We've heard that our name, CEEALAR (Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research), is not the best. What would a better name be? To expand, there are potentially two names: one for the hotel building, and one for the charity. The charity name can't contain the word "hotel", and perhaps shouldn't contain "EA". And does "Athena" - the current name of the hotel - pass the reversal test? (Previous discussion on our Facebook group).
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The Organization Formerly Known as Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (TOFKACEEALAR)?
(Sorry.)
More seriously, perhaps you could look into the history of utopian communities for inspiration? Some had nice names, such as Owen's 'New Harmony'. Another option is to use the form 'x House', where x is the name of some suitable person or idea (as an example, someone previously suggested 'Bentham House').
I like Xenea, a combination of Xenia (ancient Greek concept of hospitality) and EA.
Other ideas that I've thought about but like a bit less:
How about something like LEARN? -- not intended as an acronym; just "learn" with the letters "EA" in it highlighted in some way.
One could even play with the fact that "EA" also appears in "research" and consider a logo where these letters are highlighted the same, shared, ...
My sense is:
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Having a separate name for the org and the hotel unnecessarily introduces more confusion/complexity.
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Defaulting to Athena because it happens to be the name of the building already, seems highly improbable to coincidentally be the best option.
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For clarity, something that concisely describes the mission or vision of the org and place feels best to me. Arepo's suggestion of 'Center for Altruists in Residence' hits the sweet spot on the specific enough to broad enough spectrum IMO. It also has an acronym which people will all pronounce the same and spell correctly (C.A.R.)
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Using the names of philosophers etc runs the risk of people having (potentially negative) ideas about the person in question, which don't align with the purpose/vision/mission of the hotel. So personally I'd avoid that to ensure people who should be attracted, are attracted.
I thought "EA hotel" was pretty great as a straightforward description, good substitutes might have a word for "ea" and a word for "hotel". So like:
Bentham's Base
Helpers' House
Swap with Lodge, Hollow, Den if alliteration is too cute
e.g. "Bentham's House", "Bentham's Lodge" both sound pretty serious.
Or just forget precedent and brand something new e.g. Runway (or Runway Athena)
Some "just kidding" alliterative options that I couldn't resist:
Crypto crib, Prioritization Place, Utilitarian's Union, Consequentialist Club, Greg's iGloo
I imagine most people reading your question don't want to list out a bunch of bad ideas. But I think that might be what's needed at this point, because the more we enumerate (and eliminate), the more clear it becomes whether or not CEEALAR is actually the best option. Or maybe seeing a bunch of bad ideas will spark a good one in someone's mind. Here:
Centre for Effective Learning, Centre for Learning Good, Blackpool Pastures, Hotel Hedon, Hotel for Effective Research, Maxgood Productions, Maxwell Hotel, EA Retreat House.
Yeah this is difficult.
Effective Hospitality
I've been thinking about this name on and off, and Effective Hospitality was the name that my thoughts kept returning to. I'd use it first as a name for what CEEALAR does: doing the most good possible by hosting people.
The name generalizes very well, in my opinion. Specifically, CEEALAR and/or the hotel could become "EH Blackpool". The idea might spread, and there could soon be "EH Tokyo", "EH Munich" and others (just as today there are effective altruism groups that call themselves "EA <location>").
The other primary advantage is that the name is quite self-explanatory.
I think the name CEEALAR grew on me by now, maybe because it is rewarding for me to be able to remember it correctly, and maybe because it has become kind of an inside joke that the name is a bit awkward. Random ideas anyway:
- Altruists' harbor
- Scout manor
- Residence and Co-Working Centre (RANC Centre)
- Residence for Altruistic Learning and Doing (RALD)
- Altruists' Residence for Co-Working (ARFORC)
- Altruistic Living And Doing Stuff (Altruistic LADS)
It could even be Altruistic Living and Building - Altruistic Labs! I feel like that name embodies what the organization does within it (enabling people to test various generally early-stage approaches to altruism) which would be a good idea whether the proposed name is an acronym or not.
