Iāve been considering writing something similar for a while, so Iām really glad you posted this (I honestly lacked the courage to do it myself).
My own experience aligns with your altruism-first approach. I got involved with EA Oxford through that route, and when I took over organizing our socials (initially just out of willingness and due to my collegeās booking policy), our primary organizer noted how surprisingly effective they were at engaging people.
Iād been planning to bring this social-first model back to my home university, but Iāve been hesitant to buck the conventional wisdom about what works for EA groups. Despite some current issues with my schoolās activities council, I was defaulting to running an intro fellowship. Your post makes me reconsiderāhaving evidence from different EA group models could be really valuable.
On pitching EA: I completely agree about reorienting our pitches. At this yearās activities fair, I essentially A/āB tested different approaches. The most effective ones focused on āhelping people do as much good as possible, whatever that ends up meaning to them,ā then describing areas others have found effective through their own frameworks.
On āfellowshipsā: The term itself reinforces the exclusivity and hierarchy issues you mention. It positions itself as the path into EA, but I donāt think itās particularly good at that role. We should be introducing ideas and encouraging exploration and sharing, not gatekeeping.
On philosophical grounding: EA often gets bogged down in philosophical prerequisites when our core appeal is simple: people want to do good effectively. We donāt need everyone to choose a philosophical framework first. The desire to save lives can come from virtue ethics, deontology, or just basic human compassion.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a food service worker at Mission Burrito last year. He was drawn to GiveDirectly as an alternative to what he saw as a corrupt charity world. His entry point was completely different from the typical EA pathway, and it made me realize how many people we might be missing by not meeting them where they are.
Running EA Oxford Socials: What Worked (and What Didnāt)
After someone reached out to me about my experience running EA socials for the Oxford group, I shared my experience and was encouraged to share what I sent him more widely. As such, hereās a brief summary of what I found from a few terms of hosting EA Oxford socials.
The Power of Consistency
Every week at the same time, we would host an event. I strongly recommend this, or having some kind of strong schedule, as it lets people form a routine around your events and can help create EA aligned friend-groups. Regardless of the event we were hosting, we had a solid 5ish person core who were there basically every week, which was very helpful. We tended to have 15 to 20 people per event, with fewer at the end of the term as people got busy with finishing tutorials.
Board Game Socials
Board game socials tended to work the best of the types of socials I tried. No real structure was necessary, just have a few strong EAs to set the tone, so it really feels like āEA boardgames,ā and then just let people play. Having the games acts as a natural conversation starter. Casual games especially are recommended, āCodenamesā and āCoupā were favorites in particular at my socials but I can imagine many others working too. Deeper games have a place too, but they generally werenāt primary. In the first two terms, we would just hold one of these every week. They felt like ways for people to just talk about EA stuff in a more casual environment than the discussion groups or fellowships.
āLightning Talksā
We also pretty effectively did āLightning Talks,ā basically EA powerpoint nights. As this was in Oxford, we could typically get at least one EA-aligned researcher or worker there every week we did it (which was every other week), and the rest of the time would be filled with community member presentations (typically between 5-10 minutes). These seemed to be best at re-engaging people who signed up once but had lost contact with EA, my guess is primarily because EA-inclined people tend to have joined partially because of that lecture-appreciating personality. In the third term, we ended up alternating weeks between the lightning talks and board game socials.
Other Formats
Other formats, including pub socials and one-off games (like the estimation game, or speed updating) seemed less effective, possibly just due to lower name recognition. Everyone knows what theyāre getting with board games, and they can figure out lightning talks, but getting too creative seemed to result in lower turnout.
Execution Above All
Probably more important than what event we did was doing what we did well. We found that having (vegan) pizza and drinks ready before the social, and arriving 20 minutes early to set things up, dramatically improved retention. People really like well-run events; it helps them relax and enjoy rather than wondering when the pizza will arrive, and I think thatās especially true of student clubs where that organizational competence is never guaranteed.