Melanie Brennan 🔹

Karma: 379

I’m an Australian generalist with a background in linguistics, education, and music, now focused on community building in Barcelona.

Since 2023, I’ve been leading EA Barcelona, growing a vibrant local group through impactful events, programs, and collaborations.

I’m especially interested in how we can blend creativity, education, and effective altruism to reach new audiences and spark meaningful action.

Outside of EA, I write songs, produce music & videos, and often busk & donate my tips to effective charities.

Melanie Brennan 🔹 20 Jun 2026 2:40 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Seat at the Table: new short film on AI (and help me with the next one?)
Well done Suzy! I thought this was really well done—creative and imaginative, while still being accessible enough to resonate with a wide range of people, including those with fairly little AI context.
I also really like the angle for the next project: making prevention feel motivating rather than merely doomy seems both important and underexplored.
I’d be very happy to contribute if it’s useful, whether through brainstorming, giving feedback on scripts/early edits, or potentially contributing original music to the score :)

Melanie Brennan 🔹 23 Apr 2026 0:56 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
on: “Art with EA Vibes” database — what should I include?
I think this is a great initiative!
@Pablo Rosado has a Youtube channel in Spanish (with English subtitles) called Altrufísica, where he publishes videos on science and altruism topics. Several of his videos directly address EA themes (e.g. nuclear risks, animal welfare, effective donations and more) and are well worth checking out.
For the more poetically/musically inclined, we also produced a song that I wrote together, Run Away With Me. This song is about what it feels like to be close to someone who’s trying to change the world, and watching the toll it takes on that person… with a twist at the end ;)
Finally, Ricard Soler produced a full-length rap album in Catalan, Parets de Vidre (“walls of glass”) under his artist name Nu Drama. It addresses many different aspects about animal agriculture, including animal suffering, climate change, environmental degradation, and how to cook delicious vegan meals :D It’s freaking amazing. The videoclip for Jo he vist (“I have seen”) has English subtitles.
In general, I’m excited to see more art with EA-themes being produced in a range of languages and cultural contexts!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 12 Feb 2026 14:04 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Vote for videos about EA charities! (Project for Awesome 2026)
Voted!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 1 Feb 2026 18:14 UTC
1 point
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: SofiaBalderson’s comment on: The reality of long-term EA community building: Lessons from 3 years of EA Barcelona
Thanks a lot for sharing your own experience which feels genuinely validating of ours, Sofía. We really admire the work Hive and other communities are doing, and hope that by being more open about the many obstacles community builders face, we can help bring about a more constructive and transparent dialogue between CBs and funders.

Melanie Brennan 🔹 10 Dec 2025 17:24 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Having strict rules on EA Groups’ WhatsApps helps reduce friction for easier community building
I’ll explain our current onboarding process at EA Barcelona, as it took several iterations to get to where we’re at now.
Firstly, we’ve made our main onboarding document publicly available on our website. This includes a link to our WhatsApp community guidelines document, which explains its purpose, how to use it, the different sub-groups, etc.
At the end of the document, there’s a link to join the WhatsApp community directly. We don’t share this link anywhere else, so the idea is that only people who’ve read (or at least skimmed) the guidelines first can join. We also try to ensure that a community builder reaches out to new people who join to encourage them to make a small intro to the community soon after.
In addition to that, we also invite people individually—usually people we’ve met at events, those who’ve reached out directly expressing interest, or friends and colleagues of current members—to join our Whatsapp community.
I think this system has helped us maintain a fairly steady rate of growth while preserving the quality of discussion and avoiding a constant influx of people who are entirely new to EA ideas. If anyone is curious to read our onboarding guide (and subsequent Whatsapp community guidelines doc), it’s linked here on our website: https://www.eabarcelona.org/contact. Hope that helps and curious to know more about how other EA groups approach this (kinda tricky) part of community building!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 22 Oct 2025 14:33 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: You can raise $3 for The Humane League just by clicking some buttons: Tab for Ending Animal Suffering
What a fantastic initiative—helping animals has never been easier! Thanks a lot for posting—I’ve installed the extension and shared the info among members of our local group :)

