yes, you can do something about US politics

every few months on here I see a discussion that goes something like this: 

Post: You/EA should care about US politics/elections

Commenter: Wow, you're so right, but I can't do anything / I don't know what to do

Reply, sometimes: There are things you can do, but you either have to be a major donor to be worth my time, or you have to DM me to learn what those things are (and I'm busy, and don't know you, and might not respond!)

I am deeply concerned that politically active EA and AIS advocates are leaving a lot of potential impact on the table by not being explicit with the broader community about what we can do to help. 

So, based on public information alone, here are some things you as an individual can do.^[1] 

Your donations:

With an eye on the 2026 election, doing political giving early (aka now) can be massively leveraged. Vetted opportunities you can give to now:^[2]

• Power for Democracies' US recommendation, nonpartisan, using data-driven targeting to efficiently identify and register new voters.
• If you care about AI safety (and are a US citizen or green card holder), give directly to the Bores and/or Wiener^[3] campaigns. I hear there are some secret third things, and maybe you can drop in the comments if you're one of the people who know the secret third things and people can DM you, but the point of this post is to elevate what any casual EA Forum reader can get started on today.

Every multi-entity political org I've spoken to about this would recommend that marginal dollars go to partisan/candidate/non-c3 work.^[4]

Ask others to give:

I think this is incredibly underrated as a use of any given individual's marginal time: fundraising can be one of the most effective ways to turn your volunteer time into votes, and critically, only you can leverage your personal network. 

Decades of research on fundraising is pretty clear that a big reason people give is simply because they are asked by someone they trust. For some people, you -- and possibly only you -- can be that person. For example: last year over the span of about a week, in my volunteer time for a candidate, I raised >$11k in purely counterfactual donations -- I know that these donors would not have given to anything unless I asked.

This is especially important for candidates and PACs because there is a maximum donation per person. In order to win, candidates can't rely on big donors; they need to reach as many people as possible. And there are people in your life that will never hear about these causes unless you reach them.

For example:

• Organize giving talks at your workplace (though you probably can't do this for candidates, you can do it for nonpartisan voter registration)
• Use similar tactics to the above (great) post but for any community you're part of: your college alumni network, group house, climbing gym, church, family, etc
• Host a birthday party and make an ask for $20 donations with every invite
• Have 1:1 conversations with your family and friends about why you care about this issue, and ask them to give
• bcc all of your friends on an email explaining why you care, link them to a donate page, and offer to match what they give
• Sell crafts or services or anything you're good at in exchange for a donation
• so many other things, literally anything you can imagine
• have you already done this? try asking other people to join you, and help them fundraise their own networks!

There is a ton of wisdom and experience in the EA community about fundraising for effective giving, but/and you don't need to be working in EA or active in a local group to do this! You can start on your own or with a couple of friends, and reach people that wouldn't necessarily come to an EA event or give to an EA cause, but will come to your fundraiser and give to your cause.

Do your own research and/or volunteer your time in other ways:

You might care about things other than what the people who vetted these orgs and candidates care about. There are many political donor communities and vetted candidate lists outside of EA to draw from if you, e.g., only care about one or the other party winning, or specifically want to support progressive or swing state candidates, or care about a specific cause area or a specific state/region.

At minimum, getting involved in other communities will help you build trust and understand the landscape of what you can do going forward.^[5] Speaking from experience, I know that figuring out how to do something about politics is weird and hard and involves navigating a lot of closed doors and insider cliques, and that if you are persistent, getting involved in a political community will vastly increase your access to opportunities to make an impact. But/and: if we care about changing the world, we need to make it easier for people like me and you to get involved!

1. ^{^}

   epistemic status: I only spent an hour on this, take specific claims loosely but overall point strongly (anyone with a little bit of time and motivation can do something impactful for US politics, and we should be visibilizing those opportunities). I worked in EA for 4 years and currently support political fundraising both as a job and as a campaign volunteer, so I am basing this off of my experience working with lots of people to do a lot of good in a limited amount of time with no prior experience! This is my opinion alone and not that of any current or previous employer, etc.

2. ^{^}

   Don't read this as me personally endorsing any of these -- I have my qualms, but I think that if you want to give to something that's been well-vetted with EA principles, they're probably good bets

3. ^{^}

   If linking to preexisting posts as a resource gets this banned from Frontpage I'll be annoyed and I think it's bad to discourage people from talking seriously and respectfully about candidates

^{^}

this used to say "candidate/PAC giving is much more neglected" but as a strong opinions weakly held girlie, i've updated on that pretty significantly after speaking to a few more people and am more in favor of c4 giving 🤝

^{^}

I think there are extraordinarily impactful things one can do as a volunteer, but like a high-impact career requires career capital, they involve building a lot of volunteer capital and skills first. There is plenty of research on effective movements for political change and I think they basically always involve volunteer communities doing work over the long haul; there's very little I think one can do as a volunteer that's super high-impact if you can only make one-off commitments, although probably if you can only make one-off commitments canvassing or phonebanking for under-resourced candidates is worthwhile.

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