EA Organization Updates: May 2024

By Toby Tremlett🔹, Dane Valerie @ 2024-05-15T09:36 (+29)

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Some of the opportunities and job listings we feature in this update have deadlines today (see Operations Associate at Epoch AI  and Head of Philanthropy at Givewell). 

Opportunities and Jobs

Opportunities

Consider also checking opportunities listed on the EA Opportunities Board.

Job Listings

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

Ambitious Impact (Charity Entrepreneurship)

Anthropic

Centre for Effective Altruism

Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI)

Epoch AI

Evidence Action

Future of Life Foundation (FLF)

GiveWell

Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP)

Open Philanthropy

Probably Good

The Good Food Institute (GFI)

The Humane League

Organization Updates

The organization updates are in alphabetical order, from F to Z, 0-A to E.

Faunalytics

Faunalytics is conducting their annual Community Survey and is requesting feedback from the EA community. The survey is used to evaluate the impact of their research and learn how to improve the resources they provide. The survey should only take 5 minutes to complete, and participants have the option of entering to win a $50 gift card or animal charity donation (drawing one $50 prize for every 100 respondents, up to 6 prizes total).

The organization released the first edition of their Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Social Media Advocacy, a series of blogs where Faunalytics explores the science behind different animal advocacy tactics and how advocates can use them. Faunalytics also added a new blog post, Africa’s Second-Hand Battery Cage Dilemma, to their website.

GiveDirectly  

GiveDirectly summarised some research on US poverty in a recent Forum post: How we can improve the U.S. social safety net and save lives. Key points include:

GiveWell

GiveWell recently published a blog post highlighting a $38.8 million grant to Evidence Action to support the Indian government in providing clean water by setting up in-line chlorination in two states, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The post explains why clean water in India is a top priority, why Evidence Action is partnering with the government to deliver this service, and why GiveWell believes this grant is cost-effective.

GiveWell also published a blog post spotlighting Malengo, an educational migration program that supports students from low-income countries in moving to high-income countries for university. The post shares why GiveWell thinks Malengo’s program could be cost-effective, how filling this specific funding gap might enable Malengo’s program to become more financially sustainable, and what GiveWell hopes to learn next.

Global Priorities Institute

The Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University announced this year's Atkinson and Parfit Memorial Lectures. These lectures aim to encourage research among academics — in economics and philosophy, respectively — on topics related to global priorities research, using evidence and reason to figure out the most effective ways to improve the world.

Daron Acemoglu is giving this year’s Atkinson Memorial Lecture, on"Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of AI", on 16 May, 3.30pm UK time. Theron Pummer is giving this year’s Parfit Memorial Lecture, "Future Suffering and the Non-Identity Problem", on 12 June, 4.30pm UK time. The lectures are open to  all. Attend in-person in Oxford (spaces limited) or online.

One for the World

GWWC and OFTW are co-hosting a catered networking event in Brooklyn on Tuesday, July 9th, at the Wandering Barman. Attendance is free and has a cap of 70, so they encourage you to sign up early if you'd like to hang out with other effective givers! Grace Adams, GWWC's Head of Marketing, Savita Deo, OFTW's Organizing Manager, and Emma Cameron, OFTW's Interim Managing Director, will all be in attendance.

Open Philanthropy

Open Philanthropy launched a “Day in the Life” series spotlighting individual team members to offer an inside look into what working at Open Phil is really like. If you’re interested in joining their team, they encourage you to check out open roles.

They also commissioned a report from Stefan Dercon on economic growth as the main driver of poverty reduction. In the report, Dercon highlights a set of overlooked policies that can help boost economic growth in developing countries, as well as key reasons why these policies aren’t always pursued.

Senior Program Officer Jacob Trefethen published a blog post on the value of scientific conferences, even to those who aren’t “insiders” in the field. You can subscribe to Jacob’s blog here.

Rethink Priorities (RP)

The newly launched Vista Institute for AI Policy is accepting applications for their workshop on AI law and policy, which will be held in Washington, DC, from August 2–4. Vista will sponsor the cost of travel and accommodations for participants coming to DC from across the US. The workshop is geared toward current students and recent graduates who are considering careers in AI policy in the US. Applicants who are accepted to the workshop will also be eligible to apply for a Research Fellowship. Applications for the workshop are due by May 31st. Vista is fiscally sponsored by Rethink Priorities.

Rethink Priorities published research into a variety of questions, including:

Senior Research Manager Bob Fischer also made “the case for including insects in our animal advocacy” as a guest on the How I Learned to Love Shrimp podcast.

Bill Anderson-Samways conducted the first systemic search for potential case studies relevant to advanced AI regulation in the United States across all federal agencies. His report aims to suggest case studies that researchers or policymakers can further examine.

The Humane League (THL)

THL published their 2023 annual report, which reflects on their most recent global progress toward ending factory farming worldwide. In total, last year THL got commitments from 7 companies that spare 2.5M hens from cages in their supply chain and held 62 companies accountable to commitments to spare 42M hens from cages. The annual report includes other corporate and legislative victories from the last year, as well as their 2023 financials. Read the full report or a more mobile-friendly version.

THL also released their 2024 Eggsposé. This year’s report focuses on major restaurant brands that made a public commitment to phase cruel battery cages out of their supply chains by 2025. While nearly all major restaurant brands in the US made this promise — and dozens have shared great progress on how their transitions are going — others (like Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr.) have gone radio silent.

80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours added a new priority career path to their list of high-impact careers — nuclear weapons safety and security. They also published a blog post about other particularly impactful career paths you might have overlooked.

On the 80,000 Hours Podcast, Luisa interviewed:

And Rob interviewed:

Ambitious Impact (Charity Entrepreneurship)

Ambitious Impact (CE) has announced nine charities incubated through their last round of the Incubation Program. This is a record number of charities started in one round (previously, the average was five), accompanied by the record funding secured — $1 million — thanks to the AIM Seed Network Funding Circle. The new charities are:

  1. Centre for Aquaculture Progress, which focuses on farmed fish welfare.
  2. Notify Health, which improves life-saving vaccine coverage for children through effective and scalable vaccination reminders.
  3. Learning Alliance, which tackles the foundational learning crisis by bringing evidence-based teaching practices into classrooms.
  4. Novah, which works towards the reduction of intimate partner violence.
  5. Access to Medicines Initiative, which addresses contraception stock-outs.
  6. FarmKind, which aims to close the funding gap for some of the most impactful animal welfare charities.
  7. Ark Philanthropy, which helps high-net-worth individuals create philanthropic strategies to address global challenges.
  8. Taimaka, which specializes in acute malnutrition treatment.
  9. A charity focused on animal welfare (to be announced later this year).

Animal Charity Evaluators

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) have shared changes to their charity evaluation criteria that will apply to this year’s set of charities: Updates to Animal Charity Evaluators' Charity Evaluation Criteria in 2024.