The Nonlinear Library EA - Things newer (university) group organisers should know about by Sam Robinson
Jan 31, 2024
15:47
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Things newer (university) group organisers should know about, published by Sam Robinson on January 31, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
TL;DR: Group organisers should focus more on developing themselves and their highly engaged members more than they currently do; goal setting, utilising pre-existing materials and external assistance can help organisers do this.
Epistemic status: The ideas below have arisen from (i) conversations I've had with ~30 organisers, (ii) my own experience organising a medium-sized, reasonably 'successful' group, (iii) things I've picked up/observed whilst interning full-time then contracting part-time for the CEA Uni Groups Team, and (iv) a collection of my own and others' armchair philosophy. The claims made are mine and should not be taken as representing the opinions of the CEA University Groups Team.
Furthermore, I encourage readers to engage with my thoughts critically - it might not be the case that what I endorse applies to your situation. However, I do believe that many organisers overestimate the uniqueness of their particular group, believing that advice/ideas don't apply to them; from my experience, EA university groups are quite similar, meaning that ideas and methods track well across them.
0. Introduction
This post was, in part, inspired by
Jessica McCurdy's post on advice CEA gives to newer organisers; I strongly recommend reading it before or after this, whether you are a new or an experienced organiser.
As a contractor for the University Groups Team at CEA, I recently ran a retreat for university group organisers. I found myself giving similar advice to many participants: resources, heuristics, framings etc. Hence, I thought it might be useful to write this up so that I could (i) easily share with others that I have similar conversations with and (ii) assist those I don't get to chat with.
This post is intended to be a broad overview of some key things and ideas within university group organising - it's not holistic and shouldn't be treated as such. If anyone has specific questions about action-guiding advice, I would encourage them to explore the resources detailed in section 3 below.
About me: I've been organising my group at the University of St. Andrews (a small yet somewhat prestigious university in the UK) for ~2 years. I interned with the University Groups Team at CEA in the summer of 2023 where I updated the
EA Groups Resource Centre, and have been contracting for them since whilst doing my degree in philosophy. I always like chatting about at least one non-EA thing when I meet people in EA contexts; I can't do that here, but in the same spirit, I'll share that house and jungle music instantly improve my mood by at least 2 points and I think udon noodles (especially with a 'dan dan' sauce) are the best food ever made in the world.
1. Development
1.1 On developing group members
1.1.1 Backchaining to determine what you should do
Within effective altruism we all share a common goal - to do as much good as we can. I think that group organisers will benefit significantly from thinking more about this final goal, and will get sidetracked less by loosely related goals - a recurring failure mode I see in groups. The process of backchaining can help avoid optimising for the wrong thing: think about your final goal, and work back from there until you reach an action step that you can complete now.
Final goal: the most good getting done
Sub-goal 1: the world's most pressing issues being solved.
Sub-goal 2: people solving the world's most pressing issues.
Sub-goal 3: people existing who are willing and able to solve the world's most pressing issues.
Sub-goal 4: EA groups helping people who are motivated to solve the world's problems become able to do so.
Sub-goal 5: EA groups sharing EA ideas in a way that motivates people...
TL;DR: Group organisers should focus more on developing themselves and their highly engaged members more than they currently do; goal setting, utilising pre-existing materials and external assistance can help organisers do this.
Epistemic status: The ideas below have arisen from (i) conversations I've had with ~30 organisers, (ii) my own experience organising a medium-sized, reasonably 'successful' group, (iii) things I've picked up/observed whilst interning full-time then contracting part-time for the CEA Uni Groups Team, and (iv) a collection of my own and others' armchair philosophy. The claims made are mine and should not be taken as representing the opinions of the CEA University Groups Team.
Furthermore, I encourage readers to engage with my thoughts critically - it might not be the case that what I endorse applies to your situation. However, I do believe that many organisers overestimate the uniqueness of their particular group, believing that advice/ideas don't apply to them; from my experience, EA university groups are quite similar, meaning that ideas and methods track well across them.
0. Introduction
This post was, in part, inspired by
Jessica McCurdy's post on advice CEA gives to newer organisers; I strongly recommend reading it before or after this, whether you are a new or an experienced organiser.
As a contractor for the University Groups Team at CEA, I recently ran a retreat for university group organisers. I found myself giving similar advice to many participants: resources, heuristics, framings etc. Hence, I thought it might be useful to write this up so that I could (i) easily share with others that I have similar conversations with and (ii) assist those I don't get to chat with.
This post is intended to be a broad overview of some key things and ideas within university group organising - it's not holistic and shouldn't be treated as such. If anyone has specific questions about action-guiding advice, I would encourage them to explore the resources detailed in section 3 below.
About me: I've been organising my group at the University of St. Andrews (a small yet somewhat prestigious university in the UK) for ~2 years. I interned with the University Groups Team at CEA in the summer of 2023 where I updated the
EA Groups Resource Centre, and have been contracting for them since whilst doing my degree in philosophy. I always like chatting about at least one non-EA thing when I meet people in EA contexts; I can't do that here, but in the same spirit, I'll share that house and jungle music instantly improve my mood by at least 2 points and I think udon noodles (especially with a 'dan dan' sauce) are the best food ever made in the world.
1. Development
1.1 On developing group members
1.1.1 Backchaining to determine what you should do
Within effective altruism we all share a common goal - to do as much good as we can. I think that group organisers will benefit significantly from thinking more about this final goal, and will get sidetracked less by loosely related goals - a recurring failure mode I see in groups. The process of backchaining can help avoid optimising for the wrong thing: think about your final goal, and work back from there until you reach an action step that you can complete now.
Final goal: the most good getting done
Sub-goal 1: the world's most pressing issues being solved.
Sub-goal 2: people solving the world's most pressing issues.
Sub-goal 3: people existing who are willing and able to solve the world's most pressing issues.
Sub-goal 4: EA groups helping people who are motivated to solve the world's problems become able to do so.
Sub-goal 5: EA groups sharing EA ideas in a way that motivates people...