What comes after the Introduction Fellowship? A tool and approach for community organizers

By Brooke O'Connell 🔸 @ 2025-01-20T13:39 (+50)

Want to skip directly to the tool? Find it here.

TLDR;

• As a co-organizer of EA Delft, I developed the Impact Workbook to address the challenge of supporting members beyond the Introduction Fellowship.
• The workbook provides structured, tailored tracks—Introduction, Topic/Cause Area, Impact Action/Career, and a customizable option—to help members align their interests and goals with impactful exploration and action. Resources include templates, goal-setting guides, and activity libraries.
• Initial feedback has been positive, and by mid-2025 we aim to further reflect on the impact of this tool and expand its use across other EA groups. Interested? Access the workbook or reach out at hi@eadelft.org!

Introduction

As a co-organizer of Effective Altruism Delft (EA Delft), I’ve often grappled with a crucial question: What do we offer after the Introduction Fellowship? Our broader goal as a community is to support our members’ journeys toward impactful action, but the responsibility of defining the next steps after introductory experiences has felt daunting.

I've found that EA communities are great at welcoming newcomers through fellowships and similar initiatives. However, the path beyond these initial steps often feels unclear. Many impactful opportunities are highly competitive, leaving others wondering, “Where do I fit?” Add to that the abundance of EA resources, groups, and activities, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

While I don’t mean to suggest there’s a one-size-fits-all path for every member, I’ve experienced a frustrating lack of guidance on how to make these transitions easier for both community organizers and members. I set out to address this challenge by designing a framework that operationalizes support while staying connected to our community’s broader vision and strategy. 

Seeking a Potential Solution

In Spring 2024, I conducted one-on-one interviews with a sample of our members to get a baseline on their needs, challenges, and goals. Using my background in strategy and design, I applied aspects of design thinking and similar methodologies to identify recurring themes in their experiences:

1. A desire to deepen familiarity with EA principles and community.
2. Curiosity about specific topics or cause areas.
3. Uncertainty about the next steps toward impactful action.

From these insights, I hypothesized that creating structured yet flexible member journeys could address these challenges. Using inspiration from journey-mapping techniques, I prototyped a tool to help members navigate their EA experiences. Enter: The Impact Workbook.

Introducing the Impact Workbook

The Impact Workbook provides tailored, guided tracks for members to align their interests and goals with meaningful action. Developed through iteration, feedback, and experimentation over the past four months, the workbook currently includes three core tracks:

1. Introduction Track: For newcomers, this offers an overview of EA principles and pathways to engage with the community.
2. Topic or Cause Area Track: For members exploring specific areas of interest, this track equips them ways to gain relevant knowledge.
3. Impact Action or Career Track: Designed for members ready to translate their skills and interests into impactful actions or careers.

Additionally, a “Choose Your Own Adventure” option allows for personalization beyond these predefined categories. To further inspire members, the workbook includes templates, a library of activities, SMART goal-setting guides, and more.

Why This Workbook Matters for Organizers

Over the past few months, I’ve seen firsthand how this workbook benefits organizers and members alike. Here are four key ways I recommend for organizers to use it:

1. Facilitate transitions after the Introduction Fellowship:
   1. Incorporate the workbook into the final week of your fellowship as a tool for members to explore their next steps.
   2. Use it during subsequent one-on-one conversations to provide structure and track progress over time.
2. Strategically plan and sequence activities:
   1. Understanding members’ goals allows you to design relevant programming. For example, if you learn that many members are seeking career opportunities, you could prioritize hosting a career speaker event or workshop.
   2. Spotting patterns can also help you better forecast members’ needs and plan programming more efficiently. A side effect benefit of this is the potential to reduce the risk of organizer burnout.
3. Track and increase your group’s impact: The workbook serves as a structured pathway to help members achieve tangible results. By tracking progress through these workbooks, you can collect valuable data to define the impact your members have had and therefore your community’s overall impact. These insights can also help you to refine your approach to amplify impact.
4. Support your own development: Practicing what you preach sets a great example for members. By completing your own workbook, you can not only showcase its utility, but also make sure to avoid neglecting your own individual growth. To set an example, here’s my own that I completed at the end of 2024.

What’s Next? Try It and Share Feedback!

The Impact Workbook is an experiment in fostering greater impact and initial results have been promising. We introduced the Workbook to a cohort of eight Introduction Fellowship participants this past Fall, and have continued to use it in subsequent one-on-ones. Qualitative feedback from our members has been positive, and I plan to continue to track the impact of the Workbook for our own group and goals throughout the rest of the school year. This will culminate in a follow-up post later in 2025 further reflecting on its impact over time. We’re also excited that there will be a community group in our region that will adopt it in Q1 2025, and another who is considering doing so. 

Plus I’m eager to see how it evolves with community input! Here’s how you can get started:

• Explore the workbook to familiarize yourself with its contents.
• Introduce it at your next board meeting, or to a few members through one-on-one conversations.
• Gather feedback by tracking members’ progress and reflecting on your own experience.
• Adjust your group’s strategy and planning based on insights gained.
• Share your feedback with me—I’d love to hear about your experience and suggestions!

Ready to give it a try? Access the Impact Workbook or reach out to me at hi@eadelft.org for support in getting started. 

Have feedback? Fill out the survey or reach out to me at hi@eadelft.org.

Thanks in advance for the time you took to read this post, and any feedback you may share in the future!