EA Organization Updates: August 2023

By JP Addison @ 2023-08-14T20:55 (+36)

We’re featuring some opportunities and job listings at the top of this post. Some have (very) pressing deadlines. 

You can see previous updates on the "EA Organization Updates (monthly series)" topic page, or in our repository of past newsletters. Notice that there’s also an “org update” tag, where you can find more news and updates that are not part of this consolidated series. 

These monthly posts originated as the "Updates" section of the EA Newsletter. Organizations submit their own updates, which we edit for clarity. 

(If you think your organization should be getting emails about adding their updates to this series, please apply here.)

Opportunities and jobs

Opportunities

Consider also checking opportunities listed on the EA Opportunities Board. 

Applications are open for a number of conferences

• EA Global: Boston (27-29 October) is for people who have a solid understanding of effective altruism, and who are taking significant actions on the basis of key ideas in the movement. Apply by 13 October.
• EAGxBerlin, (8-10 September) is aimed at people in Western Europe. Tickets cost €0-80. Apply by 18 August.
• EAGxAustralia (22 - 24 September) is for people in Australia and New Zealand. Tickets are $75-150 (AUD). Apply by 8 September.
• EAGxPhilippines (20 - 22 October) is for people in South East and East Asia. Tickets are $0-100. Apply by 30 September.
• The Good Food Conference 2023 will be back in-person this year at the historic Fort Mason Center in San Francisco on Sept. 18-20. 
  • This year’s program is bursting with insights and inspiration from big-picture plenaries and fascinating flash talks to in-depth technical sessions and solutions-focused workshops led by a stellar lineup of scientists, policymakers, private sector leaders, and other brilliant humans. 
  • Check out the detailed program to learn more, and register here to help build a future where alternative proteins are no longer alternative.

Opportunities to take action

• SoGive is conducting a survey of people who (have the capacity to) give £10k+. They are trying to help the community fill the gaps in support so more major donors can give more, and give more effectively. Read more here.

Job listings

​​Consider also exploring jobs listed on “Job listing (open).”

Centre for the Governance of AI

• Head of Operations (Mostly Oxford, £60K - £80K +benefits, apply by 21 August)

Epoch

• ML Hardware Researcher (Remote, $70K - $120K apply by 20 August)

Family Empowerment Media 

• Project Director (Remote with international travel, apply by 21 August) 

Fish Welfare Initiative

• Operations Lead/Associate (Remote in a time-zone compatible with IST, apply by 3 September)

GiveWell

• Senior Researchers (Remote or Oakland, California; $193.1K - $209K)
• Content Editors (Remote or Oakland, California; $90.6K - $98K)

IDinsight

• Associate and Senior Associate (Philippines)
• Technical Delivery Manager/Director (India or Kenya)  
• Social Scientist/Economist – (Morocco or Senegal)

Open Philanthropy

• Operations Associate - Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness (Washington, DC, $114.2k)
• Recruiter (Remote, San Francisco/Washington, DC, $108.3k)

Organization Updates

80,000 Hours

This month on The 80,000 Hours Podcast, Rob interviewed: 

• Ezra Klein on existential risk from AI and what DC could do about it
• Holden Karnofsky’s four-part playbook for dealing with AI

And Luisa interviewed:

• Hannah Boettcher on the mental health challenges that come with trying to have a big impact
• Markus Anderljung on how to regulate cutting-edge AI models

80,000 Hours also re-released an updated version of a classic three-part article series written by Gregory Lewis, exploring how many lives a doctor saves. They also updated their article on working in US AI policy.

Anima International

• Animal International is building and coordinating a major online mobilization campaign to support the historic revision of the EU animal welfare legislation that would affect all farmed animals in the entire European Union and globally. Anima International has called organizations from across the EU to engage in the project.
• The Conference on Animal Rights in Europe, CARE, is taking place on August 17–20 in person in Warsaw, Poland, and online.

