Thanks for this, James! No worries at all about tone—I completely understand how those kinds of days go.
I really appreciate you sharing more context about where you’re coming from. It sounds like there may have been some communication gaps or crossed wires here—I know I’ve talked to your co-director Marieke about comms more than once (most recently in February at EAG), and Britney from our team left some comments on one of your comms strategy docs recently that the Groups team flagged to us. But it sounds like there may be a disconnect between those conversations and what you were looking for, or maybe the information didn’t flow in the most helpful ways for your planning, which is great to know.
You also raise a really good point about proactive communication. As I said, we’re definitely still figuring out the best ways to keep stakeholders informed as we scale up our capacity and work, and this is helpful feedback in that.
Hi James, I've been working on the EA brand at CEA, and appreciate you raising this! I’ll be at EAG London and would be happy to talk more, if you’re attending and want to book a 1:1 with me then, or we could schedule a call for afterward. It sounds like there’s some cool work being done at EA Netherlands that I’d love to hear more about!
To give some relevant context, until recently (March of this year), I was the only full-time employee working on communications at CEA—which was dramatically insufficient for the work to be done! As Zach mentioned in his Forum post on CEA strategy, we revamped our hiring process and have been working on building out the team. The exciting news is that we’ve made great progress and now have a Communications team of four full-time employees (FTEs)! This also means that we’re still in an early scaling phase, as people onboard to their roles. I share that context to clarify that the lack of more coordinated or in-depth engagement with different stakeholders was an unfortunate side effect of limited capacity and the need to triage my work heavily. We’re still figuring out how to best use our new and growing capacity, but we’re excited about broader community engagement as one of those areas.
A few points of clarification: community builders were surveyed as part of the brand association work that Agnes cites here. I know Agnes conducted lots of user interviews across the community and with people less familiar with EA to inform her work as well. In my role at CEA, I regularly keep in touch with community builders at various levels (city, national, university) and advise people in the EA community on comms strategy and media-related questions. I recognize this engagement can feel spotty in places, and not everyone has visibility into it. I definitely think the Comms team has room for improvement in communicating about our work, and I also want to be clear that we care about and track the perspectives of community builders and others in the community.
This is a nudge to leave questions for Darren Margolias, Executive Director of @Beast Philanthropy, in the AMA post here! I'll be recording a video AMA with Darren based on the questions left in the post, and we'll try to get through as many of them as possible.
Interesting! I see it under “Opinions” on their homepage when I check now—maybe was something to do with them refreshing the content on the page at a certain point today when you checked, or something else.
Frances' quick take here made me think about what skills are particularly important in my own line of work, communications. 80,000 Hours has a skill profile for communicating ideas that covers some crucial considerations when assessing fit for communications work; these are additional skills or aptitudes that I often think about when considering fit for communications work in the EA ecosystem in particular:
Translating between groups: Especially in an EA context, communications work can entail the translation of complex, nuanced ideas from one group of people into something more legible for a different group or audience. Being able to speak the language of different niche groups—like researchers or philosophers—and then being able to translate that into a different kind of language or format proves useful, especially when communicating with audiences that are less familiar with EA. This is when having a background or understanding of different audiences or groups can come in handy for communications work.
Stewardship mentality: As a communicator, you don’t always represent your own ideas or original work. Often you’re representing the work or ideas of others, which requires a sense of stewardship in service of representing that work or those ideas accurately and with nuance. This can look like double-checking stats or numbers before sharing a social media post or doing further research to make sure you understand a claim or piece of research you’re discussing.
Excitement about being in a support role: Some communicators, like social media personalities or popular bloggers, don’t necessarily require this aptitude; but full-time communications roles at many organizations in the EA ecosystem require this, in my opinion. Similar to having a stewardship mentality, I find it helps if you have excitement about supporting the object-level work of others. Feeling jazzed about the message or impact of a particular organization or cause area probably means you’ll do a better job communicating about it or supporting the communication efforts of others. Many types of communications work don’t receive direct, public credit—editing, ghostwriting, coordinating, filming, etc.—but they can be just as rewarding depending on your personality.
This is by no means a comprehensive list—and some of these relate to points Shakeel already raised—but here’s a list of more wins from 2023, some more meta than others:
New Incentives hit 2 million infants served by their program. As of January 3, 2024, they’re now at 2,585,587 enrolled in total. Their 2023 enrollment exceeded all their previous years combined.
Giving What We Can launched a new pledge option for those with significant wealth to give away 10% of their total wealth, not just their income. They also launched effective giving groups in many communities.
The recent Donation Election on the Forum raised $34,856, $12,847.75 going to Rethink Priorities, $11,351.11 to the Charity Entrepreneurship: Incubated Charities Fund, and $10,657.07 to the Animal Welfare Fund (EA Funds) after voting from 341 Forum users.
The Humane League “pushed the companies falling behind on their commitments to follow through on their promise” and “held 36 companies with global cage-free commitments accountable to reporting progress on their pledges.” Notably, 39.4% of the US egg-laying flock are free from cages, "(over ~120 million hens, up from ~5% when THL began this work in 2014.” (Source: Forum post from THL)
Against Malaria Foundation received its millionth donation in 2023. As of November 2023, their team is in the middle of a nine-month period to distribute 90 million nets to protect 160 million people in Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. “The impact of these nets is expected to be, ± 20%, 40,000 deaths prevented, 20 million cases of malaria averted and a US$2.2 billion improvement in local economy (12x the funds applied).” (Source: Forum post from AMF)
Vox’s Future Perfect 50 recognized several people related to the EA ecosystem and the valuable work they contribute.
