EA Groups Feb 2022 Newsletter

I'm cross-posting here this month's EA Groups Newsletter, which I now write for CEA. I'd like to get some feedback if I should continue to do this or not for future months, so let me know in the comments if I should! I'd also love to get feedback on the newsletter itself, and you can do so via commenting below or here in this form.

And if you haven't subscribed to it yet, and you're a group organiser or are interested in EA groups, subscribe here!

Funding for EAG/EAGx, more 80k advising, and a student leader summit

Photo from UChicago Effective Altruism

Hi there,

Two EAGx conferences and one EA Global conference are fast approaching, so if you and your group members haven’t applied, now is a good time to do so! 

In this newsletter, we cover how groups can coordinate and get funding for group travel expenses to EAG conferences, how you can apply for CEA’s support to organise a community event, and a link to 80k’s FAQ for student group leaders about their 1-1 advising. We also announce an upcoming 3-night summit for student group organisers that will be put on by the Global Challenges Project in the UK after EAG London.

This newsletter also includes info about upcoming opportunities and programs for you and your group members, useful links and updates, and job postings relevant for group organisers. We also have a spotlight on EA Georgia Tech.

All the best,

CEA Groups Team

CEA Announcements 📢 Coordinating travel for your group to attend EAG/EAGx ✈️ If you want to coordinate and book your group’s travel and accommodation for an upcoming EAG/EAGx conference, we can help by giving you advanced funding! Read our advice in this document. Applying for visas to travel to EA conferences in the UK This form can tell you if you need a visa to visit the UK. Visitor visas in the standard service currently take six weeks on average to get a decision. So we recommend you apply for priority visa processing if the cost is around or below 250 GBP and if it’s available. This should let you get a visa decision within 5 working days. You can add this cost to your travel grant application if you haven’t applied yet, or email [email protected] to add it if you’ve applied already, and CEA will likely cover it. Apply to organise a community-run event (including EAGx conferences) 🗺 If you want CEA’s support to run a conference or other large event where you are, please apply here by March 4. If we approve your application, we will provide: Financial support. You and other core organisers will also be paid for your work on the event at standard CEA contractor rates (default is $38/hour); Guidance on how to run the event effectively; Assistance in identifying speakers and co-organisers; Free access to event management resources (e.g. Swapcard and Zoho). We are also planning an Events Retreat (April 8-13 near Oxford) to connect people interested in event organising. You can express interest in attending this retreat using the same application form. More information here, including a case for why you should apply! 2022 EAG conference dates and locations 📅 Here’s an updated list of when and where there are EAG conferences this year: EAGx Oxford (Examination Schools, 26 - 27 March) EAGx Boston (Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, 1 - 3 April) EAG London (The Brewery and The Barbican, 15 - 17 April) EAGx Prague (13 - 15 May) EAGx Australia (Australian National University, Canberra, 8 - 10 July) EAG SF (Palace of Fine Arts, 29 - 31 July) EAGx Singapore (likely 2 - 4 September) EAG DC (Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 23 - 25 September) EAGx Berlin (likely September/October) You can add all of these dates to your calendar using this link. Apply now for EAGx Boston, EAGx Oxford, and EAG London! Apply to join GCP’s student group organisers summit from Apr. 18-21 🗻 Photo of the summit venue (Luckley Holidays) The Global Challenges Project will be running a three-night summit in the UK for student group organisers after EAG London, in association with CEA. It will be held from April 18-21 and will be free-of-charge to all accepted participants. The aim of the summit is to help organisers better run their student groups and help them boost their personal career plans. Since slots are limited, they will have to choose who to accept based on who they think would get the most out of it. Learn more and apply here! Learn more on what CEA’s Community Health team does 📃 The Community Health team tries to find important gaps in the EA and longtermism communities, and then tries to fill them (either ourselves if that’s tractable, or by finding someone else to fill them). They just updated their "who are we" doc with really useful information about the team and when to get in contact with them. See it here!

Opportunities for you or your group members

From the 80,000 Hours website

• 80,000 Hours would love for EA group organisers to recommend even more people to apply to their one-on-one advising service. They’re interested in speaking with more people who are excited to use their careers to work on the world’s most pressing problems, and who have already checked out some in-depth EA content (like e.g. doing an in-depth fellowship, or some of 80k’s podcasts/articles.) If you'd like to learn more about to who and when to suggest this advising, check out this FAQ document and short video from Habiba Islam, one of 80k’s advisors.
• The Stanford Existential Risks Conference is happening virtually this February 26-27, from 9am-6pm PDT (GMT-8). Speakers include Will MacAskill, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Stuart Russell. People can apply here (deadline is February 22) or refer someone here!
• Charity Entrepreneurship has a new book called “How to Launch a High-Impact Nonprofit”. It is now available worldwide in paper and eBook format via Amazon. EA groups can get and distribute copies for free through EA Books Direct. (If the book is not yet on your group’s order link, you can reach out to [email protected] to add it.)
• Students are invited to enter the Eon Essay Contest on The Precipice, and 10 winners will receive prizes of between 2,000-15,000 USD! High school, undergraduate, and graduate students can join. Students have to read The Precipice, then write an essay of up to 1,200 words. Further details and the essay prompts are available on the contest website. Students who cannot otherwise access the book can request a free copy.
• There’s a new round of EA Virtual Programs happening in March, including the 8-week Intro Program, In-Depth Program, and The Precipice Reading Group. The deadline to join this round is February 27. They’re also always looking for more facilitators - you can apply by February 20 here to facilitate for the next round!
• Markus Amalthea Magnuson has set up Altruistic Agency to provide free tech support and development to organisations in the EA community. EA groups can check out their website and try emailing them to see if Markus can help you with your tech issue/request.
• More EA workplace/professional groups are emerging, with 13 new ones in the last 6 months, for a total of 28. There are early signs that they could be a promising path to impact. Currently there are 3 collaboration opportunities with workplace and professional groups:
  • Your members can get career advice from existing workplace/professional groups (e.g., the EA Finance group and the EA Consulting Network).
  • It would be very helpful to promote volunteering opportunities as time constraints are the major limiting factor for w/p groups
  • You could connect with workplace/professional group organisers to share your learnings and advice on community building. If you want to learn more, check out this EA Forum sequence.
• Do your group members have any questions related to EA? They can have them answered through CEA’s EA Librarian service! Learn more about it here.