Animal Charity Evaluators

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) has announced its 2023 Movement Grants recipients.

Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI)

BERI is once again accepting applications from university-affiliated research groups and individual academics interested in receiving support and services. For more information about BERI’s trial collaborations, see this one-pager or their FAQ. Applications are due August 31st.

Centre for Effective Altruism

CEA published a new and improved public dashboard presenting key metrics from the Events, Online, and Groups teams. The dashboard launch was accompanied by a midyear update.

Charity Entrepreneurship

Charity Entrepreneurship is on the lookout for individuals that, with training, could start our new CE top intervention ideas through the upcoming February-March 2024 and August-September 2024 Incubation Programs. In February-March 2024, you can launch 

1. An organization that sends SMS or voice messages to remind caregivers to attend their child’s vaccination appointments. 
2. A non-profit that produces and delivers educational entertainment content focusing on preventing intimate partner violence. 
3. An organization focused on improving fish welfare through corporate campaigning and policy work in Greece, aiming to influence animal welfare standards at the EU level.
4. An organization that provides information to relevant stakeholders on sustainability, environmental impacts, food safety concerns, and animal welfare issues related to insect farming. 
5. An organization focused on fundraising for the animal welfare space.
6. An organization introducing lesson plans into school as a promising component of structured pedagogy and a cheap way to improve the quality of education (~75% likely to get recommended pending upcoming research results)
   Learn more about these ideas here. 

You can also apply for the August-September 2024 program that will focus on the most cost-effective interventions targeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and organophosphate pesticides and other neurotoxicants. Concrete ideas will be announced in 2024.

Applications are now open, with the deadline on September 30, 2023. 

Family Empowerment Media

FEM has published a new blog post reviewing their last year and a half. The post also shares their current work, which includes preparing for a randomized controlled trial of their intervention. 

Faunalytics

On September 14th Faunalytics will host Fauna Connections, a free, remote research symposium for animal advocates. Academics and scientists from the social and behavioral sciences and related disciplines will present original research that discusses the real-life implications and recommendations for animal advocacy.

Faunalytics is hiring a Data Analyst & Visual Coordinator. This part-time, remote position will play an integral role in bringing new research and visual resources to the animal protection community, ultimately increasing our impact for animals. The application deadline is August 20th.

The organization has also published their mid-year report, an update on their pro bono support program results, and an impact review of the first year of their Research Ambassador Outreach Project. 

Fish Welfare Initiative

• Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI) is now hiring for an Operations Lead/Associate. Learn more and apply.
• After a six-month pause to improve operational efficiency, FWI is now adding new farms again to its Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture (ARA).
• Through the ARA, FWI estimates it improved the lives of 54,000 fish in Q2.
• FWI recently onboarded Paul Monaghan as their Welfare Standard Lead. Paul brings with him over a decade of global development experience, including five years at Evidence Action.

For more information and an in-depth discussion of the current process and limitations of how FWI currently helps fish, see their recent quarterly update.

Founders Pledge

Founders Pledge launched its new website, complete with more easily navigable versions of How We Think About Charity Evaluation and our list of recommendations.

FP also published a significant new guide to nuclear philanthropy by Senior Researcher Christian Ruhl who, along with Longview’s Matthew Gentzel, also published a piece in Vox called “It’s Time For a New Atomic Altruism.” Christian manages FP’s Global Catastrophic Risks Fund, which is seeking donations to enable expanded active grantmaking on nuclear security, international cooperation on AI, and more.

FP’s research team is also expanding and recently hired Aishwarya Saxena and Nicolaj Thor.

FP Climate is seeking ideas for things to fund, and in particular looking for ideas that present a plausible case for being among the best bets to minimize expected climate damage.