Melanie Brennan 🔹 2 Oct 2025 6:50 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Kat.
A question that comes to mind is: If eating bivalves can give you the nutrients you think you might be missing on a vegan diet, why not just be vegan + bivalves? Why include more morally problematic foods like wild caught fish, eggs, etc? Or is it more about the sensory experience and social ease that comes from eating those foods? Thanks!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 1 Sep 2025 11:08 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Toby Tremlett🔹’s comment on: AMA: Pablo Melchor, author of Altruismo Racional and President of Ayuda Efectiva
Great, thanks!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 1 Sep 2025 11:00 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: AMA: Pablo Melchor, author of Altruismo Racional and President of Ayuda Efectiva
How will Pablo be answering our questions—by replying to them on the forum or is there an online meeting we can join?

Melanie Brennan 🔹 20 Aug 2025 21:30 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: New Spanish-language book on “classical EA”
Congratulations, Pablo! We at EA Barcelona could not be more excited to see this book take flight, and are already brainstorming all the ways those of us in the EA Spanish-speaking network can help make this launch a great success! Vamos! 💪

Melanie Brennan 🔹 30 Jun 2025 14:07 UTC
19 points
2 ∶ 0
on: If you want to be vegan but you worry about health effects of no meat, consider being vegan except for mussels/oysters
As a vegan woman of menstruating age who struggles to absorb non-heme iron (the kind found in plants) despite careful supplementation, I can say I wholeheartedly endorse Kat’s recommendation. I’ve also heard that mussel farming may have positive impacts on ocean ecosystems, but I haven’t looked into it deeply—if anyone has good sources on that, please feel free to share :)

Melanie Brennan 🔹 25 Jun 2025 7:45 UTC
5 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Introducing Impact Catalyst—a high-impact nonprofit incubation program in Latin America
Really exciting to read about this new initiative, Verónica! I’m looking forward to following your progress over the coming months. Good luck!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 10 Jun 2025 15:26 UTC
7 points
1 ∶ 0
on: EA Indonesia First Retreat: Lessons from Jakarta
A huge congratulations to the EAID team for successfully running your first national retreat! We are eagerly planning our first retreat for EA Spain soon, and will be drawing from your experience shared here to help us plan effectively. Thanks a lot for sharing and good luck with the many follow-ups that I’m sure will result from this event :)

