Groups: A Model of an EA Group

This article builds on the Local EA Community Building Guide to provide a model of how an EA group might increase the dedication, resources and realization of group members to take high impact actions — namely high impact careers — and ensure group members are thinking very carefully about what the highest impact actions are for them.

This article will focus mainly on a model that is highly relevant to student groups, because the writer mostly has experience with student groups, but much of the analysis is likely to generalize.

Structurally, this article is a series of potentially helpful models, practical advice, and frames of reference. Some sections may be more helpful than others for organizers in different situations.

The funnel

You can view the operation of an EA group as a funnel: people enter the funnel when they are first introduced to effective altruism, and exit either through leakage at any stage, or out of the bottom as deeply engaged individuals leading high-impact careers. Leakage should always be avoided, but prioritization within and between stages is very important: in the same time it takes to convince someone that EA might be reasonable, you might be able to structure a detailed career plan for an already committed member, or use a more efficient approach to convince 2 people to consider EA ideas for the first time. We never want to lose people through leakage, but it is an inevitable consequence of prioritization. Trying to get a few people all the way through the funnel is more important than getting every person to the next stage.

Below we list some potential stages of the funnel, which we then explore in detail. These stages are somewhat arbitrary, and there are likely funnels with different numbers and types of stages that work equally well. Not all the sub-stages will be necessary for every person, but they seem to work well for the average individual.

Introducing people

Raising awareness, following up.

Developing motivation and knowledge

Absorbing key ideas, making personal connections with EAs, group activities.

Deep engagement

Integration with the wider community, career planning, Effective Altruism Global.

Long-term engagement

Taking high-impact careers. Joining/setting up another EA group.

Introducing people

Raising Awareness

Getting people to join an EA group will often involve introducing people to effective altruism for the first time. Freshers’ Fair is the largest opportunity to find people in student groups, and good introductory events following this include introductory presentations and discussion groups. Common methods of advertising events include making an event on Facebook and having members invite their friends, having the event promoted through the university, and reaching out to other groups with shared interests (e.g. ethics, animal welfare, rationality, careers etc.).

Ensuring that ideas are presented accurately is very important for ensuring that people who will gain the most value from the effective altruism community are inclined to become more involved. This means choosing speakers who can represent effective altruism particularly well, and referring to EA materials during presentations.

There can be a tradeoff in the number of people you reach and the fidelity and nuance of your message. While reaching many people with a watered-down message may seem tempting, it is usually better to target fewer people more accurately. Low fidelity approaches, especially when they are done poorly, can often have negative effects. An example is talking to the media about earning to give (ETG). At its core ETG is complex and nuanced, and it’s likely that a single article with large reach will end up spreading ideas that are related to, but importantly different from the ideas we want to spread[^fn-1]. Therefore when deciding how to increase awareness it’s important to keep in mind the fidelity of your approach, and the most effective path to the later stages.

Sometimes advertising space is limited, and it's necessary to compress a message in a way that may lose valuable information. But since compressed claims are very easy to misinterpret, it's important to be very careful whenever broadcasting a signal to a mass market.

Following Up

Following up with people individually is a particularly good way to get relatively new people more involved. One-on-one interaction like a coffee meetup is a very high fidelity method of conveying EA ideas, and should be a major focus of EA groups for this reason.

In general, you won’t be able to adequately explain every crucial EA concept in a 30-60 minute meeting. Instead, what you can do is provide a link and a friendly face to the EA community, give someone an overview of your group, provoke their interest and then point them towards material. Giving a copy of Doing Good Better (DGB) (for which you can get funding) is very common, as well as sending links to articles that are specific to your conversation partner’s interests (e.g. from 80,000 Hours). It’s worth mentioning that DGB is partially outdated, but is probably still a good starting point to learn core EA ideas. Finally, try and introduce EA as sophisticated and complex from the very beginning; making EA sound simpler than it is has historically had bad long run consequences (i.e. EA is all about efficient charity).

Some common methods of contacting people include:

  • Adding and messaging on Facebook if you had a conversation with someone at an event. This has the advantage of being direct and hard to avoid
  • Using feedback forms at events with check boxes for coffee meetings, email addresses, resources etc.
  • Collecting email addresses at the start of an event

Groups shouldn’t have to rely on the memory of the group organizers alone, and keeping a list of interested people can help to avoid losses in informal knowledge that occur when current group leaders leave.

Developing motivation and knowledge

The majority of the value of your group will come from the members who are most motivated and knowledgeable, because they are aware of the best opportunities and are willing to take them. We have split this development broadly into three sections: absorbing key ideas, making personal connections with EAs, and group activities. It’s important to note that these sections have a lot of overlap, and that development may begin at any of these stages.

