In order to allow the community to get more of an insight into the ongoing activities of CEA, we're going to publish brief monthly reports on the organisation as a whole. (These reports were already going out to donors and other supporters.) If you'd like to get these as e-mails please add your email address here. We're still experimenting with the best format; feedback appreciated. I'll also use the update to give an opportunity for community members in the comments section to ask any questions they have about any aspect of CEA; I'll check the forum a couple of days after posting the update and provide answers.
Below is the update for August 2016; in a separate post I'll provide the update for September 2016.
If you want a quick overview of CEA's recent activities you can just read the Quick Summary section. For a breakdown of what our individual teams have been doing this month please continue to the full update section.
-----------------------Quick Summary for August-----------------------
Metrics
Our current core metric is number of new GWWC members. We’re in the process of developing a broader set of metrics that can represent the work of the Community and Outreach Division as a whole, allowing us to monitor both the new people we get interested in the movement and the ways in which we support current EAs to do more. Once these are finalised we’ll add them to these updates.
Progress in 2 sentences
The biggest events for the team, recently, were the team merger and EA Global. We’ve felt that both have gone well. We’ve been really impressed with how well the CEA staff have adapted to new teams and priorities. The feedback from EA Global so far has been promising, with considerably better messaging and logistics than in previous years.
Since the merger, EA Global has been the primary focus, giving an opportunity for new teams to work together. In the coming weeks, we’ll start to develop in more depth CEA’s strategy for the next six months, including a set of targets by which to assess progress.
How you can help
We’re on the lookout for a temporary Office Manager based in Oxford and researchers to join our Fundamentals Research Team. If you have any ideas or recommendations please let me know.
-----------------------Full Update-----------------------
Effective Altruism Global
Our biggest event over the last month has been Effective Altruism Global which had 2,152 applications, 4,440 nominations and a 1,052 total attendees. If there’s anything you missed we’ll be sharing the photos and videos via the EA Global Facebook page next week. We’ll also be posting reviews of the conference and our marketing efforts on the EA Forums.
Below are updates from our two main divisions: Communications & Outreach and Special Projects. If you missed the update on our new structure you can read Will’s post here.
Community and Outreach Division
The online team launched effectivealtruism.org, which we want to make a central repository for all EA knowledge. They have also been promoting EA Global, managing social media and video updates from the conference and now keeping the momentum up by sharing videos, quotes and planning follow up emails to applicants.
Our in-person team were behind the planning and execution of EA Global. Amy Labenz and Oliver Habryka are currently reviewing the process to see what we can learn for next year, and will post a full report shortly.
The Pareto Fellowship graduated its first 18 Fellows. For 10 weeks, the Fellows received professional development from organizations like Paradigm Academy, 80,000 Hours, and CFAR with the aim of making taking promising EAs and developing them to have stronger long term impact. The program created 14-15 significant plan changes (as defined by 80,000 Hours), and eight Fellows have already been contacted with potential job offers.
Special Projects Division
Most of the staff in the special projects division spent the first half of August in California assisting with and attending EA Global and the smaller Leaders Forum event that immediately followed it. Both events were valuable opportunities to interact with future collaborators and potential recruits. Now back in Oxford, the teams are generally focused on two tasks: (i) completing projects that were begun before CEA’s restructuring, and (ii) crafting their team’s strategic plan going forward.
Philanthropic Advising
The philanthropic advising team (Hauke Hillebrandt, Marinella Capriati, and James Snowden) has primarily focused on developing research reports for a couple preexisting clients, most notably Alwaleed Philanthropies, a $30 billion foundation focused on global humanitarianism. The team is also researching (with Michael Page) different business model experiments it can test through the end of the year.
Policy
The policy team recently hosted a feedback workshop for a forthcoming report on the international community's possible responses to existential risk in Helsinki for the Finnish government. Sebastian and Michael are now meeting with external advisors and stakeholders about whether and how CEA should more aggressively enter the policy space.
Research Fundamentals
The research fundamentals team (Stefan Schubert, Owen Cotton-Barratt (splitting time with FHI)) has been developing a research agenda and list of high-priority research projects. With part-time assistance from Pablo Stafforini, Amanda Askell, and Ben Garfinkel (who has been doing interesting work with Owen on modeling the rate of return on investments in research), the fundamentals team will formally kick-off its research in the coming weeks.
EA institute
Michelle Hutchinson is managing the operations preparations for the Institute (tentatively called The Oxford Institute for Effective Altruism) while Professor Hilary Greaves is leading its research aspects. Our hope is that the Institute will go live in 2017. We received a lot of good feedback at EA Global and Michelle has recruited renowned philosophers Peter Singer and Derek Parfit as advisors.
The Pareto Fellowship programme sounds like paradise on earth.