Melanie Brennan 🔹 28 May 2025 14:36 UTC
4 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: James Herbert’s comment on: Revamped effectivealtruism.org
Yes, setting up a meeting (or several) to ensure that the majority of community builders are aligned on the new branding strategy would be a smart move, I think. Thanks for suggesting this, James, and great work overall on the new website, Agnes!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 9 May 2025 10:36 UTC
18 points
3 ∶ 1
in reply to: James Herbert’s comment on: Thoughts on Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman
Thanks for sharing this, James. I haven’t read the book yet, so what I’m about to write is based on following RB and MA’s activites on Linkedin, looking at the MA website and talking to someone who attended one of their online onboarding sessions. So please take some aspects of my comment with a grain of salt.
As an EA city group organiser, I think what would be helpful for me (and likely for other community builders) is guidance on how to position our work in light of the new MA movement. I’m hopeful that the two can co-exist and even amplify one another. You’ve mentioned that several of MA’s co-founders have roots in the EA community (including one who co-directed EA Netherlands), which I personally find really encouraging.
However, I do feel some concern around the intentional distancing from EA (for PR reasons we assume), particularly the decision not to publically disclose the close ties between the two, the pretty blatant repackaging of the ITN framework under a new label (SSS—I found the third S—“sorely overlooked”—a bit of a stretch!), with no mention as to the origin, the omission of 80,000 hours and now, (from what I’ve heard), the recent promotion of Effective Giving without mentioning GWWC, etc. It’s my worry that all of this, from a local community building perspective, has the potential to create real friction.
For example, I can imagine a Moral Ambition Circle starting up here in Barcelona. If we from EA Barcelona try to connect or collaborate, we may be met with confusion, or worse, even suspicion. People might say, “What’s that you say? You’re part of another movement doing almost the same thing? But with a way worse reputation? Why should I believe you given that there’s no mention of EA on the MA website, etc”. That lack of transparency could lead to mistrust, even if our intentions are aligned.
Anyway, I’d really love to hear your thoughts on how to navigate this emerging dynamic in a positive and constructive way, especially in terms of messaging and collaboration with MA. Thank you!
Update: I have since finished the book. Overall, I really enjoyed reading it, and agree that it’s essentially EA repackaged for a broader audience, which I find genuinely exciting. After finishing it, I felt a renewed, strong motivation to continue striving to build a better world.
At the same time, the lack of explicit acknowledgement of EA’ obvious influence still feels quite off to me. In fact, “influence” is too weak a word—it’s clear that this book probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the groundwork of EA. Others have said that Rutger speaks positively about EA in different contexts, so I can’t help but wonder: why not use this book, which looks likely to reach a huge new audience, to improve EA’s optics, rather than reinforce outdated criticisms? Like, he mostly critiques EA for being too “nerdy,” too focused on earning to give, and references SBF as a warning against extreme utilitarianism (fair), but to me it sounds like he got a bit put off by “old EA” and stopped updating his view on how the movement has expanded over the past few years.
Some things also come across uncomfortably close to plagiarism for my liking (maybe this is too deontological a stance for many people on this forum, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due). For example, the SSS model is essentially a copy of the ITN framework, but he doesn’t acknowledge that anywhere. He dedicates a full chapter to Charity Entrepreneurship and how amazing it is, without once mentioning its strong ties to the EA movement. Then later, in his one chapter where he mostly criticises EA, he says “oh, btw, remember that awesome organisation I mentioned before? That was founded through the EA movement—now, moving on...”, as if it was so… incidental. He’s clearly very impressed by Joey Savoie (fair) but Will MacAskill, Toby Ord and others don’t get much praise (unfair). And, the most serious omission in my opinion, is that 80,000 Hours isn’t referenced at all, except in a couple of footnotes, despite the book’s entire premise (and, in particular, the introduction) basically echoing 80k’s core message i.e. “You have 80,000 hours in your career. Why not use them to make a difference?”
So, while I’m still overall very excited about MA and the new energy/talent it could bring into our work and shared mission, I’m still concerned about the pretty serious lack of attribution and the strategic distancing. I think it could make it harder for us to build bridges and create a shared, transparent narrative between these two clearly very aligned communities.

Melanie Brennan 🔹 3 Apr 2025 5:45 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Centre for Effective Altruism Is No Longer “Effective Altruism”-Related
This post made my day (to be fair, it’s only 7:40am, but whatever, I doubt anything else can put such a big smile on my face in the remaining 15+ hours).
Great article, Centre for what now? 😀

Melanie Brennan 🔹 20 Mar 2025 11:33 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: US aid freeze – how to help & where to donate: GWWC’s February Newsletter
Thanks a lot for this useful overview, Grace!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 5 Mar 2025 15:36 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Explaining EA: What I learned from giving a TEDx talk about EA
Thanks a lot for sharing this refreshing take on explaining EA concepts to a broader audience (without necessarily mentioning “EA” itself) - appreciate it!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 12 Feb 2025 16:52 UTC
4 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: EA_ProjectForAwesome’s comment on: Vote for videos about EA charities! (Project for Awesome 2025)
Thanks for your comment, Laura! Children Change Colombia doesn’t have a connection with EA as far as I know. However, one of our members felt an affinity for the charity and wanted to support them with her video. But in order to avoid further confusion, I’ve asked the author of this post to remove it from the list of EA-aligned charities. Thanks!

Melanie Brennan 🔹 11 Feb 2025 21:29 UTC
6 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Vote for videos about EA charities! (Project for Awesome 2025)
Successfully voted for all videos linked above! And a big thanks to you Felix for coordinating our collective efforts to get EA charities votes for another year running!