Absorbing key ideas

A member can learn a lot from attending group events, but it’s unlikely that they’ll get a nuanced picture of EA solely through these. At some point it becomes necessary to engage with all of the key ideas of Effective Altruism, which will help to develop both motivation and knowledge. Absorbing key ideas might currently look like:

Making personal connections with EAs

Socials are particularly successful events for forming connections and promoting a sense of community belonging. People have the opportunity to get to know one another in an informal space, friendships can form, and motivation compounds as members become more accountable to each other. Regularity of socials (i.e. the same day of the week, every week) seems important for driving regular attendance, and free pizza — for which you can get funding — is an incredible predictor of event attendance. Retreats can have similar community building effects to socials, but are more intense and commonly have a stronger education component. More generally, it’s always possible in a social interaction that you are the first EA to establish a connection with an individual, and as a representative of EA it’s very important to be friendly, welcoming and considerate.

Group activities

One tried and tested method of member development in student groups is discussion groups, where group members read an article related to effective altruism and have a structured discussion about it later (see here for articles). Another promising activity is beginner career workshops, where attendees are introduced to 80,000 Hours concepts, cause areas, and career paths. They can then work to discuss and develop their prospective career plans.

In running a group you will likely have to cater to different levels of understanding between members. This can be tricky — if the content of the activities is pitched too high, it can be alienating to new members who don’t have the relevant background understanding. If the content is pitched too low, this can cause previously engaged members to become bored and leave the group, as a result of not learning anything new. Segmenting the group can help to deal with this. This could be by having different activities and events targeted at different levels of understanding, or by having newer members arrive early to group activities and introducing the relevant background concepts to them. Examples of events for advanced members in student groups might include advanced discussion groups and career planning sessions. The latter can be easily adapted from the second careers workshop. For non-student groups, general-purpose networking events with less clear agendas may be effective.

Deep engagement

Integrating with the wider community

The effective altruism community’s understanding of how to do the most good is developing quickly, and so in order to build a local community with the best understanding of this it’s particularly important to ensure your group pays attention to new developments. This is especially important because historically there has been lag time between the latest developments and groups acting on them, which can be harmful for the movement (e.g. by promoting only earning to give). It’s good to ensure that you and your group are aware of:

The Effective Altruism Forum - for the latest advances in Effective Altruism

80,000 Hours

The Effective Altruism Newsletter

The Group Organizers Facebook Page

Another important reason for ensuring your group is integrated with the community is so your group members can learn about further opportunities to do good. In 5 years a lot of the advice given here might be inaccurate, and keeping up to date with the most recent developments should limit this effect somewhat.

Career Planning

The one-on-one coffee meetups mentioned earlier are ‘introductory’ in nature, but such meetups can also be helpful for committed EAs to help further their career plans - we can call this an advanced coffee meetup. If a committed EA is already interested in a priority area then you can encourage them to make a concrete ABZ plan. It might also be a good idea to give them books specific to this cause area (e.g. Superintelligence), for which you can get funding. If they are not interested in taking a priority path (or equivalent) but have potential to take a priority path (or equivalent), then encouraging them to read problem profiles and make explicit cause prioritization decisions (e.g. “What do you think the most important thing to work on is?”) might be a good idea, because it provides the opportunity for you to explain the arguments for priority cause areas and the steps one can take to reduce uncertainty. Group career planning sessions are an alternative to advanced coffee meetups, though they are less personalized.

Effective Altruism Global (EAG)

EA Global is the annual conference of the effective altruism community, where speakers and participants discuss new thinking, share new research, and coordinate on global projects. EAG is aimed towards people who are seeking the opportunity to master more complex problems in Effective Altruism, learn new skills, or get help from the community. As well as a strong knowledge component, the social aspect of EAGs is not to be underestimated: gathering a group of people with shared values who want to help each other do good is very powerful, and inevitably results in great conversations, new friendships, and a strong sense of community. You can apply for upcoming EAGs here.

Long-term engagement

Taking high-impact careers

In most cases, the single largest way an individual can contribute in the long-term is by leading a high impact career. For this reason, having group members lead high impact careers should be a principal goal of your group, and this is the key reason why the previous stages in the funnel are valuable.

Joining/setting up another EA group

A new group can help get a member all the way through the funnel or provide the infrastructure to allow the member to push others through, depending on their position in the funnel. Setting up a new EA group is a great opportunity for deeply engaged individuals with a good fit for movement building, because setting up a group may be low hanging fruit that leads to large future impact. It’s unlikely that an individual will be able to set up a very successful group in a short amount of time, but they can lay the foundations of such a group and focus on sustaining it.

Sustaining the group

The value or organizing an effective altruism group also includes the value of establishing or maintaining a successful institution for future organizers. It’s plausible that the majority of the value that your group generates will happen when you’re gone, so the maintenance of your group is of vital importance.

