The Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN) was a meta effective altruism project of .impact (now Rethink Charity) operational from 2015 to 2020. Its original mission was "to help local Effective Altruism (EA) groups come into existence and thrive" and began as a volunteer-led, grassroots, and open community project.
Over its years of operation, LEAN:
- provided grassroots support and helped seed "over 100 local groups across the world by setting up websites and Facebook groups, offering ongoing direct support to organizers, as well as covering the costs of essential technology."
- created and launched the first version of the Effective Altruism Hub from 2013 to 2019.
- ran the first Effective Altruism Survey in 2014 and then re-ran it in 2015 and 2017, before making it a joint collaboration with Rethink Priorities, and the first-ever systematic survey of local groups in 2017.
- worked on creating the first consolidated website for EA Groups Resources (resources.eahub.org), which it managed until 2020 when it was transferred to the Centre for Effective Altruism.
Before going offline, LEAN was hosted at localeffectivealtruism.network. The website does not appear to have been archived.