Naively, this seems like a great fit for EAIF, which is looking to fund more projects. Is there something I'm missing?
Naively, this seems like a great fit for EAIF, which is looking to fund more projects. Is there something I'm missing?
Thank you sharing this. I have applied there recently and either did not reach EAIF's bar or failed to present the achievements and plans in a compelling way. Feedback seems uncommon in the EA grants acquisition landscape, so I can only guess and try again in 2025.
Being aware of how little funding you received over the last two years I'm amazed at how much you've been able to do considering a big portion of your time had to go into fundraising and applying for grants. I think career 1-1s could be commercialized (offering both career advice for money & pro-bono impactful career advice), so that's an idea to consider.
Happy to see community projects becoming independent so you can go back to area building and meta-EA stuff.
TL;DR
In 2024, we focused on creating impactful, lasting resources and programs while navigating significant funding challenges. We translated The Life You Can Save and the 80,000 Hours guide into Polish, launched career 1-1s to foster community growth, and laid the groundwork for funding diversification.
We believe the talent pool in Poland to be significant, and we are ready to tap into it.
Your support can help us put to use some of the best community-building tools we know of.
! The funding gap for 2025 has been filled, thank you!
DonateWe entered 2024 knowing that from February we would rely on individual donors’ support “only” (your help blew us away!).
As such, it seemed prudent to immediately modify our strategy in a way that would:
The criteria above and the Rethink Priorities (RP)’ EA survey from 2022 served as our primary guide in selecting high-impact interventions.
RP's survey gives insights into:
*Due to funding constraints, we have had to gradually reduce our team size from 2 and 2/3 FTEs in Nov. 2023, through 2 and 1/3 FTE in Sept. 2024 to (hopefully) 1 - 1.5 FTE in March 2025. For the same reason, as of January 2025, one of the Co-Directors - Maria Gembarzewska-Truong will step down from her function.
Why?
Where do we stand?
Goal for 2025
Why?
Where do we stand?
Goal for 2025
The following numbers are merely our best guess:
The goal assumes we would have 0 PLN to boost the marketing campaign. We might update the numbers in early 2025. By progressing with the brand development we expect to gain more precision in goal-setting.
Why?
Where do we stand?
Goal for 2025
What’s the plan?
We hypothesize that by focusing on initiatives that appeal to a broader audience, we will open up more non-EA funding opportunities because:
New brand
To boost these efforts, our marketing team is developing a separate brand with talented youth as a target audience.
To help us decide whether to develop a new brand or not, Marcin Woźniak from OptimumPareto (a Polish org working on Improving Institutional Decision-Making) facilitated a workshop in which ~10 people from our community took part and where we created a map of argumentation using Swarmcheck. Thank you!
From then on, the process has been led by an expert in the field of marketing strategy development for the NGO sector, Karo. The team constitutes three more comms warrioresses: Diana (communication specialist), Natalia (marketing expert), and since recently, Angelika (social media campaigns expert). Go Legends!
These efforts aim to reduce dependence on traditional EA funding streams while enhancing EA Poland's reach and impact. That's not to say we won't be applying for grants from EAIF, MCF (we have not been prioritized by these organizations in 2024), and perhaps OP.
It’s not all about money.
Daniel Wyrzykowski agreed to donate 5-10 hours/month of administrative assistance from his enterprise which is offering exactly that.
Goal for 2025
New strategy development and its main objectives put constraints on our ability to expand the community in 2024.
As such, no new city groups got seeded and only 10 people got Intro Fellowshiped (thank you, Paulina for carrying the torch! Gabriel, thank you for moderating the groups! Without you, this number would be 0).
We made sure, however, to be available (through 1-1s, at live and online meetups, by organizing integration event and a retreat) for active community members and those who proactively seek ways to engage with or contribute to the community.
We were considering conducting a detailed national survey at the end of 2024 to get a better sense of community progress, but Rethink Priorities released theirs. We don’t want to suffocate people with questionnaires.
We know that in 2024:
None of the above duplicates, but some will be highlighted below.
Mostly autonomous projects in EA Poland
The platform we incubated is now run by Daniel Wyrzykowski and we are finalizing the transfer of the rights to the project.
Daniel is a social entrepreneur behind Altruisto. Although eventually Poland was not prioritized by Ambitious Impact’s effective giving incubation program, he got to the final stage in their recruitment process (top 3% of candidates).
