What do Open Philanthropy’s recent changes mean for university group organizers?

By Uni Groups Team, Joris 🔸 @ 2024-12-10T18:46 (+66)

TLDR

What is changing?

As announced here, Tuesday, December 31, 2024 is the last day you can apply for OP’s University Organizer Fellowship. 

The fellowship covered three kinds of expenses:

  1. Group expenses, such as snacks at events, funding for retreats, and banners for marketing
  2. Funding for part-time organizers (sometimes referred to as ‘stipends’)
  3. Funding for full-time organizers

Below, we will detail what support remains available for these categories.

Any time a potential granting opportunity ceases to be available, it can disrupt future plans. We acknowledge that this might come as a disappointment to some of you. CEA’s University Groups Team is here to help you through this shift. If you have thoughts or questions, or are worried about how these shifts will affect your ability to keep your group thriving, please reach out to us over email or the EA Groups Slack. We are also available to chat.

What will the support landscape look like now?

Here is what the support landscape for EA university group organizers will look like going forward:

Group expenses

Until December 31st, you can still apply to get your group’s expenses covered under the University Organizer Fellowship.

If you are seeking group expense funding after December 31st, we encourage you to apply to CEA’s Group Support Funding (GSF). GSF covers many of the group expenses previously funded by OP, such as snacks at events, funding for retreats, and banners for marketing. One difference is that OP’s group expense funding was flexible and not tied to specific expenses, whereas GSF provides detailed guidelines, specifying amounts for specific expenses.

Note that OP will continue to offer funding for group expenses of AI Safety groups after December 31st.

Funding for part-time organizers

Until December 31st, part-time organizers can still apply to OP’s University Organizer Fellowship to receive funding for their time spent on running their EA university group. 

After December 31st, OP will no longer be accepting applications from part-time organizers to receive funding for the time they spend on running their EA university group.

CEA thinks that financial support, especially if coupled with non-monetary support, could be a valuable part of the ecosystem. At the same time, we recognize the downsides OP articulated in their post. Due to this and current capacity constraints, we are not currently setting up the systems to provide part-time organizer financial support, but we are exploring whether to offer financial support for part-time organizers in the future. We expect to publish more writing on this topic in the future, ideally by summer.

We want to strongly consider input on this topic from organizers from around the world. As always, people can reach out to us at unigroups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org, or provide anonymous feedback here. We also encourage discussion in the comment section below! 

Funding for full-time organizers

This summer, CEA took over funding from OP for the two full-time EA university group organizers. As part of our efforts to expand support for ‘pilot universities’, we are investigating what should happen in this space going forward, alongside our investigation into funding for part-time organizers. 

There is currently no official application portal for new full-time organizers. We recommend people interested in running an EA university group full-time to get in touch with us through unigroups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org. 

Continuing to grow the EA university group ecosystem

CEA remains deeply committed to supporting the EA university groups ecosystem. EA university groups have historically been a major source of introducing people to the ideas of and community around effective altruism. We think university groups are especially promising places to introduce people to EA ideas, and then help them learn more about and act on them.

The landscape of university group organizing is evolving, and we are actively engaging with stakeholders to determine the best ways to support organizers and ensure the success of these groups. Our goal remains to provide resources and tools that enable university groups around the world to thrive and grow.

We welcome feedback from organizers about the kinds of support you feel are most valuable, whether through our mentorship programs, funding mechanisms, or other resources. You can always reach us at unigroups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org, or leave anonymous feedback here.

Thank you to Alistair Bugg, Catherine Low, Heidi Basarab, and others for their input on this draft.

Weronika Zurek @ 2024-12-11T13:39 (+10)

Thank you for the post and for clarifying the current situation. 

I have mixed feelings about the results of the upcoming changes, particularly about stopping funding for part-time group organizers, as I feel this may lead to excluding many students from engaging in organizing groups. This particularly applies to:

I myself am a group organizer to whom none of the above applies, and still one of my main worries about setting up a university EA group was that I would have to start working at some point to cover my costs of living (combining studies, work and organizing a group does not seem possible). In fact, this scenario seemed more likely to happen than not. Thankfully, I received a grant from Open Philantropy to work on the group part-time and this was a game changer. This was the single most important thing that allowed me to set up the group and focus on it fully, which is critical, as I am the only organizer. 

I am afraid that not providing funding may stop many students from setting up new groups, lower the capacity of current group organizers and even lead to some groups ceasing to exist. Furthermore, leading a group may essencially become an exclusive activity, available only to financially privileged students. 

Having said that, I appreciate the transparency of both your, and Open Phil's post about the changes. Thank you for sharing that!

akash 🔸 @ 2024-12-11T21:32 (+6)

I would be interested to see what proportion of group organizer request funding primarily due to difficult financial situations. My guess would be that this number is fairly small, but I could be wrong.

Lin BL @ 2024-12-11T23:45 (+2)

The bar should not be at 'difficult financial situation', and this is also something there are often incentives against explicitly mentioning when applying for funding. Getting paid employment while studying (even fulltime degrees) is normal.

