Jeffrey Kursonis
Bio
Participation2
Jeffrey Kursonis built and co-built quite a number of non-profits in New York City, including The Haven, an arts and altruism collective with 300 people gathering weekly for ten years in Manhattan. A multicultural and altruistic faith community in Harlem, still going today. The New York City New Sanctuary Movement, one of two main hubs of the national network of faith communities giving sanctuary protection to undocumented families being pursued by Federal Immigration Law Enforcement. It’s a long list that formed a network of sorts.
After my work in NYC, a nascent national organization, Emergent Village, tapped me to lead their early growing network of local cohorts seeking to organize progressive religious leaders. I formed a team and we built it up to over 100 US cities, as well as many regional gatherings and other movement training and organizing (extremely similar to CEA). This “emerging church” movement changed the face of American religion by directly moving thousands of religious leaders and their congregations to the left, spawned a whole publishing genre, helped elect Obama, helped influence our Federal same sex marriage legal structure and sadly became a focal point of the conservative backlash unleashed by Trumpism. This is the second and biggest network I built.
My third network requires some discretion as it was built across a major authoritarian country and ended after a combination of Covid and government crackdowns.
As a side note, Jeffrey is no longer religious but still deeply appreciates the proven training ground religion provides. Here is a video we produced about the national cohort network, note my name as producer in the end credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-oaU29Z4dg
Jeffrey has been an active EA’er for over two years now, doing the Intro and Advanced Fellowships and working as a Meta-Moderator for Virtual Program trainings for new facilitators and actively posting on the forum. I recently applied to be on the CEA Virtual Programs new Advisory Board.
The very active EA Anywhere #role-film-and-tv group has been meeting weekly or biweekly with a number of subgroups working on various projects. It's become something of a mini incubator already producing a number of new org's and other smaller projects. Jeffrey has been an important organizer and momentum builder in the group. Expect to hear of a number of new inititatives arising out of the group.
How others can help me
I have a long career in the religious world, and now I'm no longer religious so I'm rebuilding in the regular world, it's a challenge. Religion is very good at movement building and at persuading people to change their views two things EA has always been doing...in the internet boom of the 90's the term "evangelist" became popular for basically marketing pro's communicating their companies vision. Many EA's might be surprised to learn that the word charity simply means love...in older English versions of the bible, like the King James, verses that we now use the word love for would then use the word charity. To give with no expectation of return benefit, the very core of EA, is essentially the act of charity which equals an act of love. These less scientific and more artful human kind of expressions are more my style. Because I agree with the core EA notion of bringing scientific method into charity work, I want to see that happen, but implementing it can still be a very human and social and creative thing. We are all evangelizing EA messages. :)
How I can help others
If you are a young EA and have any anxiety in your work and life, I've been a lifelong coach and mentor to young activists. Feel free to message me.
Posts 5
Comments94
Hi Veronica, Yes there are various EA art groups that kind of ebb and flow in energy, some are on the EA Anywhere Slack, which is the official Slack of EA, just search on there. The one I was involved in that was really great for a year has kind of ebb'd a bit now, after we all accomplished so much we got too busy (two charities got started, and a possible third) So I can't really refer you to one. The other thing is to be the art person in your local or university EA group. Offer your talent to EA orgs you appreciate. All of us who understand EA needs more art to be a normal healthy human movement, should always just be promoting that. We've done art installations at EAG's. Consider that. For that get in touch with local organizers or Center for Effective Altruism (CEA) which oversees them all. I'd love to see a meta movement encouraging EA orgs to have more art in their offices and publications.
In a sense this would be like polling a random cross section of world humanity...most of them are mentally healthy. Currently 1 Billion people have a common mental disorder (CMD), like anxiety, depression, PTSD, as opposed to the Serious one's like Psychosis, Schizophrenia, etc. That makes it 1 of 8 humans, and puts depression as the no. 1 global health disability (all health). So if 1 out of 8 EA'ers responds to the culture with "impact obsession" -- guilt at eating an ice cream cone instead of grinding at their desk kind of thing then that is in line and is a serious thing...EA should work on those issues, make that a less common response to our culture and care for those ill affected, and I applaud Julia and all who do. And just as 1 of 8 EA'ers being depressed isn't helping the effectiveness of our altruistic goals, so the same problem exists in the whole world toward every good goal of humanity. We need to work on those issues.
So EA should not only be concerned about EA meta health, it should be concerned about the world's mental health. Both.
I agree that for most being in EA is better for mental health, I find it invigorating to be around a bunch of people interested in doing good for their fellow humans. But depending on various factors, like people self selecting to be in EA because they already feel guilty they're not doing enough, or a tendency to judge themselves and feel guilt, we still have to be promoting mentally healthy ways of being together on our particular mission.
