I'm currently a co-director at EA Netherlands (with Marieke de Visscher). We're working to build and strengthen the EA community here.
Before this, I worked as a consultant on urban socioeconomic development projects and programmes funded by the EU. Before that, I studied liberal arts (in the UK) and then philosophy (in the Netherlands).
Hit me up if you wanna find out about the Dutch EA community! :)
Thanks! And yeah, I didn't find it valuable. It's been a while since I read it but I wrote some thoughts here recently.
Delft have done in-depth fellowships if I’m not mistaken. Have you chatted with Brooke? Or people from the previous boards, e.g., Annemieke, Nils, Joep, or Jan?
Oh and also check out Impact Makers. A few ex-uni organisers from NL (Lotte et al.) set it up to solve exactly this problem.
Ping me if you’ve got any questions about the above!
This doesn't really answer your question but there is a Dutch org with a very similar model to GD: 100weeks.
There's a good chance you're already in touch with Paul Smeets via Bram at Doneer Effectief but, if not, check out his work on the effectiveness of different messaging strategies. His takeaway: use the ”100x more impactful” argument, but do not use the ”$5,000 per life saved”. He gave a talk at EAGxUtrecht on the subject.
But absolute terms isn’t very useful if we’re trying to spot success stories, right? Or am I misunderstanding something?
But yeah, something seems off about Ireland. The rest of the list feels quite good though. David Moss said they have some per capita estimates in the pipeline, so I’m excited to see what they produce!
I wanted to figure out where EA community building has been successful. Therefore, I asked Claude to use EAG London 2024 data to assess the relative strength of EA communities across different countries. This quick take is the result.
The report presents an analysis of factors influencing the strength of effective altruism communities across different countries. Using attendance data from EA Global London 2024 as a proxy for community engagement, we employed multiple regression analysis to identify key predictors of EA participation. The model incorporates geographic, economic, linguistic, and social factors, explaining 52.3% of the variance in per capita attendance.
Multiple regression analysis with per capita EAG London 2024 attendance as the dependent variable
They were second largest in absolute terms, 214 attendees. But that means only 0.6 per million, putting them in 24th place in the per capita ranking.
In absolute terms, the top 4 ranking was: UK (675), US (214), DE (95), NL (61). Why am I giving a top 4 ranking instead of a top 3 ranking? No reason...
A great post-mortem, and thanks for your kind words about the Dutch EA community - it was really inspirational to see you in action!
Your line, "Spending aid money to prevent migration is a vote winner, vaccinating needy kids in Africa is not" made me think of the Make Poverty History campaign, timed to coincide with the UK's hosting of the G8 in 2005.
According to Wikipedia, these were the main health and development agreements from that summit:
Also, from memory, I think most UK political parties committed to the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid and, although this was rolled back for a bit under Johnson, the next Labour government have pledged to reinstate it.
I think there's an argument to be made that these agreements were heavily influenced by the campaign.
Blair, chair of the summit, notes the following in his biography:
“On Africa, I knew that without real figures it was going to be another ‘poor Africa, we care so much about you’ load of old rubbish in a communiqué that wasn’t going to fool anyone. Bob, Bono and the NGO alliance had mounted an effective campaign, essentially going to each main nation in turn and trying to frighten the pants off the leadership by demonstrating the breadth of public support for action on Africa. It was done cleverly, with them always giving enough praise to the leaders to encourage them. With Bob and Bono at the helm, there would be a sensible debate. If we delivered, they’d say we’d delivered. If not, they would condemn us. Fair enough.”
Of course, this was a huge campaign: a global audience of approximately 3 billion for Live 8, millions of people wearing the campaign’s white band, a quarter of a million people marching on Edinburgh, and a brand recognition that leapt from zero to 90% in just six months. It would be a huge undertaking.[1] And one could argue that, 20 years on, the effects have died out.
But then again, maybe not. I was 13 years old when I attended the march in Edinburgh, but it's one of my more vivid memories from that time. This early exposure likely contributed to my ongoing support for GHD through my donations and my work today, and I suspect it's the same for many other people.
I asked Claude to produce a BOTEC for the cost and it arrived at $120 million
What do you see as the potential for non-EA funding opportunities for community building organisations like EA Netherlands? Currently, 95% of our funding comes from CEA, OP, and EA IF.
My sense is that non-EA funding might be viable for specific initiatives, like talent development programmes, but securing such funding for core EA community building activities — like community events, office spaces, organiser support, and outreach — seems much more challenging.