Charlotte Darnell
https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/community-health/team
Charlotte Darnell
Karma: 562
Avoiding some 1:1 Pitfalls at EA Global/x
Thank you for sharing! I liked this post :)) Recently I went to a social space I’d not been to before (which hasn’t happened for a while) and I was surprised how anxious I felt at first. I was also surprised how lovely people were very quickly, and I think it’s reminded me that new spaces full of strangers can actually be great places, albeit they don’t stay ‘strangers’ for very long.
So excited about this, thank you for all your hard work making it happen!!!
Misc rambles I haven’t thought about for long, in case they’re helpful!
I personally find streaks motivating! One thing I like about duolingo is that you can earn back your streak by eg. doing extra language classes. I wonder if there could be other ways to get people to ‘maintain their streak’ even if they can’t afford to/forget to donate on a certain day or month. I don’t know what the valuable things would be but I imagine something that keeps them engaged and caring about donations. Perhaps it could be watching a short video about one of the charities/cause areas, or doing a short quiz, or sharing something on eg. instagram or something. Alternatively it could be watching x number of ads where the revenue then goes to the charity (no idea if this would generate meaningful amounts).
One thing I would be nervous about though is that if you’re donating daily, it might feel like a much bigger part of your life and as a consequence a much bigger burden/sacrifice. Particularly if you have t choose where to donate regularly. I’m sure there are ways you could maybe mitigate that, but I think a way in which I find the 10% pledge useful is that I make the decision in a rational headspace and then try to just imagine I never had that extra money in the first place, rather than viscerally tracking what I’m ‘losing’ on any given day.
Framings where you’re building towards a specific thing maybe seem like they avoid this. Eg. if we have an idea of how many chickens donating to THL saves, perhaps there could some kind of virtual field of chickens that you populate more as you donate, in a similar way to growing trees in the focus app ‘Forest’.
Another idea could be something that just makes it quick and easy to donate if you feel a burst of empathy. Eg. if you’re in a city and walk past someone homeless and then feel an urge to donate/give but feel angst about what’s effective etc, or if you see an animal suffering and wish you could do something about it etc.
Just come across this—I really enjoyed it! Will send to some friends.
Quick thought: Monzo pots function similar to the envelope thing you mentioned—https://monzo.com/pots. When your salary comes in, you could use the salary sorter ( https://monzo.com/salary-sorter/ , split it in the app across bills, savings, spending, subscriptions, donations etc. If the next month there’s consistently lots left in eg. the bills or spending pot that hasn’t been used, that might be a sign to consider changing the proportions. The categories might also be useful for tracking spending—if you’re not on the free version then you can edit them and add new ones. There might be downsides to switching bank accounts though/ other reasons this isn’t a good solution!
I don’t have a question top of mind, but wanted to say thanks for doing an AMA, seems like it could be really useful for some people deciding where to give.
I really like this post (both the content + it’s well written imo) - thanks for writing it.
I don’t think younger me had any idea of how much wondering ‘what is most impactful thing for me to do’ I’d be doing as a weekly or daily thing even in an ‘EA job’, or how much uncertainty I (and friends & colleagues) would feel.
Where CEA staff are donating in 2024
This sounds really cool! I’d love to hear about what you end up doing.
Minor thought—It might be worth changing the title of this post. I initially clicked on this expecting someone looking for career advice, I wasn’t expecting someone generously offering so much of their time and expertise. I expect there might be a bunch of orgs or projects that don’t click on it because they don’t have specific career takes for others, but who would be interested or have ideas of other projects that could benefit from your help.
Contact people for the EA community
I don’t have this fully worked out for myself yet, but here are some things I’ve been considering recently. They’re not exactly novel but might be helpful nonetheless.
1) Not having runway/savings has been really quite stressful/ inconvenient at times. I think there is some amount that does just seem robustly good to have. I don’t have a clear idea of exactly how much that is though. Maybe thinking through the specific scenarios that have either happened or I’m worried might happen may point me in the right direction of a figure.
