Happy 2021! We hope you had a lovely holiday season. 

The new year brings changes to the CEA Groups team. Katie Glass has move across from her role as Head of Groups to manage CEA’s community health team (Julia Wise, Nicole Ross, and Sky Mayhew). This team is responsible for supporting a healthy culture in EA and reducing risks to the EA community, including work such as handling concerns and media/PR requests. 

Joan Gass will lead CEA’s groups team as part of her responsibilities as Managing Director. 

Huw Thomas has come on board as a Groups Associate. Huw has spent the last two years working on various community-building projects, including helping to organise and grow the EA Oxford community and co-launching the Student Career Mentoring Program. Huw will be providing support to a subset of EA university groups to investigate the impact of more intensive mentorship. He will be reaching out to the selected groups over the next month. 

CEA’s main point of contact for most groups is still Catherine Low (catherine@centreforeffectivealtruism.org). You can learn more about Huw in the organiser spotlight section below.

Over the last few months, we’ve been working with several group leaders, either in official contractor or volunteer roles, including:

• Emma Abele, Aimee Watts, and Jessica McCurdy (Virtual Programs project)

• Marie Davidsen Buhl (Introductory Fellowship coordination)

• Will Payne (In-Depth Fellowship curriculum and coordination)

• James Aung and Alex Holness-Tofts (Introductory Fellowship curriculum). 

All the best,

Joan, Harri, Catherine and Huw (Groups team, CEA)

• CEA is excited to launch EA Virtual Programs — a new pilot platform with opportunities to engage intensively with the ideas of effective altruism through weekly readings and small group discussions over the course of eight weeks. Starting in the last week of January, we have 

  • an Introductory Fellowship, 

  • an In-Depth Fellowship, 

  • and a reading group on The Precipice.

If the pilot goes well, we plan to add more programs later in the year. These programs are open to everyone, so please share this link with your group members. We particularly recommend group organizers take part. 

• CEA is excited to launch EA Virtual Programs — a new pilot platform with opportunities to engage intensively with the ideas of effective altruism through weekly readings and small group discussions over the course of eight weeks. Starting in the last week of January, we have 

• The CEA/EA Oxford Introductory Fellowship curriculum is now complete. This is an 8-week course developed in 2020 with assistance from a variety of experts; trialed with multiple groups; and updated based on this feedback. We think this fellowship is an excellent way to introduce people to effective altruism, and we encourage groups to consider using the curriculum. Marie Davidsen Buhl (marie@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) is available to support groups running an Introductory Fellowship with any curriculum. 

• The Virtual Programs team is on the lookout for content and facilitators for future courses. If you are running or planning a fellowship or reading group (other than an introductory fellowship) we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with Catherine (catherine@centreforeffectivealtruism.org). 

• Inter-group coordination: 

  • EA groups on the West Coast of the USA are collaborating together on events and projects — led by West Coast EA coordinator Kuhan Jeyapragasan (the leader of EA Stanford). If you are an organiser on the West Coast, message Kuhan (kuhanj@stanford.edu) to get involved. This coordination is mostly to help university groups, but city group organisers are also very welcome and would be valued.

  • If you are interested in co-hosting events with other groups, feel free to reach out to them directly on the EA Groups Slack (join link). If you are interested in doing more extensive coordination, like the West Coast groups are doing, reach out to Catherine; she can put you in touch with all the organisers in your area.

• The international EA events Google calendar and the EA online events Facebook group continue to feature a wide range of interesting online events run by EA groups and organisations that you can attend or share with your group members. 

• Harvard EA has created a calendar of global events on topics of potential interest to EAs. These events are hosted by non-EA-aligned organisations and include events on AI, human rights, international development, animal welfare, conflict, and more.

• The application for Charity Entrepreneurship's 2021 incubation program closes on January 15. Over the past few months, the Charity Entrepreneurship team has been researching opportunities for possible high-impact meta-EA charities (as well as other charities). There are also opportunities to do region-specific charity groundwork - which might be of particular interest to group organisers and members in low- and middle-income countries. Please share this opportunity with your group members. 

• Finally, please help us improve this newsletter by filling in our feedback form! 

• Kuhan Jeyapragasan published a forum post on how Stanford EA has grown their group during the pandemic.

• Vaidehi Agarwalla published a forum post on the funnel or the individual: Two approaches to understanding EA engagement.

• The Centre for Effective Altruism has published a review of their work in 2020, and their plans for 2021.

• 80,000 Hours has updated their post on how to have impact as a volunteer.

• Giving What We Can have curated a list of useful videos, books and articles for people interested in effective altruism.

• 80,000 Hours ran an EA Forum thread on open career questions (new questions may not be answered by 80,000 Hours staff).

• Remember that you can request help from the EA community on the EA Forum, using the Forum “Requests” tag. 

• Holly Morgan has created a new group for people who want to discuss spirituality in a broad sense in a way that's compatible with effective altruism.

• A round-up of EA links and announcements from the last month.

   

• Neel Nanda from EA Cambridge has written two forum posts with ideas and resources for events:

  • Events where group members give short, informal talks 

  • Rationality workshops

• For resources related to running an EA group, check out the Effective Altruism Resource Hub. 

• Connect with other group organisers on the EA Groups Slack (join link)

• As usual, you are welcome to contact Catherine (catherine@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) with questions about running your group, and Julia or Sky for help with community concerns. You can also talk to Julia during her office hours.

• The EA Asia community has launched its website, including a community directory. 

• EA Philippines have started researching the effectiveness of local charities.

• EA Anywhere (the virtual group designed for people without EA local groups) now has a Asia-Pacific timezone meetup group as well as their original Europe/Africa/Americas timezone meetup.

• The Czech Association for Effective Altruism has written an “Ultimate Report” and Strategy, which outlines their history, their many past projects, and their plans for 2021. 

• EA North Cyprus, based in Famagusta, had their first meetup in December.