One of the platform's recent successes was a World Malaria Day fundraiser organized with influencers. The campaign delivered a 3.33x return on marketing spend and introduced effective giving to new, EA-adjacent audiences. Daniel will publish a detailed post about the campaign soon.
We expect the platform to raise over 30k USD by the end of 2024.
May you rock, Sir!
ECTSed Intro to EA course at the top Polish university was implemented and it will start in the next semester. 24/32 slots got booked already!
Kudos for the idea, Gabriel! Good luck, Maciej!
The second university group in Poland was formalized in November at one of the top universities.
Great job, good luck, and what an epic logo, Weronika!
I run a “Social Interventions” course (basically, intro to EA) for Sociology students as a visiting lecturer for the second year in a row. Ok, not autonomous, but kind of matches the university theme.
An AI Safety Polska was launched around November.
Thank you Marcel for agreeing to coordinate the efforts! Great job with the website, Jakub!
Piotr Zaborszczyk received a grant for field building in Warsaw.
That is epic, may it grow!
You are doing great with Warsaw, Kacper! Cheers for help with Cracow, Adam, Diana!
The number of monthly active Slack users increased from 80 in Nov 2023 to 91 in Nov 2024.
Last, but not least, here come the 3/28 available testimonials from individual community members:
Magdalena (M&E consultant; researcher): ""I’d been interested in EA for a while, but your message after I followed the EA Poland Facebook page encouraged me to get more involved. Shortly after, I attended a meeting with the EA group in Warsaw, which reignited my interest in the movement.
I joined the international version of the Introductory Program, and after completing it, I signed the 10% pledge. I also attended EAGx Warsaw, where I met Karolina Sarek, who introduced me to several AIM activities. The following year, I took part in the AIM Research Training Program, focusing on topics such as access to medical oxygen for children (an area where AIM successfully launched a charity this year:).
I used the skills I gained through the Program to volunteer on research projects for AIM and the Happier Lives Institute. Now, I’m considering contributing to OPIS's mission, which I see as a meaningful opportunity to create impact."
Goals for 2025
Country stats
Poland ranks as the 5th most populous country in the European Union. According to recent estimates, it has a population of around 38 million. Its economy has been growing steadily for over 25 years and is now the sixth largest in the European Union. In global economic rankings, Poland has entered the top 20 and, based on current trends, is likely to remain there.
Talent pool
EA-wise, Poles stand behind the setting up of organizations like Anima International (Jakub Stencel), Charity Entrepreneurship (Karolina Sarek), and Lafiya Nigeria (Klau Chmielowska).
Outside the EA, as Piotr Zaborszczyk noticed here: 10 out of 50 early OpenAI employees were Polish. Most of them come from just one elite university: the University of Warsaw (that’s where our first uni group and the ECTSed course got introduced, remember?)
Moreover, in thirty-four editions of the International Olympiad in Informatics, young Poles have won 123 medals, second only to China and ahead of Russia and the United States.
We take it as a positive sign talent-pool-wise.
Next steps
2025 should be a year when we get to make use of the tools we’ve been devising. As mentioned earlier these might be some of the most effective community-building means:
These would all work synergistically to direct the brightest Poles to work on the most pressing global issues.
We are uncertain of the expected scale, but it seems that this plan carries a significant community growth potential and that we would probably start seeing the results in the second half of 2025 (as more people get to finish TLYCS, 80,000 Hours, and the launch of our new website facilitates the outreach to the target group).
Given each person reached might turn out to be the one whose contribution to our common cause proves invaluable, we want to maintain the momentum to get the most out of these projects.
We think that the minimum needed to coordinate the projects* is ~$2,690/month**.
This amount covers:
As of today, we are missing:
$2,770
That’s just 3 people donating $77/month.
If you’d like to see this scenario unfold, support us here:
Donate*The promotion of The Life You Can Save is secured.
**That minimum is possible only thanks to the relentless volunteers of EA Poland.
I thanked a bunch, but there is more to be said.
Maria, what an honor to be working with you! I couldn’t wish for a better trenches partner. Cloning > AGI
Diana, speaking of AGI… are you sure you’re not one (#clever Turing test)? How can anyone juggle so many tasks that gracefully? More seriously, I am proud to have you on my side!
You ladies ignited EA Poland and I hope that watching all that fire in one community member after another will fill you with hope and satisfaction for many years to come.
Now, on behalf of FEA’s staff to the ones I have not thanked in the post:
You are that fire! Keep it lit up!
There is much that needs to be done.
Thank you for all your effort!