What does EA UK do?

Since I took over EA UK in January, many people have understandably asked what EA UK actually does. Building on an older post, I wanted to share a new update on where we are now, how we can help you, and how you can help us.

This post does not mean to serve as a strategy document. We are still in the early stages and are actively experimenting, so our activities may change significantly over the coming months.

With that in mind, what does EA UK do?

Career advice and coaching

We act as a contact point for people across the UK who want to get involved with EA. We receive call requests through our website, as well as referrals from other fieldbuilding organisations such as 80,000 Hours. In some cases, we find that individuals would benefit from more sustained support in transitioning their careers, and we provide more hands-on coaching through regular calls, feedback on funding applications, and similar support. We also provide general advice on effective giving for people who reach out to us and refer them to relevant organisations.

Why?

While other organisations offer one-off career advice, we think it’s valuable for people to speak with multiple advisors and hear different perspectives. The advisors we’ve spoken to tend to agree with this, and encouraged us to offer this service. We are also well positioned to help people integrate into the local community. For more hands-on coaching, our view is that this kind of support is unlikely to be provided elsewhere.

Events

Newcomer events

We organised an EA Newcomers meetup in London in collaboration with Impact First, and are planning to run similar events in the future.

Why?

Some people we’ve spoken to describe the London EA community as hard to enter if you don’t already know someone. These events aim to provide a clear and accessible entry point into the broader community. At these events, we look for people who are really motivated to do good, and start building a relationship so that we are able to support them longer term.

Larger events

We recently hired a team lead for EAGxUK’s organising team, with support from CEA. More broadly, we think there is room for more large-scale events in the UK focused on high-impact causes. (That said, we do not currently have plans for additional large events beyond EAGxUK.)

Why?

When it comes to supporting people who are already engaged with effective altruism, we think larger events have an advantage over smaller ones due to economies of scale. There are now well-established best practices in EA community building for what works. In particular, networking tools seem key to running successful events, so we want formats that can make good use of them.

London EA Events Luma page

We have rebranded our Luma page to London EA Events and have been encouraging organisers to post their events there. Most of the events listed are therefore not organised by us.

Why?

We’ve heard that London has several EA sub-communities with limited overlap. The goal of this page is to increase visibility across groups and encourage cross-pollination between these communities.

Fellowships (planned)

We are not currently running fellowships, but would like to do so in the future. These would focus on people who are completely new to EA, or those who have already committed to changing their careers. If we are able to fundraise enough to hire contractors, we may run both, in order to support a more complete talent pipeline.

Why?

While there are already some organisations running top-of-funnel programs, we think there is value in increasing the number of people entering EA, particularly for experienced professionals. We would like to see the community grow, and are well placed to support this in the UK. Currently we only get a few referrals from other organisations for people to support, and we would be excited to absorb more talent.

For those who have already committed to changing their careers, we’ve observed a “valley of death” after introductory fellowships, where people are unsure what to do next. Post-intro career programs could help bridge this gap by helping people build context and apply their existing, transferable skills to high-impact roles.

We have also been thinking about fellowships focusing on people with a specific skillset, but aren’t planning on running any of these this year.

Is the focus on London only?

Our newcomer events will focus on London, while some of the bigger events we might help facilitate might be in or outside of London. As for our career advising, coaching and (future) fellowships, they are and will be available across the UK. We are excited to chat with volunteers who want to run events or programs outside of London too.

Who is EA UK?

Currently it's just me, and I have a wonderful part-time virtual assistant, Vishakha who has been helping me set up our internal processes. We also have a board of trustees who provide oversight of our work. They are Gemma Paterson, Grayden Reece Smith, Sanjay Joshi, Tom Barnes and Jessica Wen.

What’s your theory of change?

You can review our ToC and underlying assumptions here.

Aren’t you spread too thin?

Maybe. We are doing many things, but most of them don’t require more than a few hours per week. We think it makes sense for groups to act as a “container” for the community, instead of doubling down on one specific intervention as many other fieldbuilding organisations do. We also plan on making one more hire by the end of the year to help with running our programs. That said, we might narrow down our focus significantly if we find that some of these activities are not worth the time investment.

What does EA UK not do?

• EA UK used to have a monthly newsletter, but we haven’t restarted this and might not do so in the future. At the moment it functions as a mailing list where we provide occasional updates.
• EAG London - we are not involved with organising EAG London, as this is done by the events team at CEA.
• Support for uni groups or city groups across the UK - this is done by the Groups team at CEA.
• Social events for the people already working in EA - there are many social events in London and we have been cross-posting them on our Luma page. We lightly coordinate with the organisers, but these are not events run by us. We are happy to cross-post events people want to organise.

How can we help you?

If you’re looking to get more involved with effective altruism, we’d be glad to support you. We can help you navigate the EA ecosystem, offer career and donation advice, and connect you with relevant people. If you are a hiring manager, we are happy to refer people to you.

How can you help us?

We’re always looking to improve and welcome any feedback. If you have suggestions on what the EA community in the UK needs, we’d love to hear them. Measuring impact in fieldbuilding is inherently difficult, so if you’ve benefited from one of our offerings, please let us know! You can also support our work by donating through our website.

Get in touch

If there are ways EA UK can support you, please feel free to get in touch either via [email protected] or through this form. You can also leave anonymous feedback here.