2) I’ve really noticed the hedonic treadmill now that I (and my friends) earn a salary. I also expect the pressure to use money for things other than donating to only increase as I get older (more responsibilities, unexpected life events, social pressure etc.). By donating now, at the same time as I’m trying to build up savings, I feel like I’m locking it in as part of my identity and habits, rather than waiting and trusting a future me to donate, when in the future my goals might change.
3) For me at least, it doesn’t feel like I’m only weighing up savings and donating, it feels more like I’m weighing up—
donating (you could say ~investing in my values)
- investing financially in my future (savings)
- investing in other ways in my future (eg. getting fit, eating well, going to therapy, taking care of important relationships, trying to have experiences that help me grow and learn).
3) There is a chance though that money is disproportionately more useful sooner for the 3rd category—eg. getting help for (mental) health issues before they get worse, acquiring skills you can then use for longer, being able to do experiments that help you make life decisions. However, the benefit of acting sooner likely applies to savings and donating too, so I’m not too sure how to weigh them up.
4) If you’re waiting to donate while you build up savings, (or invest in other ways) I’d consider having a specific set goal/plan in advance. I have a (non-EA) friend to whom saving is really important. No matter how much he saves, though, it never feels ‘enough’ and he keeps moving his goalpost.
5) If I really sit with it, most of the things I think I need, I really don’t, but giving them all up would likely make me very sad. On the margin, however, I absolutely could (and should by my values) give more. Elliot recently wrote “Do what you can. No more. No less”. I personally need to do a big sit down and think hard about where the no more, no less, truly lands me.
I’m not super familiar with your work but I can imagine this is a great resource for lots of people, and I recognise that therapy or similar support can be really hard to access. I think it’s was worth noting though, that I’ve really valued having my main therapy and some of my support be outside of EA.
I think this actually allows me to look more honestly at my feelings and feel more psychological safety when exploring them. I do think the shared context of EA can be really helpful (I do seek support from EA friends about things) - but just wanted to note that there are pros and cons, particularly if you’re aiming to work on “deeper seated issues” which is quite a vulnerable spot to be in.
For those considering this, it might be worth taking a minute to check in with yourself about if you’d benefit more from the shared context this provides, or you’d benefit more from being able to talk about your hard stuff with people who you’re much, much less likely to cross paths with professionally.
You’ve probably already considered this, but there are lots of vegan UK facebook groups who I think would be interested in this, with some quite active members who might be interested in volunteering. Is there a plan for sharing in those sort of places? I’d be happy to post in some but also don’t know if you’ve got a more specific comms plan, or reasons you might not want that.
Thanks for taking the time to write this and be vulnerable despite your concerns (and the RSI!).
I definitely resonate with some of what you’ve written, and share some of your frustrations. I might expand my thoughts here or via DM in future if you’d be interested, but in the meantime, I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry it’s been a tough time.
I am glad to hear that you’ve had some good experiences along with the difficult ones (though this mixture of appreciation for and frustration with the EA community can be quite the emotional rollercoaster). I’m also glad you’re doing what feels right for you.
Thank you for all the work and effort you’ve put in. I (and I know others too) have really enjoyed learning about your projects and I’m excited to see what you work on going forward, even if it’s from a bit more of a distance. It’s been lovely getting to know you a little and my metaphorical door is open if you’d like to chat sometime in future.
[If there are concerns you’d like to talk to the Community Health Team about, you can contact us here.]
I enjoyed reading this, thanks!
This was great to hear about, thanks for writing it! The ‘likelihood to recommend’ scores are exciting, congratulations :))
Thanks for writing this Alix. Something I hadn’t been tracking much before this post was how events like EAGs and retreats might be especially tiring if you’re doing lots of 1:1s in a different language. I remember being surprised by just how tired I got spending all day in a different language when I worked in France, and can’t imagine how much that’s multiplied when discussing complicated EA topics and ideas.
Ah I really like the idea of adding languages to swapcard profiles—I’ll share this with the events team!
In case it’s helpful: given this is a fairly long post, I’d really appreciate if there were headers, so that I could skim what kind of things the post is covering, and help orient myself. I’d also have appreciated the conclusion being at the top as a clearer TLDR, to have a sense of where you were going with the piece.