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fish_are_friends*3
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Yeah, I expect that a financial incentive would get more signups, and I even think that no incentive might be better than giving out stickers and other little trinkets.

But what I would actually want are better non-financial incentives. Instead of starting with a sticker and needing 10 referrals to get a t-shirt, 10x the quality of the prizes and have them start at a t-shirt. The prizes are so trivial now that if you think referrals are very valuable, this adds a negligible cost to the program.

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by Ivan Burduk
2 min read 8

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Building effective altruismCommunityOpportunities to take actionAnnouncements and updatesCentre for Effective AltruismEffective Altruism Global
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EA Global has a new referral program

One of the EA Global Team’s goals for 2025 is to increase attendance at EA Global conferences. EA Global (EAG) events are often highly valuable for attendees— helping them explore and pursue impactful career paths, connect with collaborators, and stay engaged with the EA community. As a result, we think that increasing the number of people who attend is one of the most effective ways to improve the overall value of the conferences.

To help us achieve this goal, we’re launching a referral program.

How it works

If you know someone who might be a good fit for EA Global, you can encourage them to apply by sharing your personal referral code or referral link (found in the My Account section of the EA Global portal). Applicants can enter this code during the application process, or it will be entered automatically if they apply via the link. 

If the person is accepted and it’s their first time attending EA Global, the referral will count toward your total.

We’ve set up a small selection of rewards to recognize and thank people who are helping us grow the EA Global community. We also hope this will serve as a gentle prompt—encouraging a few more people to actively think about who in their networks could benefit from attending an EA Global event.

Note: You'll need an existing account to access your referral code details. If you don't have one, you can easily create one via the links above. 

Referral rewards

These rewards (designs coming soon) are intended as small tokens of appreciation, not as financial incentives. You can earn one or more of the following depending on how many people you successfully refer:

  • 1 referral = Sticker
  • 5 referrals = Pin
  • 10 referrals = Printed t-shirt
  • 20 referrals = Printed hoodie

Referrals accumulate across application cycles and do not expire. Rewards are based on accepted applications from first-time EA Global attendees. EAGx events do not count toward referral totals.

We plan to distribute rewards at upcoming EAG events. If you’re not attending in person, we’ll follow up afterward to arrange shipping.

Why we’re doing this

A significant proportion of EAG attendees report hearing about the event through a friend or colleague. In 2024, 31% of applications came through personal referrals. We believe that thoughtful recommendations from trusted sources can lead to high-quality applications and help bring in people who might otherwise not have considered applying.

We’re particularly interested in referrals that surface applicants with significant relevant domain expertise, or that help people take their next steps toward high-impact work.

Questions or feedback?

If you have any questions, suggestions, or thoughts about the referral program, feel free to comment here or email us at hello@eaglobal.org.

We hope this helps us grow the EA Global community in a thoughtful and sustainable way—and we appreciate your support in making that happen.

The EA Global Team

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fish_are_friends11
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The rewards are so small you've Israeli-daycared me into not referring people. What do you think is the value of a new person attending EA Global for the first time? Based on TLYCS I think it would be huge, but this post implies referrals are close to worthless.

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Ivan Burduk3
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Appreciate the feedback here. Just to add on to what Robert said in the other comment:

You're right that a successful referral is worth much more than a sticker or pin! When we were designing the program, we did consider more substantial rewards. But we also wanted to be careful not to incentivize gaming the system (which gets trickier the more valuable the reward), and make sure the program stayed focused on community-building rather than making it transactional.

That said, I’ve also noticed that people genuinely enjoy the small, fun merch/swag at EAG/x events—stickers, shirts, hoodies with EA-y designs, etc. And because the referral rewards will be unique, they might act as conversation starters or visible signals that quietly prompt others to refer as well.

It’s also worth noting, as mentioned in the post, that many people were already referring friends informally—this program just offers a small way to recognize and appreciate that effort! We're hoping it serves more as a light prompt or nudge than a financial incentive.

Really appreciate you raising this, though—it’s helpful feedback, and we’ll keep it in mind as we move forward.

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Guy Raveh2
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Israeli-daycared

That's a new one. What does it mean?

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Robi Rahman8
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When a reward or penalty is so small, it is less effective than no incentive at all, sometimes by replacing an implicit incentive.

In the study, the daycare had a problem with parents showing up late to pick up their kids, making the daycare staff stay late to watch them. They tried to fix this problem by implementing a small fine for late pickups, but it had the opposite of the intended effect, because parents decided they were okay with paying the fine.

In this case, if you believe recruiting people to EA does a huge amount of good, you might think that it's very valuable to refer people to EAG, and there should be a big referral bounty.

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Guy Raveh2
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Interesting, I've lived in Haifa my whole life and never heard of it.

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RobertHarling1
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Thanks for your feedback (I lead the EAG team)! We value EAG referrals very highly and are really grateful for anyone who refers someone to us. As discussed in the post, rewards are intended "as small tokens of appreciation, not as financial incentives". We hope they're fun ways to show our appreciation and draw people's attention to the fact that they could be referring people.


We want to make sure we're not trivialising referrals though, and we'll bear this feedback in mind. Are you suggesting it would be better to have no incentive, or a more substantial monetary incentive?

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fish_are_friends*3
2
1

Yeah, I expect that a financial incentive would get more signups, and I even think that no incentive might be better than giving out stickers and other little trinkets.

But what I would actually want are better non-financial incentives. Instead of starting with a sticker and needing 10 referrals to get a t-shirt, 10x the quality of the prizes and have them start at a t-shirt. The prizes are so trivial now that if you think referrals are very valuable, this adds a negligible cost to the program.

Reply
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