Crossposted on Substack.
I’ve been thinking about what kinds of fieldbuilding projects the EA ecosystem could benefit from. With all the new money coming in, I would be excited to see more principles-first EA community building.
I’ve grouped them by theme and, for each, included a short description along with what I see as the main strengths and weaknesses. These are early-stage ideas and would need further development to assess their viability. Some of the communications-focused projects carry meaningful downside risk if executed poorly, so they would require strong judgment and risk management.
Subscribe to Building CapacityWith that in mind, here are the ideas:
Marketing & Comms infrastructure
Marketing and communications placement program for fieldbuilding organisations
Description
Modelled after Talos, this organisation would place digital marketing professionals into fieldbuilding organisations to help address their talent bottlenecks.
Strengths
Digital marketing is heavily neglected in the fieldbuilding space. Placing the right people in the right roles could meaningfully shift these organisations' trajectory.
Weaknesses
Marketers sometimes struggle to work effectively within EA organisations, even from within. This may reduce the likelihood that placements convert into long-term roles, compared to models like Talos.
Agency connecting marketing needs with talent
Description
A leaner version of the above. This organisation would act as a middleman between EA organisations and marketing professionals new to the space, making introductions based on organisations' needs and marketers' strengths.
Strengths
Most marketers are new to EA and don’t know where to find relevant opportunities. At the same time, many organisations lack awareness of how marketing could support their work. A trusted intermediary could help scope needs, surface opportunities, and match the right talent. Compared to the placement model, this is more scalable and easier to run.
Weaknesses
Less control over outcomes. Without embedding talent directly, placements are likely to be less rigorous and may lead to weaker or shorter-term matches.
EA Spokesperson Accelerator
Description
An organisation focused on identifying and training EA figures in media skills, helping them represent the movement more effectively in public.
Strengths
EA communications is neglected, and the movement has suffered from a lack this lack of infrastructure. We need more faces to represent EA publicly.
Weaknesses
Improving EA's brand has a less clear path to impact compared to digital marketing, which has a shorter feedback loop. There are also risks around selecting the wrong representatives or providing poor training.
Workshops on marketing for EA organisations
Description
Free workshops to help organisations think through and develop their theory of change on marketing and communications.
Strengths
There is precedent for this model (e.g. CG funding similar initiatives in leadership coaching). Doesn’t require a big commitment from orgs.
Weaknesses
Might not translate into meaningful outcomes, as organisations need to be willing to take the next steps. Those who do might have been willing to do so without a workshop.
Distributing free book PDFs
Description
A digital marketing-focused organisation that builds infrastructure to distribute free online books to large audiences.
Strengths
Physical book distribution has a decent track record of getting people into EA, and many EAs report getting involved with the movement after stumbling into a book. Digital distribution could be significantly more cost-effective (especially in LMICs).
Weaknesses
Many great EA-intro books may not be distributable freely because of copyright restrictions, and buying the rights could be expensive. People may be less likely to engage deeply with online books. There is a risk of attracting people who are not a good fit for the movement. Books also tend to have slower feedback loops and weaker retention compared to fellowships.
See more discussion about this here.
Marketers for Good
Description
Organisation with a similar model to HIP, but specialising on marketing (and perhaps comms) professionals.
Strengths
Marketing is heavily neglected in the EA space and is a bottleneck to growing the field itself. Therefore recruiting this kind of talent could accelerate the growth of the field.
Weaknesses
There aren't as many jobs for marketers. Marketing is not well understood, perhaps even slightly stigmatised in EA. Marketers report that it's harder to work with EAs compared to other industries.
The Good Sabbatical
Description
This organisation helps accomplished professionals who are on a sabbatical to pivot their career into socially impactful roles.
Strengths
Getting a job in EA takes a lot more time than in other spaces. This group would have the most time to invest into a career transition. The decision to change one's job is a big one, and these people have already made that choice.
Weaknesses
Target audience might be too small in order to market the program effectively. People on sabbaticals might be under pressure to move back to the workplace soon, limiting their time to upskill and find roles.
Lawyers for Impact
Description
Organisation modeled after Consultants for Impact.
Strengths
Consultants for Impact has a strong track record, and perhaps much of their infrastructure could be replicated. People with a law background seem neglected in the space, especially in AI Safety.
Weaknesses
Consultants can go on to take many different roles, while the skillset of lawyers is a lot more niche. Most job openings are in policy as opposed, and perhaps the skills are less transferable.
High Impact Recruiters
Description
Similar as above, but focused on recruiters.
Strengths
I heard from several people that finding good recruiters is hard, making this a neglected talent profile. Having more recruiters speeds up the growth of organisations, resulting in multiplier effects. Funders have been giving away an increasing amount of money which means many of their grantees are looking to scale.
Weaknesses
An organisation focusing on just one niche talent profile has limited scope. Perhaps it's not worth setting up a full organisation as there aren't enough roles for people to take on.
Increasing diversity of perspectives
Getting EA talent to top unis from LMICs
Description
This organisation would support talented EA undergrads to pursue a masters or graduate program at an elite university.
Strengths
People attending an elite university are in an unusually good position to have a positive impact later in their career.
Weaknesses
EA is already perceived as quite elitist, and this project adds on to that. There is also a lot of effort going behind student outreach already, so junior talent is less of a bottleneck for the field.
Supporting women in EA
Description
Organisation specifically focusing on women in the EA community. This could mean helping women get more engaged with EA through events, community support or coaching. Another direction for the org could be to focus on bringing in new talent.
Strengths
Large, underutilised talent pool. Higher % of women improves the experience of women in EA, is better for community health, and improves how EA is perceived from the outside.
Weaknesses
Risks around branding and framing. Could be seen as a "male-dominated movement" trying to fix its diversity problem.
Return for Impact
Description
Organisation focusing on supporting mothers, or perhaps all parents who are in the process of returning to work after parental leave.
Strengths
On average more flexibility to do part time jobs, perhaps volunteering. Parents skew older than the average EA and bring in more experience and different perspectives.
Weaknesses
People might be pressured to find a job soon, not allowing them enough time to explore EA.
Wait, aren’t X already doing this?
Bits and pieces of these ideas are covered by other orgs. For any non-student focused talent org, you might just say High Impact Professionals are covering them. Aren’t you just duplicating work?
My take on this is that as long as there are 30 times as many genius Taylor Swift fans as EAs, I believe community building can use some more rowing, which should include starting new initiatives alongside scaling existing ones.
If we want a movement that is 10x its current size, it will need dozens of fieldbuilding initiatives running in parallel, experimenting across different audiences and approaches, and sharing lessons with each other.