Again, these are just some additional wins! I would love to hear from others about the work they appreciated from the past year or wins you’ve seen in your areas of work or interest.
(Edit note, Jan 4: I previously said AMF had already distributed 90 million nets. @tobytrem pointed out they are in fact part way through distributing these nets.)
I can’t say anything much beyond what’s already been said, but want to reiterate the deep gratitude for what you’ve done in this role. I have always felt heard and respected in conversations with you, even before working at CEA, and I appreciate how value-driven and kind you are in your work.
I really respect you making a choice that will be best for your health—while also making a choice on timing that will support the community’s health. Thank you for that thoughtfulness and all you’ve done for the community! Looking forward to seeing you around still.
Thanks for this, James! No worries at all about tone—I completely understand how those kinds of days go.
I really appreciate you sharing more context about where you’re coming from. It sounds like there may have been some communication gaps or crossed wires here—I know I’ve talked to your co-director Marieke about comms more than once (most recently in February at EAG), and Britney from our team left some comments on one of your comms strategy docs recently that the Groups team flagged to us. But it sounds like there may be a disconnect between those conversations and what you were looking for, or maybe the information didn’t flow in the most helpful ways for your planning, which is great to know.
You also raise a really good point about proactive communication. As I said, we’re definitely still figuring out the best ways to keep stakeholders informed as we scale up our capacity and work, and this is helpful feedback in that.
Looking forward to chatting directly soon!
Hi James, I've been working on the EA brand at CEA, and appreciate you raising this! I’ll be at EAG London and would be happy to talk more, if you’re attending and want to book a 1:1 with me then, or we could schedule a call for afterward. It sounds like there’s some cool work being done at EA Netherlands that I’d love to hear more about!
To give some relevant context, until recently (March of this year), I was the only full-time employee working on communications at CEA—which was dramatically insufficient for the work to be done! As Zach mentioned in his Forum post on CEA strategy, we revamped our hiring process and have been working on building out the team. The exciting news is that we’ve made great progress and now have a Communications team of four full-time employees (FTEs)! This also means that we’re still in an early scaling phase, as people onboard to their roles. I share that context to clarify that the lack of more coordinated or in-depth engagement with different stakeholders was an unfortunate side effect of limited capacity and the need to triage my work heavily. We’re still figuring out how to best use our new and growing capacity, but we’re excited about broader community engagement as one of those areas.
A few points of clarification: community builders were surveyed as part of the brand association work that Agnes cites here. I know Agnes conducted lots of user interviews across the community and with people less familiar with EA to inform her work as well. In my role at CEA, I regularly keep in touch with community builders at various levels (city, national, university) and advise people in the EA community on comms strategy and media-related questions. I recognize this engagement can feel spotty in places, and not everyone has visibility into it. I definitely think the Comms team has room for improvement in communicating about our work, and I also want to be clear that we care about and track the perspectives of community builders and others in the community.
This is a nudge to leave questions for Darren Margolias, Executive Director of @Beast Philanthropy, in the AMA post here! I'll be recording a video AMA with Darren based on the questions left in the post, and we'll try to get through as many of them as possible.
For extra context, Beast Philanthropy is a charity founded by YouTuber MrBeast. They recently collaborated with GiveDirectly on this video; you can read more about it on GiveDirectly's blog and the Beast Philanthropy LinkedIn.
It’s in the image on the lower far right— “After Bankman-Fried, effective altruists won’t be fooled again, Opinion by Zach Robinson.”
Interesting! I see it under “Opinions” on their homepage when I check now—maybe was something to do with them refreshing the content on the page at a certain point today when you checked, or something else.
Frances' quick take here made me think about what skills are particularly important in my own line of work, communications. 80,000 Hours has a skill profile for communicating ideas that covers some crucial considerations when assessing fit for communications work; these are additional skills or aptitudes that I often think about when considering fit for communications work in the EA ecosystem in particular:
This is by no means a comprehensive list—and some of these relate to points Shakeel already raised—but here’s a list of more wins from 2023, some more meta than others:
Again, these are just some additional wins! I would love to hear from others about the work they appreciated from the past year or wins you’ve seen in your areas of work or interest.
(Edit note, Jan 4: I previously said AMF had already distributed 90 million nets. @tobytrem pointed out they are in fact part way through distributing these nets.)
I can’t say anything much beyond what’s already been said, but want to reiterate the deep gratitude for what you’ve done in this role. I have always felt heard and respected in conversations with you, even before working at CEA, and I appreciate how value-driven and kind you are in your work.
I really respect you making a choice that will be best for your health—while also making a choice on timing that will support the community’s health. Thank you for that thoughtfulness and all you’ve done for the community! Looking forward to seeing you around still.
I appreciate this style of post! I'll also flag that the Global Priorities Insitute has an FAQ-style list of responses to questions about longtermism, some of which link to research papers and further reading for those interested.