Here's a little suggestion for EA mental health, reflecting the Harvard study of adult development, an 85 year longitudinal study that said when all is said and done, it's having good relationships that accounted for people having better mental health; Rather than efficiently downing a Huel so you can stay at your desk and keep grinding, lean toward getting together with co-workers or friends for lunch, spend time talking and enjoying each other. Get your mind off work. Try twice a month to do something creative for lunch in the office, like get a bunch of groceries delivered, and have everyone cook a meal together, serve cool drinks to those standing around if there's not enough room in the kitchen for everyone, puts cutting boards out and get those STEM's choppin' broccoli. (like the famous Dana Carvey SNL skit). Spend time together—no talking about work allowed. Anyone who accidentally brings up a work issue, gets some funny punishment...like choppin' more broccoli.
We are not robots optimizing, we are humans living in relationships, and ice cream always earns more than it takes. Consider more art too. It's basically human relationship in a different medium, proven over and over to improve mental health, and makes people visiting your office (and home) think you are cool. Robots don't need ice cream or art, if you also don't...hmmm...maybe some of you are already transitioning...or you're optimizing on robot criteria rather than human.
This is such a great initiative ever since you published the EA MH map of all the various groups and people in the space, and now these flash talks & gatherings have been very fruitful. My organization has benefited tremendously already. Momentum is building and soon the main EA conversation about AI will be about how we're using it to aid therapists, language agnostically, across cultures!!
Hi Melanie, if I was a local EA group leader like you I'd feel more like you because it is awkward and something to have to deal with. But I'm welcoming the energy of it...I saw on Linked yesterday a picture of some new School of Moral Ambition enthusiasts in front of a bus that had the SMA name on it, and I knew two of them personally from EA circles and another whose name I recognized. One is an effective giving leader, the other Animal Welfare. I'm a Global Health person, and I think we are all not feeling that great in EA for the last few years as it starting leaning toward Longtermism and now AI...of course I'm glad we are doing work in those areas, but it seems like charity work has fallen to the side, and it appears Moral Ambition would move charity work back to the center.
I am encouraged that within well known EA effective giving funds, charity work is still represented, so as a bulwark infrastructure of EA, it is still there, but as for the winds of energy and movement, that all seems to be blowing toward AI right now, you can even see a post on the forum now about this dynamic. I have hopes to make a case within EA for more mental health funding in LMICs but it seems I'd be going against so many winds as to be almost an ineffective use of time...and if that were the case, you can imagine someone like me slowly fading from EA and going to Moral Ambition as a more welcoming place...but I agree with your premise that it would be better for us to work together.
The final thought is that with so many EA's feeling shy and becoming adjacent, I think I can understand why a person starting a new movement would make the clear decision to steer clear of the name mostly in their writing, while still having good relations with people behind the scenes. I find myself holding back on EA mentions when some of them drew negative feedback/criticisms...not something a new charity needs when building.
This is so good, looking forward to it. I had a great time sharing at the last one about our MH startup Lateral, which happened to take place while I was at EAG Bay Area. It's so important we all get to know each other and see what's going on in the space, please come and say hello in the EA Gathertown mingle time if you have an interest in MH research and/or scaling local community teams in SE Asia or South America (remote or in the field or both), we will hopefully be hiring soon, and could also enjoy getting to know you in our current pre-funded era. We really need thinkers who want to figure out how to reach the Billion people who have no MH care near them. (Also, it might be helpful to make sure you can figure out how to get into EA Gathertown in advance if you've never been there before :) Thanks to the organizers.
So glad Consequentialism is out, and we can finally follow our feelings!! it feels so dang good. I love being a human with feelings. All these years denying it to follow mathematical algorithms like a robot was tiring. Feelings are super effective!! I suppose we'll need a new introduction course where we explain to smart people what feelings are, and how they are already included and fully installed in us but we just need to put a check mark in that one box to turn them on, and boom when you do that suddenly you see a whole new world and there's lots of art everywhere too. Finally EA will have some art, coz us feeling humans of course demand it.
I think the reluctance toward confrontation may also be because of collective personality traits of STEMs, they tend to work in the backroom developing stuff. The frontroom people who are more creative and social and do sales and marketing are the one's more willing to be confrontational or persuasive. Tech has both rooms, EA only has a backroom to its diminishment (which you can notice by the utter absence of art/creativity/marketing). I wonder what the personality spectrum is in SMA? You can tell by the contrast of their focus and culture in the article they are likely more of a blend of science & humanities, while EA is pure science.