For the most recent version of this guide, please visit this live google doc where organizers can contribute advice, new activities, and resources.

Summary

This guide aims to address two issues: 1) the challenges of early-stage community-building and 2) the challenges that small colleges like Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs) face. You can refer back to this post at different stages of initial community-building for activities tailored for groups with limited organizing capacity and/or membership. I hope this guide will be useful for small, new and LAC groups. I envision this as a resource group organizers can use in addition to resources like the Chapter Starter Pack and those found in the Resource Map.

The guide makes the case for EA college and LAC groups, suggested goals groups should have and the challenges that LAC and other small groups face. It then covers the initial stages of community-building: Recruiting, Building out the community (creating a core of actively engaged organizers and members) and finally, keeping that core engaged with the movement. Each section contains descriptions of successful and failed activities that various LAC EA groups have tried. At the end of each section additional resources are listed.

Most of the ideas of this post come from mine and previous organizers experiences at Haverford EA, with significant input from Haven at EA Oberlin and Pedro at EA Wooster. Events marked with an asterisk (*) either require more planning capacity, or are more likely to succeed with a more established group.

Thank you to Haven, Arjun, Pedro, Rebecca, James and Kevin for invaluable comments and suggestions!

The Case

Why a College EA group?

College and University EA groups help the EA movement grow by getting people at a pivotal stage in their career to move into high-impact career paths, volunteering and donating to effective charities. College EA groups can help transition passive EA supporters or sympathizers into more active and committed members. Colleges students have time and interest to invest in learning about EA, and are easy to recruit from due to the concentration effects of a college campus.

Why a Liberal Arts EA group?

Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs) are well-suited to find effective altruists for two reasons. First, many LACs have social/mission-driven goals and attract people who want to make a difference with their lives. Second, LACs...

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