Why I Think OSP matters for Group Organisers | Spring 2026 Applications Open

TL;DR: Applications close Sunday, November 16th. If you're thinking about starting an EA group or improving an existing one, OSP (Organiser Support Program) gives you a mentor, structure, and resources to help you run a great group. Apply here!

Current and past OSP participants - please share your experience in the comments!

Applications for OSP's Spring 2026 round close this Sunday, November 16th. OSP is CEA's mentorship programme for university and city group organisers - it pairs you with an experienced mentor for structured planning and support at the start of your semester.

I ran EA Manchester for two years (one of those I was an OSP mentee), then mentored over 10 groups through OSP. I now run the programme at CEA. This post explains what OSP actually does and shares what this round's participants said about how it helped them.

What Actually Happens in OSP

OSP is a three-week mentorship programme (with optional semester-long support). You get paired with a mentor who's run a group before and knows what works. There are structured planning workshops and a semester planning workbook. 

You also connect with other organisers - through group calls and a Slack workspace where you can ask questions, share what's working, and get feedback from people running groups at similar stages.

What surprised me most as a mentor: how much time organisers save by not reinventing the wheel. Things that took me months to figure out at EA Manchester: event formats, outreach strategies, how to structure 1-on-1s - mentees were implementing successfully in their first semester.. They need reassurance that their approach is reasonable, and help thinking through the specifics.

One organiser from a recent round described something I heard repeatedly: "Without an organisation giving guidance on how to run a club, and without the knowledge that there are lots of other clubs like ours around the world, I would feel like I was just starting some amateur club with no idea what I was doing."

There's accumulated knowledge about what works in EA community building. OSP connects you with someone who's already solved some of the problems you're facing, so you can avoid common mistakes and focus your limited time on what actually works.

What Changes: Things Organisers Tell Us

We asked this round's participants a simple question: "What would your semester plan look like without OSP?" and this is what they said:

Multiple organisers said they wouldn't have run their group at all without OSP.

On confidence and clarity:

• "I wouldn't have known where to start without OSP and might have given up in a difficult situation"
• "Less organised, more insecure about some plans on events and ideas, and probably a lot of undone plans"
• "I would be completely lost without it, to be very honest"

On concrete changes:

• Groups shifted focus from quantity to quality - fewer events, but much better planned
• Organisers learned to prioritise 1-on-1s and depth over just running fellowships on autopilot
• Teams got on the same page about strategy and divided work more effectively
• People felt comfortable trying things they wouldn't have attempted alone

I've seen this play out across the groups I've mentored. One group was planning to shut down after a difficult first semester - their intro fellowship had low engagement and they weren't sure how to recover. However during OSP, they restructured their approach, focused more on 1-on-1s with engaged members, and by the end of the year had doubled their core team and were running multiple projects.

Who OSP Is For

OSP supports university groups, and city and national groups. Whether you're:

• Starting a group from scratch,
• Reviving a group that's gone quiet,
• Running a city or national group and want more structure,
• An experienced organiser looking to level up,

you should apply! We try to tailor mentorship to your specific situation - new vs. established, university vs. city, first-time organiser vs. experienced.

The application takes no more than an hour. If you're considering starting or improving a group, OSP can help you do it more effectively.

Why I Think This Matters

At EA Manchester, I watched people go from curious about EA to completely reorienting their careers - switching degrees, taking AI safety roles, joining high-impact organisations. University groups catch people at a point where they're still figuring out what to do with their careers, and a single conversation or fellowship can genuinely change someone's trajectory.

If even one person shifts to a high-impact career because of a group you ran, the counterfactual impact is substantial. And most groups that stick around for more than a semester will have that effect on multiple people.

But running a group is genuinely difficult. You're often juggling it alongside your degree or job, with limited time and no clear feedback on whether what you're doing is working. There are a lot of decisions to make - how to structure events, how to prioritise outreach versus depth, what works for engaging people - and figuring it all out from scratch is time-consuming and often discouraging.

OSP exists because these problems are mainly solvable. There are practices that work across different contexts, and having someone who's done this before can help you avoid common mistakes and focus on what actually matters. The accountability of regular check-ins also makes it easier to stay on track when things get busy.

Now running OSP and seeing this across 119 groups in 45 countries in our current round, I've noticed that organisers often have plenty of ideas and energy. The challenge is usually about confidence - knowing whether their approach is reasonable and whether the work will actually matter.

The Practical Details

Timeline for Spring 2026:

• Applications close: Sunday, November 16th, 2025 (11:59 PM AoE)
• Kickoff: Week of December 13th

What OSP includes:

• Three structured mentorship meetings
• Semester planning workshop and resources
• Potential for semester-long check-ins
• Connection to other organisers who are figuring this out too

Apply Now

Applications close in 3 days on Sunday 16th November.

Apply here or email [email protected] if you have questions or want to talk through whether OSP makes sense for you.

To current and past OSP mentees and mentors: I'd genuinely love to hear your experiences in the comments. What surprised you? What concrete thing changed because of OSP? Your stories help prospective organisers understand what they're actually signing up for, beyond what I can say in a post.

Quick note: We're also looking for experienced organisers to mentor next round. If you've run a group for 1+ years and want to help others repeat your successes, apply to be a mentor here by Friday, November 14th.