Outreach concerns - What are your biggest and how to avoid them?

By Asaf Ifergan @ 2020-04-30T08:50 (+10)

With the goal of building our Israeli community and possibly effecting the non-profit landscape to make it more evidence-based and effective, we're now working on outreach strategies.

So, I ask - What would you be most concerned about regarding outreach, what should we be careful of, and how can we avoid making mistakes?

I'll share some of our worries, feel free to suggest how to avoid those aswell:

1. Oversimplifying - Giving the idea that EA is one particular thing and not a complex set of ideas and questions (e.g. it's about global development/climate change/X-risks/research/evaluating charities)

2. Dillution of the community (more about that in the fidelity model link down below).

Useful links about this are anonymous answers about the flaws of the EA community by 80,000 Hours and The fidelity model of spreading ideas.

Prof.Weird @ 2022-02-16T05:11 (+1)

Two quick thoughts...

  1. My biggest concern is EA’s community of self assurance and potential lack of cultural integration when performing outreach (though not specifically related to Israel, more so what I’ve seen from a myriad of members and a lack of corrective advice from the head theorists of EA). Id hope for EA members and theory to approach from a ‘what do you believe and how do we integrate EA into it’ perspective rather than a ‘we know the best solution and here it is’ perspective.

  2. Thank you for writing this and added the links at the end! Though this post has had little engagement, I want to thank you as it’s given me a great place to start learning more about other’s concerns with EA and helped me answer some questions for and be a part of helping Charity Entrepreneurship (https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/).