When finding people willing and able to run your group after the current organizers leave, it’s essential that they know what’s required of them. A common method for student groups is to have prospective committee members meet with the current organizers to discuss expectations and personal fit. Having efficient, well documented processes and a handover period for new group organizers can facilitate the new organizers being able to take over the group successfully. A short handover period is probably not sufficient for the core group leaders, and so starting to mentor people to succeed you over a much longer period is a good idea. This way you can be sure that there are in fact people to succeed you, and that they have the right models ingrained in them.

Metrics

Metrics are measures of a goal. Groups may find using metrics useful because they make the goal’s success conditions explicit, and so easier to aim for, and also because they provide feedback on how well a group is performing relative to its goals. Two types of metrics are lag and lead metrics: Lag metrics are quantitative measures of a goal, and lead metrics are quantitative measures of processes directed at achieving a goal.[^fn-2]

Lag Metrics

A potential core lag metric for deep engagement within a group is the number of people who are intending on taking/currently leading high impact careers in priority paths. This is because by having a career in a priority path we select for both people that are dedicated to improving the world and for people that have a sophisticated understanding of how to improve the world. Also the metric is simple to use, and operationalizes depth of engagement in an observable way.

There will be many sources of value that are not reflected in this metric: importantly, for example, groups can also provide a lot of value for people who have already decided their careers. However, if a group has many members who are intending to take/currently leading high impact careers, it seems likely that the group is doing well, which makes it useful as a target.

Lead Metrics

Here are some suggestions for lead metrics to use at each stage of the funnel:

Finding people

  • Raising awareness - number of people who express interest in learning more about effective altruism via an event feedback form. Number of people at intro events
  • Following up - number of people met with 1-1 to discuss becoming more involved in the group

Developing motivation and knowledge

  • Absorbing key ideas - copies of Doing Good Better or other core EA books distributed, copies of the 80k careers guide distributed
  • Making personal connections with EAs - number of new people coming to socials, how welcomed new people feel on a 1-10 scale
  • Group activities - number of attendees at workshops or other EA content focused events

Deep engagement

  • Integration with the wider community - number of members who regularly read the Effective Altruism Forum
  • Career planning - number of people with an ABZ career plan
  • EAG - number of attendees from your group
  • Giving What We Can pledge - number of members who have taken the pledge

Long-term engagement

  • Taking high-impact careers - number of people with detailed career plans for priority paths (or equivalent). Although 80,000 Hours Coaching applications are temporarily closed, their criteria[^fn-3] remain a useful benchmark
  • Number of people who join/set up another group when they leave

Sustaining the group

  • Number of engaged group members who want to help run the group for the following year

It’s important to note that the above are possible measures of success rather than success itself, and that optimizing for these measures can make them less correlated with success. For example, distributing lots of books to people who don’t actually want them may do well on the metrics, but be of little value, or even harmful.

A Short Note on Funding

Funding for group activities is available through CEA, and groups shouldn’t need to fundraise themselves. It’s likely not the best use of their time, for reasons outlined in the Local EA Community Building Guide. You can apply for funding here.

Prioritization

As members of the effective altruism community, you’re probably very familiar with prioritization. Like many things, groups are resource constrained — primarily by time — and so it’s important at each stage of the funnel to prioritize the most effective actions to ensure maximum flow-through to the next stage, i.e. within-stage prioritization. This might include deciding which events to run for developing knowledge and motivation: is a careers workshop more valuable than a speaker event? What is the relative value in each of these? How do they create movement into the next stage? How long do they take to organize/run? Are there any negative effects?

Equally important is between-stage prioritization. Should you invest time in intro coffee meetings or do advanced coffee meetings with the top 5% of committed people (finding people vs deep engagement)? It’s clear that we need both of these activities, and unlike the previous prioritization we can’t afford to stop either activity. You can however shift the weight of your efforts based on similar questions to above, and relevant features of your group e.g. size.

By prioritizing the best inputs (activities) for your desired outputs (flow-through to the end of the funnel), it’s feasible that you can double your group’s impact without any increase in resources. In addition to prioritization, growing your organizing capacity will help you spread your limited resources effectively. This is a large topic however, which we don’t attempt to address here.

Limitations of the model

  • The ideal model for a group will depend on its size, age and type
  • Particularly important here is between-stage prioritization: for large groups it seems reasonable to prioritize actions that will further people already a fair way through the funnel, whereas the converse might be true of groups just starting out
  • Some people who exit the funnel will have much larger impact than others
  • I don’t think we sufficiently account for negative effects. Some countermeasures might include:
  • High-fidelity outreach activities
  • Avoiding campaigning on controversial issues
  • Taking actions which are seen as good by societal standards as well as for the movement
  • We don’t touch on the organization of a group, including structure and management
  • The model points towards pushing people with the highest potential impact all the way through the funnel, which to some extent goes against forming an inclusive and diverse community. This is a large limitation, which should be addressed in full elsewhere