“The reality of long-term EA community building: Lessons from 3 years of EA Barcelona” by Melanie Brennan 🔹, Anthony L

Feb 17, 2026

23:12

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We are Melanie and Anthony, the two community builders at EA Barcelona. In this post, we share where the group stands today and reflect on key learnings from nearly three years of grant-funded community building. We hope these reflections are useful to other community builders, funders, and CEA, particularly around what it realistically takes to build and sustain EA communities over multiple years, from funding stability and feedback loops to the personal sustainability of professional community builders.

TL;DR

EA Barcelona was funded by the EA Infrastructure Fund between May 2023 and December 2025 (<1.2 FTE). Over this period, it has grown into a thriving local community and informal coordination hub for EA activity in Spain.

Unexpectedly, EAIF decided not to continue funding our project in 2026. We subsequently explored the current funding landscape for EA community building, but found no viable path to stable funding for 2026 that didn’t involve a high level of personal and professional risk. As a result, we’ve decided not to continue with a funded community-builder model for EA Barcelona for now, and will instead focus on transitioning to a volunteer-led structure.

Background: EA Barcelona (2023-2025)

Present-day EA Barcelona began as a casual meetup group [...]

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Outline:

(00:45) TL;DR

(01:38) Background: EA Barcelona (2023-2025)

(02:20) 2023: Establishing EA Barcelona as a city hub

(03:52) 2024: Deepening engagement and seeding national growth

(07:51) 2025: Transitioning from local hub to national coordination

(13:37) Late 2025: Navigating the Transition

(13:43) Initial Funding Cuts

(14:44) What we did next