Contact people for the EA community
Julia Wise, Catherine Low, Charlotte Darnell
If you've encountered a problem in the community, we'd like to help!
6 September, 2024
What should all camps for high schoolers have?
Chana Messinger
These checklists are for anyone thinking of running a high school program in EA. Note that these were written primarily for programs run by people with relatively little experience in directing summer camps for young people, with a focus on rationality and effective altruism. Other camps will have other needs, and many reasonable approaches will vary by location, activities, focus and other specifics.
3 October, 2022
Advice for EA org staff and EA group organisers interacting with political campaigns
Catherine Low
Compiled by CEA’s Community Health team
16 June, 2024
Power dynamics between people in EA
Julia Wise
This post explores how power dynamics can impact the way people interact in the EA community and offers some suggestions for addressing any negative effects that may arise.
1 June, 2022
Our team’s work on interpersonal harm in the community
Julia Wise
This post aims to explain the work the community health team at the Centre for Effective Altruism does about particular kinds of community problems.
18 August, 2022
Project on organizational reforms in EA: summary
Julia Wise, Ozzie Gooen, Sam Donald
Earlier in 2023, Julia put together a project to look at possible reforms in EA. The main people on this were me (Julia) of the community health team at CEA, Ozzie Gooen of Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute, and Sam Donald of Open Philanthropy. About a dozen other people from across the community gave input on the project.
9 November, 2023
Things to check about a job or internship
Julia Wise
A lot of great projects have started in informal ways: a startup in someone’s garage, or a scrappy project run by volunteers. Sometimes people jump into these and are happy they did so.
12 February, 2024
COI policies for grantmakers
Julia Wise
Part of this project on reforms in EA. Originally written July 2023
9 November, 2023
Further possible projects on EA reform
Julia Wise, Ozzie Gooen
As part of this project on reforms, we collected a rough list of potential projects for EA organizational reform. Each idea was pretty interesting to at least one of us (Julia Wise, Ozzie Gooen, Sam Donald), but we don’t necessarily agree about them.
9 November, 2023
Resource on whistleblowing and other ways of escalating concerns
Julia Wise
Written as part of this project on reforms in EA.
9 November, 2023
Advice for EA boards
Julia Wise, Ozzie Gooen
This advice on nonprofit boards draws from multiple sources. We spoke with board members from small and larger organizations inside and outside EA. We got input from staff at EA organizations who regularly interact with their boards, such as staff tasked with board relations. Julia and Ozzie also have a history of being on boards at EA organizations.
9 November, 2023
Takes from staff at orgs with leadership that went off the rails
Julia Wise
I spoke with some people who worked or served on the board at organizations that had a leadership transition after things went seriously wrong. In some cases the organizations were EA-affiliated, in other cases only tangentially related to the EA space.
9 November, 2023
Correctly Calibrated Trust
Chana Messinger
This post comes from finding out that Asya Bergal was having thoughts about this and was maybe going to write a post, thoughts I was having along similar lines, and a decision to combine energy and use the strategy fortnight as an excuse to get something out the door. A lot of this is written out of notes I took from a call with her, so she gets credit for a lot of the concrete examples and the impetus for writing a post shaped like this.
23 June, 2023
Trust is a two-argument function
Chana Messinger
I'd like to talk more about trusting X in domain Y or on Z metric rather than trusting them in general.
23 June, 2023
But "everyone knows"!
Chana Messinger
A dynamic I keep seeing is that it feels hard to whistleblow or report concerns or make a bid for more EA attention on things that "everyone knows", because it feels like there's no one to tell who doesn't already know. It’s easy to think that surely this is priced in to everyone's decision making. Some reasons to do it anyway:
- You might be wrong about what “everyone” knows - maybe everyone in your social circle does, but not outside. I see this a lot in Bay gossip vs. London gossip - what "everyone knows" is very different in those two places
- You might be wrong about what "everyone knows" - sometimes people use a vague shorthand, like "the FTX stuff" and it could mean a million different things, and either double illusion of transparency (you both think you know what the other person is talking about but don’t) or the pressure to nod along in social situations means that it seems like you're all talking about the same thing but you're actually not
- Just because people know doesn't mean it's the right level of salient - people forget, are busy with other things, and so on.
- Bystander effect: People might all be looking around assuming someone else has the concern covered because surely everyone knows and is taking the right amount of action on it.
In short, if you're acting based on the belief that there’s a thing “everyone knows”, check that that’s true.
24 May, 2023
Not all "EA" things are good
Chana Messinger
just saying what everyone knows out loud (copied over with some edits from a twitter thread)
7 March, 2023
Features that contribute to heated discussion on the forum
Chana Messinger
From my observations. I recognize many of these in myself. Definitely not a complete list, and possibly some of these things are not very relevant, please feel free to comment to add your own.
14 February, 2023
Plans for investigating and improving the experience of women, non-binary and trans people in EA
Catherine Low, Anubhuti Oak, Łukasz Grabowski
I’m Catherine from CEA’s Community Health and Special Projects Team.
14 February, 2023
Questions I ask myself when making decisions (or communicating)
Catherine Low
I have an internal list of questions that I often go through when I’m making a decision (including when that decision is whether or what to communicate to others).
23 January, 2023
Our Boring Advice for Teens
Chana Messinger
This living document provides advice for minors when navigating various challenges, such as managing conflicting opinions, living away from home, and balancing personal and professional relationships.
7 October, 2022
Things for grant applicants to remember about living expenses
Julia Wise
Some grant applicants don’t have much experience estimating how much money they’ll need to live on, so it can be difficult to work out how much grant money to ask for.
7 October, 2022
Advice to a new EA org employee
Julia Wise
Today I talked with a friend who just started a new job at an organization focused on existential risk. Two pieces of advice I gave:
30 March, 2022
Reducing imposter syndrome in interns and new staff
Julia Wise
I’ve heard from a couple of interns at EA orgs who have experienced imposter syndrome or anxiety about not being good enough. Tips from former interns and managers of interns:
28 August, 2019
Countering imposter syndrome and anxiety about work
Julia Wise
A guide for interns and new staff at EA organizations
28 August, 2019
A mental health resource for EA community
Julia Wise
A lot has been written about handling depression and anxiety, and with good reason! They are very common and can be very debilitating.
6 May, 2017
Community Health resources for EA groups
It's important for EA and EA-aligned groups to think about how to prevent and mitigate community health issues related to their group. See this section of the EA Groups Resource Centre for info about what we mean by community health, some resources on how to deal with or prevent community health issues, and what help the Community Health and Special Projects team provides.
29 October, 2024
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