Local effective altruist groups play a valuable role. They’re where much outreach and fundraising happens, and are the way in which many effective altruists first get involved. They help build community and gradually get people more into EA. There are many groups around the world from Auckland to Vancouver with a lot of great people working on them.
With this in mind, one of .impact’s first projects was to create a map of local groups at http://meetups.im/. We’re now relaunching this with a comprehensive list of local groups and meetups around the world. Each group has its own dedicated page through which it can share information like donations made or influenced by the group, its meetup schedule, and the place where you can find upcoming meetups (be it the EA Forum’s upcoming meetups list or the group’s Facebook page). You can see the relaunched site and find groups near you at:
http://effectivealtruismhub.com/groups
The EA Map now points people to nearby groups, as several people have requested since we launched it recently. At GWWC Penn’s suggestion, people reporting donations via the EA Donation Registry can also now tag a local group they’re associated with, so that these can show up on the group’s page.
We’re pleased that the groups site has got a great reception from the local groups that we’ve shared it with. We hope that it will help many people find groups near them, now and in the future.
I've just added 5 new groups which signed up - I thought I'd done a thorough trawl, but there are some I'd never heard of!