I would be happy to be on the list as well! My email is: jonathan.courtney@givingwhatwecan.org Cheers!
jonathancourtney
Karma: 121
Hey Jonathon, this is a really great initiative! Giving What We Can is currently in the process of designing an experiment to test the effectiveness of our pamphlets. We were hoping to run it in London some time late January, early February. We should coordinate on our experiment design [I will post more details on the forum once we have firmed up details about the experiment design].
What do I do as the Director of Community for Giving What We Can?
Hey Tom, not sure about TLYCS’s study, but we plan to make ours public (and I imagine they will too!)
EA Vloging
Thanks for the feedback- I will be sure to simplify the script and use room tone in the next video!
Do you have any suggestions for blogs/guides I can read up on for other tips?
Cheers!
The Value of Starting a Giving What We Can/EA Chapter
Agreed- part of valuing the pledge at $20,000US (rather than the $150,000US that the median earner would donate over their life time) is an attempt to capture this sort of counter-factual concern.
I also totally agree about your point about personal connections- I think many people find that they do a lot to motivate them to do more for EA- just another way that chapters are awesome!
A good point! The 3-5 number averages over a number of chapters, many of whom have been running for several years and are well established, and so is likely on the optimistic side.
I absolutely agree with your point that if your chapter produces 1 pledge, that is an amazing achievement that should be congratulated! That said, I don’t think it is right to say that the median chapter produces 0 pledges a year- most chapters which start up and run a successful first year on average result in at least one or two pledges. I should also note that my analysis ignores any flow-through effects of those people at the university who become interested in EA from the chapter’s activity- these are likely also quite large although harder to calculate!
All that being said- the important common ground here is that chapters are awesome, and any chapters which get even a single pledge are doing a very good job!
Keep Track of Your Giving with MyGiving
A good point- making your giving public is a really great way for getting other people involved!
If you want to make your MyGiving page public, you can find a link to do so under the ‘edit’ tab.
If you want to check out my giving history, feel free to look at the link here:
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/igivedisplay?publicid=993&publicauth=684959826
Giving What We Can September Internship- Applications Open!
Thanks for the great post Peter! As Michelle mentioned I am spending most of my time focusing on chapter growth, and helping to support established and emerging chapters. I completely agree with everything you said about the importance of local groups- in particular I think you are right that we need to be spending more time on supporting new EA meet-ups once they have started up. More generally i think local meet-ups and chapters have a really important role to play in the ‘EA funnel’. They serve as a natural ‘next-step’ after people have heard about EA and are intrigued by the concept, “interested in EA? Why not meet up with other people in your area talking about it?”. Chapters and meet-ups also serve as natural launching-off points for other projects like pamphleting or fundraising campaigns. Also, in Giving What We Can’s experience, chapter involvement has played a large part in many people deciding to sign the pledge. This gives us some reason to think that chapters can play an important role in moving people from being interested in the ideas of EA to acting on them in their life. For all of these reasons I think that we should be working hard to both create as many chapters and meet-up groups as we can, and provide a system to support and sustain chapters these chapters once they have started out. Hopefully in the next week or so I will be posting here with concrete a proposal for a volunteer run ‘Chapter Growth Team’ which can help in this venture!
New Volunteer-Driven Chapter Growth Strategy!
Thanks for this Alex- a really great post for EA chapters who are just starting out!
I have also made a quick video explaining the project- check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3boEcNVFw_U
You can also join the Giving What We Can Mailing list at the bottom of any of the main pages of the website:
I just wanted to +1 this post! In general I agree there needs to be more opportunity for open communications with new EAs! This is why I think developing new local presences/chapters for EA is so important (cue, shameless plug of what I am working on!).
I should also note that all of us at Giving What We Can are always happy to chat with new people in the movement! Alison Woodman (alison.woodman@givingwhatwecan.org) is a great first point of contact, and I am also always happy to chat! (jonathan.courtney@givingwhatwecan.org)
An idea that just sprung to mind is that it might be good to have google hangouts happening every week/every other week for people in regions where there isn’t already local presences set up, to enable this kind of connection.
Looking forward to hearing more about this at EA Global Oxford!
Also, if you are interested in getting in contact with Giving What We Can members/chapters/meet-ups please feel free to email me!
jonathan.courtney@givingwhatwecan.org
(I am the current Director of Community for Giving What We Can)