.g. I think under some versions of your view, if donor A pitches in $50k for a stunner, and then donor B pitches in last $5k, you give donor B all the credit. (Obligatory Nuno ref.) I might be misunderstanding you, apologies if so.
There’s a nearby thing about how “not all overhead costs are necessary program costs” or something, and I probably buy that multiplying by [total costs] / [program specific costs] might not be the right way to apportion overhead.
Good luck with fundraising! :)
One nit: SWP’s cost effectiveness numbers don’t seem to include any operational overhead in the denominator (see the CEA, where you’re only counting the cost of the stunners).
I understand you’ve fundraised for overhead separately, but IMO it should be best practice to include overhead costs in your denominator — obviously someone would have to cover those costs! Thought came from this thread with Vasco.
I’d be curious for the overhead inclusive costs if that was quick — maybe as a proxy, you can multiply by [total org costs] / [non operational costs]? :)
Edit: I think I was just wrong about this, per Aaron’s response here :) Whoops!
Small to medium nit: the costs reported in the SWP CEA you are using as a base don’t seem to include operational overhead (e.g. see Aaron’s comment that the stunners cost $55k, which is the same as the total cost reported in the CEA).
I understand SWP has fundraised for overhead separately, but IMO it should be best practice to include overhead costs in your denominator — obviously someone has to cover those costs, it’s not like they don’t exist!
@Greg_Colbourn just out of curiosity, did you end up pursuing this? I’d be interested in hearing how it went, if so — no pressure!
Thank you for the thoughtful reply!
I’m curious if you have general advice (top 3 tips? common mistakes?) for EA orgs who are just starting to experiment with more marketing.
No pressure, of course!
I was so excited to hear about you joining the team, @KarolinaSarek🔸! This is a great update, thank you!
Yeah, your second comment is the message I meant to convey :)
Woah, those are some impressive speakers! Nice work!
Light musings, I work with Ollie but am sharing personal thoughts only.
I overall feel sympathetic to the argument that folks should consider supporting meta orgs, and I find the “tipping” model interesting! E.g. I liked this post about effective giving :) But I have some pushback.
Take the example of university groups. My model is that groups can change pretty dramatically over time due to organiser turnover. Alumni who think their university group positively impacted their trajectory would almost definitionally be funding an entirely new set of organisers by the time this impact has been realised. I have a strong prior that organiser fit is one of the most important variables in how successful a group is. So in many cases, I think you should model the current EA group at your alma mater as a pretty different project, with a less strong track record than you might think.
I think the above is a specific application of a general problem:
The EA meta ecosystem changes pretty quickly, and smaller projects change more rapidly than large ones
Success stories usually come with pretty long lag times — It takes years for people to change their minds about important questions, decide to take action, and for those decisions to actually cache out into doing good for the world.
By the time someone has gone through this transition, the ecosystem has probably changed enough that the project which first helped them along might not recognizably exist anymore, or new meta projects might have an even greater impact.
I think this all means I’m more sceptical than Ollie that the tipping model is the right approach, even though I agree it has nice qualities :) I expect this idea works better for long standing projects (e.g. city and national groups) that experience less turnover, or meta projects with shorter lag times for impact. I could see myself changing my mind here!
Based on this, it appears shrimp welfare was an area affected by this, and that TNF has filled SWP’s funding gap until the end of 2026.
I’d be interested in updates about funding for the welfare of smaller animals in general!
Good luck finding a good volunteering project! Consider reaching out to 80K for advice? ( https://80000hours.org/speak-with-us/ ) I wonder if they might have a good sense of which orgs might be excited to use your support.
Woah!!! Those are some awesome impact stories 😱 I found the top three particularly impressive.
“Recruiting ~220 participants for BlueDot Impact’s courses, including employees from OpenAI, Meta’s RLHF team, and the WHO Assistant Director General”
That’s wild! Nice job!
I’m so sorry to hear about your difficult life circumstances last year! I know we don’t know each other personally, but I’ve often enjoyed your comments over the years.
I liked this framing! I feel tempted to add something like, “this is a marathon not a race” / “it’s ok to take a break”.