Organise a Donation Admin Party This Year

Donating is a pretty lonely experience: You research charities, click through a bunch of forms and wire the money. To me, it feels like doing taxes. But it doesn't have to be this way!

The last two years we organised Donation Admin Parties to do it all together. Below is a picture from the last one at EA Amsterdam's office. It's not just fun, it's also impactful: One of the events somebody mentioned they wouldn't have donated otherwise because they felt a lack of motivation.

How the event works

I'm sure this can be done in lots of ways but what worked for us best

• Walk-in: People get to know each other, start talking about donations
• Pizza: Do a round of where people are in their journey, what they are planning to do today, any questions
• Admin: Everybody gets their laptop out and figures out how much to donate where, does the donations
• Celebration: Whenever somebody is done, they announce it, get celebrated, and it slowly morphs into a social hang

Whenever we did it we tried to avoid talking about how much money was being donated in absolute terms. This shouldn't feel like a competition but a moment of bonding and celebration. 

It takes two hours to organize

• One hour now
  • Pick a date that works for you. I suggest weekdays after work, those are easiest to do for most people. First week of December is best because most people will be thinking about donations.
  • Find a space to host. Maybe there is an EA space in your area, otherwise a library, cafe, living room could all work.
  • Create a luma. Feel free to just copy-paste text and picture from this one, I recycle it every year https://luma.com/9y2t00pg
  • Invite people. Your EA friends, maybe a local EA WhatsApp group, ask people to spread it. Send reminders as the event gets closer.
• One hour the day of the event
  • Order food: We either split it with participants or I one year just deducted it from my donation budget as a "direct community building donation"
  • Get something to celebrate:  People will be finished with their donations at different times and it's nice for them to celebrate that with something fun. We had party horns for everybody to blow once they were done, and then some bubbles.

The two times we did this, people always left happy, more connected, and with less admin on their plates, hope can inspire other groups to do the same!