Looking at similar organizations inside and outside EA (like Berkeley REACH) for naming inspiration also seems like a good idea.
For the sake of getting more feedback on existing suggestions, I'm going to post the eligible ones from the existing FB thread as responses to this 'answer', with clarifications about whether they apply to the hotel or the org (nb in cases where they could make sense for either, I'll post a separate entry for each).
Please up/downvote according to how much you approve of each, keeping in mind the acronyms they'll form (whether as a plus or minus) - I suggest using single up/downvotes, since regular forum contributors get to adjust karma more with strong votes, but don't seem any more likely to have a better sense of aesthetics than passers by. But feel free to comment on any you feel strongly for/against!
Curated and popular this week
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TL;DR
Exactly one year after receiving our seed funding upon completion of the Charity Entrepreneurship program, we (Miri and Evan) look back on our first year of operations, discuss our plans for the future, and launch our fundraising for our Year 2 budget.
Family Planning could be one of the most cost-effective public health interventions available. Reducing unintended pregnancies lowers maternal mortality, decreases rates of unsafe abortions, and reduces maternal morbidity. Increasing the interval between births lowers under-five mortality. Allowing women to control their reproductive health leads to improved education and a significant increase in their income. Many excellent organisations have laid out the case for Family Planning, most recently GiveWell.[1]
In many low and middle income countries, many women who want to delay or prevent their next pregnancy can not access contraceptives due to poor supply chains and high costs. Access to Medicines Initiative (AMI) was incubated by Ambitious Impact’s Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program in 2024 with the goal of increasing the availability of contraceptives and other essential medicines.[2]
The Problem
Maternal mortality is a serious problem in Nigeria. Globally, almost 28.5% of all maternal deaths occur in Nigeria. This is driven by Nigeria’s staggeringly high maternal mortality rate of 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births, the third highest in the world. To illustrate the magnitude, for the U.K., this number is 8 deaths per 100,000 live births.
While there are many contributing factors, 29% of pregnancies in Nigeria are unintended. 6 out of 10 women of reproductive age in Nigeria have an unmet need for contraception, and fulfilling these needs would likely prevent almost 11,000 maternal deaths per year.
Additionally, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that every dollar spent on contraceptive services beyond the current level would reduce the cost of pregnancy-related and newborn care by three do
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I speak to many entrepreneurial people trying to do a large amount of good by starting a nonprofit organisation. I think this is often an error for four main reasons.
1. Scalability
2. Capital counterfactuals
3. Standards
4. Learning potential
5. Earning to give potential
These arguments are most applicable to starting high-growth organisations, such as startups.[1]
Scalability
There is a lot of capital available for startups, and established mechanisms exist to continue raising funds if the ROI appears high. It seems extremely difficult to operate a nonprofit with a budget of more than $30M per year (e.g., with approximately 150 people), but this is not particularly unusual for for-profit organisations.
Capital Counterfactuals
I generally believe that value-aligned funders are spending their money reasonably well, while for-profit investors are spending theirs extremely poorly (on altruistic grounds). If you can redirect that funding towards high-altruism value work, you could potentially create a much larger delta between your use of funding and the counterfactual of someone else receiving those funds. You also won’t be reliant on constantly convincing donors to give you money, once you’re generating revenue.
Standards
Nonprofits have significantly weaker feedback mechanisms compared to for-profits. They are often difficult to evaluate and lack a natural kill function. Few people are going to complain that you provided bad service when it didn’t cost them anything. Most nonprofits are not very ambitious, despite having large moral ambitions. It’s challenging to find talented people willing to accept a substantial pay cut to work with you. For-profits are considerably more likely to create something that people actually want.
Learning Potential
Most people should be trying to put themselves in a better position to do useful work later on. People often report learning a great deal from working at high-growth companies, building interesting connection
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