My 5 minute Google search to put some numbers on this:

Proportion of students who are employed while studying: UK: survey of 10,000 students showed that 56% of full-time UK undergraduates had paid employment (14.5 hours/week average) - June 2024 Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/13/more-than-half-of-uk-students-working-long-hours-in-paid-jobs USA: 43% of full-time students work while enrolled in college - January 2023 Fortune article https://fortune.com/2023/01/11/college-students-with-jobs-20-percent-less-likely-to-graduate-than-privileged-peers-study-side-hustle/

Why are students taking on paid work? UK: "Three-quarters of those in work said they did so to meet their living costs, while 23% also said they worked to give financial support for friends or family." From the Guardian article linked above. Cannot find a recent US statistic quickly, but given the system (e.g. https://www.collegeave.com/articles/how-to-pay-for-college/) I expect working rather than taking out (as much in) loans is a big one.

On the other hand, spending time on committees is also very normal as an undergraduate and those are not paid. However in comparison the time people spend on this is much more limited (say ~2-5 hrs/week), there is rarely a single organiser, and I've seen a lot of people drop off committees - some as they are less keen, but some for time commitment reasons (which I expect will sometimes/often be doing paid work).

akash 🔸 @ 2024-12-12T17:45 (+10)

I don't disagree. I was simply airing my suspicion that most group organizers who applied for the OP fellowship did so because they thought something akin to "I will be organizing for 8-20 hours a week and I want to be incentivized for doing so" — which is perfectly a-ok and a valid reason — rather than "I am applying to the fellowship as I will not be able to sustain myself without the funding."

In cases where people need to make trade-offs between taking some random university job vs. organizing part time, assuming that they are genuinely interested in organizing and that the university has potential, I think it would be valuable for them to get funding. 

Jason @ 2024-12-13T01:07 (+2)

My guess is that the downsides of paid organizing would be diminished to the extent that the structure and compensation somewhat closely tracked typical university-student employment. I didn't see anything in the UK report about what typical rates might be, but at least back in my day most students were at fairly low hourly rates. Also, paying people for fewer than (say) 8-10 hours per week would not come across to me as roughly replacement income for foregone typical university-student employment because I don't think such employment is typically available in smaller amounts. [Confidence: low, I am somewhat older by EA standards.]

Weronika Zurek @ 2024-12-13T10:04 (+1)

I believe an important piece of information here is that Open Phil did not provide funding for organizers spending less than 10 h/week organizing their groups (or at least that was the case when I was applying for funding), so I suppose most of the funded students were probably working on the topic a bit more than that (this is a guess, though)

Jason @ 2024-12-13T18:03 (+2)

It looks like they do, or at least did, allow funding for <10 hr/week:

"Group leaders may ask for funding for organizers working less than 10 hours per week using either form above, rather than having those organizers fill out a separate application."

https://www.openphilanthropy.org/open-philanthropy-university-organizer-fellowship/

Joris 🔸 @ 2024-12-11T22:49 (+4)

Hi Weronika, thank you for sharing your story and reflections so openly! I basically think you are right in there probably being organizers for whom the stipends are the difference between organizing their EA group and not doing so, and I really want to make sure we take this point into account as my team dives into considerations around part-time stipends in the new year. As @satpathyakash notes, I think an imporant question here is the scale, and I hope to make some progress on this point!

I also wanted to flag explicitly that we are tracking the diversity concern you note. 

I expect that as part of our research in the new year, we'll set up various ways of asking stakeholders, including current, former, and potential organizers, for input. I would be keen to include you in this process, if you're happy to keep sharing your thoughts! And as always: thanks for organizing your group :)

Weronika Zurek @ 2024-12-12T12:46 (+1)

Hi Joris and Lin, thank you for your responses. Just as mentioned, it is quite interesting, for how many student receiving funding is the factor that decides about them setting up / taking over leading a group or not doing so.

Joris, I will be more than happy to share my thoughts with you in the future. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me at weronikamzurek@gmail.com or via slack anytime :) thank you for your work on that and I wish you all best in the process!

Saul Munn @ 2024-12-13T05:31 (+9)

How will this change affect university groups currently supported by Open Philanthropy that are neither under the banner of AI safety nor EA? The category on my mind is university forecasting clubs, but I'd also be keen to get a better sense of this for e.g. biosecurity clubs, rationality clubs, etc.

Saul Munn @ 2024-12-13T05:32 (+9)

(also — thanks for taking the time to write this out & share it. these sorts of announcement posts don't just magically happen!)

Joris 🔸 @ 2024-12-24T08:34 (+3)

Hey Saul, I'm not sure how but I missed this comment! Sorry about that!

I think that the best way to answer your question is by reading this & Open Phil's original post so that where it says "AI safety groups" you read "non-EA groups". That is my understanding from Open Phil's original post.

Does that help? 

Saul Munn @ 2024-12-24T18:59 (+1)

Thanks for the clarification — I've sent a similar comment on the Open Phil post, to get confirmation from them that your reading is accurate :)

gergo @ 2024-12-18T08:13 (+1)

Thanks for providing such a quick update, Joris! 

we are not currently setting up the systems to provide part-time organizer financial support, but we are exploring whether to offer financial support for part-time organizers in the future

Would you recommend that uni group organisers in need of a part-time salary apply for funding from elsewhere in the meantime, such as EAIF?

Joris 🔸 @ 2024-12-20T07:52 (+2)

Hey Gergo, just wanted to say I've seen this and hope to get back to you soon!

Joris 🔸 @ 2024-12-23T09:19 (+2)

I haven't managed to fully sync with EAIF or other orgs yet, but in the meantime just wanted to encourage people in this position to apply to OP before the 31st!