I'm one of the Community Liaisons for the EA community (alongside Julia Wise and Charlotte Darnell).
I'm a contact for community health support for EA groups, and I also works on assessing and mitigating risks to the EA community.
I initially studied a lot of physics, then was a high school teacher for 11 years before moving full time into EA community building. I ran local and national EA groups and worked on EA outreach projects, before joining CEAâs Groups Team in early 2020 to support EA groups worldwide. I started working for the Community Health team mid 2021.
Hi Frida,
Iâm really sorry you had a bad experience with our team. You are welcome to share your experience with our team lead Nicole (nicole.ross@centreforeffectivealtruism.org).
Sometimes people want to discuss a concern with us confidentially â our confidentiality policy is outlined here. This means we sometimes donât have permission to talk to the person concerned at all, or can't share many details as it might identify the people that came to us. In those cases we sadly arenât in a good position to discuss the situation in depth with the people involved. I realise it is really frustrating to receive only vague feedback or none at all, and in an ideal world this would be different.
The EA donation swap project has had very little usage over the last couple of years and has been officially discontinued.
You can find out about tax deductible effective giving options in your country by checking out Giving What We Can's guide.
Iâd like for Marisa to be remembered for all the many ways she contributed to the EA Community, and the causes we all care about.
She contributed in so many ways, that I know Iâm going to miss a bunch of things. I guess that was one striking feature of Marisa â she saw things that needed to be done, or heard peopleâs requests for help or advice, and she didnât hesitate to leap in to help. In particular, she did an impressive amount to help us be a welcoming, inclusive and supportive community for newcomers to EA and to people of backgrounds underrepresented in EA.
I think she really embodied the EA principles. Many of the things she did were unpaid, unglamorous, and sometimes tedious. But she took on all these tasks with eagerness because they were important and needed doing.
This is certainly not a full list - please feel free to add more information if you know it.
Iâm devastated by this news. From the first time I worked with Marisa, 7 years ago, it was clear she had a deep compassion for others (human and animal), an ability to authentically connect with a wide range of people, a sharp mind, fantastic sense of humour, and unwavering motivation.
During these last couple of years where Marisa was desperately unwell, I always hoped that she would one day hit on some successful treatment for her agonising illness and sheâd make her way back to the optimistic, future focussed, extraordinarily driven person I first got to know and love.
It is just so sad â for her, for all those who cared about her, and for those lives she was yet to touch. My heart goes out to all her friends, family, her former colleagues, and her dog Chance.
Marisa with a dog (a different dog, not Chance)
This is Chance
Marisa at an EA Anywhere meetup.
I think the general question of whether enlightenment is real, and if so how could more people achieve it, is a very interesting one and I'd be interested in reading more about.
I did want to note that I don't think that Spencer's twitter poll is much evidence for your headline statement "More than 50% of EAs probably believe Enlightenment is real". I think the EAs people who follow Spencer, and choose to respond to this poll are going to be a reasonably skewed section of the community.
Given that EAGx Utrecht might be the most convenient EAGx for a good chunk of Western Europe, I'm not sure how important it is to have a goal for a % speakers with strong Dutch connections rather than Europe connections. But the density of talented Dutch folk in the community is very high, so you might hit 35% without any specific goal to do so.
Thanks for the public update. Some readers might also be interested in what actions and decisions EV and the Community Health team have been taking around this.
People actively considering the choice of whether to work with Owen based on the balance of information available are welcome to reach out to us for input as part of their decision making process. Feel free to reach out to me (catherine@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) if you are in this position.
Congrats on the new job, and a warm welcome to our community!
I encourage you to reach out to Kathryn from Magnify Mentoring (I'm one of the board members). We support and connect women, non-binary and trans people interested in having a large impact. We have dozens of great mentors, many of whom are young women in leadership positions at orgs funded by EA motivated donors. (You also might be a good fit for becoming a mentor in the future once you have your bearings!)
Good luck!
Thanks for your questions James
> This should therefore be easily transferable into feedback to the grantee.
I think this is where we disagree - this written information often isnât in a good shape to be shared with applicants and would need significant work before sharing.
> The post you linked by Linch and the concern he raises that by being transparent about the reasons for not making a grant may risk applicants overupdating on the feedback seems unfounded/unevidenced. I also question how relevant given they weren't funded anyway, so why would you be concerned they'd over update?
The concern here is that people can alter their plan based on the feedback with the hope it would mean that theyâd have a better chance of getting the opportunity in the future. As Linch says in his post
> Often, to change someoneâs plans enough, it requires careful attention and understanding, multiple followup calls, etc.
Iâve personally seen cases where it seems that feedback sends a project off in a direction that isnât especially good. This can happen when people have different ideas of what would be reasonable steps to take in response to the feedback.
But youâre right, Linch and I donât provide evidence for the rate of problems caused by overupdating. This is a good nudge for me to think about how problematic this is overall, and whether Iâm overreacting due to a few cases.
> If you don't tell them they were a near miss and what changes may change your mind, then instead the risk is they either update randomly or the project is just completely canned - which feels worse for edge cases.
I think it is most useful for decision makers to share feedback when a) it is a near miss, and b) the decision maker believes they can clearly describe something that the applicant can do that would make the person/project better and would likely lead to an approval.