GiveWell

GiveWell has published pages about the following grants it recommended: 

• $12.6 million to New Incentives to extend and expand its conditional cash transfers for vaccinations program in Nigeria
• $6 million to Nutrition International to renew support for its vitamin A supplementation program in Chad  
• $2.4 million to r.i.c.e., a nonprofit research organization working on children's health in India, to support its program for low-birthweight babies focused on kangaroo mother care (KMC). KMC supports caregivers of these babies in evidence-based practices to reduce deaths, such as skin-to-skin contact with caregivers and early initiation of breastfeeding, as an alternative to conventional approaches like neonatal intensive care units.  
• Two grants to Precision Development (PxD): $286,709 to fund the completion of scoping and planning work for implementation and impact evaluations of its mobile agricultural advice program, and $700,000 to support PxD's core operations after GiveWell decided not to move forward with funding these evaluations

Giving What We Can

Giving What We Can welcomes Alana Horowitz Friedman, their new Research Communicator, to the team!

Grace Adams, Head of Marketing at GWWC,  published a project she had been working on with One for World, a Guide to Safe and Inclusive Events on the EA Forum.

The research team are now focused on working on their evaluate the evaluators project.

Global Catastrophic Risk Institute

GCRI has launched its 2023 Advising and Collaboration Program. They invite anyone interested in advancing their work on global catastrophic risk to apply. They have also published a new research paper, Public Health and Nuclear Winter: Addressing a Catastrophic Threat.

The Humane League

The Humane League’s Animal Policy Alliance (APA) had their first and second legislative wins since launching just last year! In Connecticut, the coalition helped defeat a bill that would have legalized the factory farming of rabbits across the state. And in New Jersey, the APA supported the Animal Protection League of New Jersey in passing legislation to ban gestation and veal crates.

New Jersey is now the 15th state to ban one or more of the main forms of extreme confinement for animals. Read more about these victories and more in The Humane League’s recently published Q2 Progress Report.

New Incentives

In July, New Incentives expanded to two new states in northern Nigeria: Kaduna and Kebbi. As of July 31st, 544,534 infants have been enrolled in the program this year and over 7 million vaccinations have been encouraged through cash incentives. 

This new blog post goes into detail on how New Incentives builds demand for the program and childhood vaccinations through awareness activities.

Open Philanthropy

Open Philanthropy announced several personnel changes:

• Alexander Berger is now the sole CEO of the organization.
• Emily Oehlsen has been promoted to Managing Director; she will lead our work on Global Health and Wellbeing, as Alexander did previously.
• Former co-CEO Holden Karnofsky has transitioned to a new role: Director of AI Strategy.

Holden Karnofsky appeared on the 80,000 Hours podcast to discuss how AI could take control of the world from humans even without “superintelligence”, as well as his playbook for AI risk reduction.

Rethink Priorities (RP)

The Survey and Data Analysis team (David Moss, Willem Sleegers, Jamie Elsey) published the following posts as a part of the 2022 EA Survey sequence:

• Demographics
• How people get involved in EA
• Geography
• Community satisfaction, retention, and mental health
• What helps people have an impact and connect with other EAs 

The organization also researched questions such as:

• What do animal advocates view as the needs and priorities within their field?

See results and analysis from the 2022 Effective Animal Advocacy Forum Survey by Laura Duffy.

• How could the World Health Organization’s prequalification (WHO-PQ) process be improved? 

See an overview of WHO-PQ by Aisling Leow, James Hu, and Tom Hird as well as a report on WHO’s Essential Medicines List by Jenny Kudymowa.

Rethink Priorities recently offered several opportunities to learn more about the impacts of their work, including their public research and behind-the-scenes efforts:

• Co-CEOs Marcus Davis and Peter Wildeford wrote a personal reflection on what they’ve learned since founding RP in 2018.
• The organization published a post about their impacts over the last five years, their future plans, and funding needs.
• Peter hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) discussion on the Forum.
• Several community members (foundations, individual donors, researchers, and others) participated in a virtual Town Hall. RP did not record the meeting to encourage open discussion, but intends to hold similar events in the future. Please subscribe to their newsletter for updates.