This is a fantastic rundown Andy! Really encourage new groups to use all of this advice, and especially want to emphasize a common failure mode Andy mentioned that I have seen a lot:

'Do not reinvent the wheel. Use CEA’s resources page. Copy templates. Explore what other groups have done with their public resources. Ask other organizers for copies of their CRMs, websites, codes of conduct, and strategy documents you can either copy or learn from.'

There is so much information there about community building, and the odds are, if you are thinking 'I need to write a talk to explain EA/think of a good social/figure out how to run an effective 1-1'/anything like this', someone has thought the same thing and made a document about it. Use that!

This seems like a really good thing to do, nice!

I've been running my group and have been in OSP the whole time. I've gotten a huge amount of benefit out of the program. The biggest thing I would say in favor of it is to compare it to other cause areas in terms of learning from others. You wouldn't go into implementation of development projects without learning about what we already know as a group about development. Community building should be the same - take the opportunity to learn from others!

Izzy makes a great point about not reinventing the wheel. If you are an organizer struggling with an idea of how to optimize something, the odds that your potential OSP mentor has thought about exactly this is very high!

I think starting or leading a group is a very high impact thing to do, and OSP empowers you to do this better. Highly recommend!

May the best group win! 

It sure sounds like it :)

On behalf of EA Manchester, I truly appreciate it.

I think that’s such a good point about risk neutrality - and when looking outside of EA spaces this is important to keep in mind, I think risk neutrality is so accepted in EA spaces it’s sometimes forgotten that outside it is not necessarily so. 

Also, just a really moving post. Trying to do the best you can in an emotional yet rational way. I really appreciate this. 

I don’t have anything to negate the track record you stated, but knowing the model and some of the people, it feels a little harsh on HIPS. I would say that DC is a little unique in ‘people like me should have decision making power’ in the sense that there are people making important decisions right now who are really bad at this (like you mentioned with the great example in California). I am not an expert in this, but that doesn’t feel right.

Sweet!

I mostly shortened it, I think the main reasons I have are university level specific. I feel like there are a not insignificant number of people who would commit to a 6 week fellowship, but not 8, and there is not enough focus on the wider EA community; I feel like this should be more emphasized.

I think eventually, working on changing the EA introductory program is important. I think it is an extremely good thing to do well, and I think it could be improved. I'm running a 6 week version right now, and I'll see if I feel the same way at the end.