Useful/interesting links

• Thomas Woodside from Yale EA talks about how he got involved in EA by getting in a van, and how you can create more “get in the van” (GITV) moments as a group organiser.
• EA groups at Haverford, Penn, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr had a "Next Steps" retreat for intro fellows, which you can learn about here. They think other student group organisers should consider running retreats after intro fellowships. If you are interested in running one, this Notion page includes several valuable resources (e.g., their schedule, COVID protocol, post-retreat survey, and more.)
• Electroswing encourages those working on meta-EA to think about EA alignment like skill mastery, not cult indoctrination.
• EA at UCLA wrote about their path to impact and how they plan on measuring it here.
• Neel Nanda suggests people could try simplifying their EA pitches to focus on AI having at least a 1% chance or biorisk having at least a 0.1% chance of causing human extinction this century.
• Arne wrote a call for action for German EA university groups.
• Two people got an EA Infrastructure Fund grant to help EAs who struggle in university, such as those with executive dysfunction, still succeed. They started a service to provide accountability partners which students can sign up for.
• Julia Wise talks about how it’s okay to leave EA.

Group updates

• Altruismo Eficaz Los Andes (Colombia), pictured above, did its first intro talk, which had very good attendance, and is now launching its first fellowship.
• EA Israel launched an intro to EA video in order to improve their online onboarding experience, and it received very positive feedback so far. (It has English subtitles.) The video is based on EA Israel’s recent work on EA messaging that they published on the Forum.
• Yale EA has rented an office space for the semester. They hope that the space can be used for all kinds of YEA events, as well as for the YEA community members to work, discuss, and learn from each other.
• LSE EA had Philip Trammell give a talk on patient philanthropy. Given their group has a lot of people interested in economics, many people stayed after the talk for 90 minutes to try to understand all the graphs.
• EA Philippines now has a spin-off organisation called Animal Empathy Philippines (AEP) focused on doing community-building work on effective animal advocacy in the Philippines. AEP recently got a $64,000 grant from the EA Animal Welfare Fund.

Jobs, internships, and volunteering

This section lists opportunities that might be suitable for people with EA group organising experience.

• The Global Challenges Project (GCP) will be taking up to 10 interns this June to September 2022. They’re looking for ambitious and self-directed people to work closely with them on their most important projects to drive impactful community building work. Interns can choose to start either in Berkeley from the start of July, or in Oxford from the start of June, and transfer with GCP to Berkeley and end on September 9th at the latest. Learn more and apply here!
• Advisor at 80,000 Hours (London) Deadline: February 20
• Head of Job Board at 80,000 Hours (London). They will be responsible for setting and executing strategy to grow the job board’s impact, as well as managing and hiring the job board team. Deadline: February 27
• Head of Outreach & Community Building at the Legal Priorities Project (Remote). Candidates would ideally be familiar with EA community building. Application deadline: February 27
• Managing Director, Co-Director, Working Student(s) and/or Volunteers at the Effective Altruism and Consulting Network (Remote). Get a 100€ referral bonus by helping them make a successful hire and/or apply yourself to become the first paid staff. Deadline: March 6

For more roles related to building the EA movement, check out this filtered list on the 80,000 Hours job board. You can also check out the EA Internships Board.

Key resources for groups

• The EA Groups Resource Centre is now the main source of online resources.
• Connect with other organisers on the EA Groups Slack
• To learn who your CEA contact person is based on your type of EA group, go to this new section on the Resource Centre page about connecting with CEA and other organisers.

Group spotlight: EA at Georgia Tech Effective Altruism at Georgia Tech was founded in Fall 2021 by Michael Chen, Anish Upadhayay, and Gaurav Sett. Since then, EA @ GT has grown to 9 organisers, 124 current fellows and 48 past fellows.   On organising intro fellowships: “We facilitated several cohorts and were astounded by the increasing interest we found: Spring 2021 had 8 participants, Fall 2021 had 35, and at the time of writing, Spring 2022 has over 120 (66 for our Introductory Seminar, 28 for the Precipice Reading Group, and 39 for AI Safety Fundamentals). I initially had serious doubts that I could do a decent job of facilitating discussions for the program, and I thought it would be best to just have Stanford EA provide the facilitators for our first program. But facilitating has been a lot easier than I thought – the readings just really click with some people, and your role as a facilitator is mainly just to guide the discussion along and clarify misunderstandings.” Read more about EA at Georgia Tech here. If there is an organiser or a group you’d like to see featured, suggest them via our feedback form!