Announcing my retirement |
2021-11-25 |
Aaron Gertler |
Effective Altruism Forum |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Aaron Gertler |
Employee departure |
Effective altruism/movement growth |
Aaron Gertler announces his departure as content specialist at Effective Altruism Forum, to happen on December 10th, 2021. Aaron declares having a good experience managing the forum, and announces joining Open Philanthropy as their communications officer, and also Effective Giving Quest as their first partnered streamer. |
Summary of Core Feedback Collected by CEA in Spring/Summer 2019 |
2019-11-07 |
Ben West |
Effective Altruism Forum |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
|
Third-party commentary on organization |
Movement building |
The document summarizes findings from feedback collected by CEA in the Spring and Summer of 2019 from "about a dozen people who work in senior positions in EA-aligned organizations" about CEA and the effective altruism community. The post also says "The feedback is presented “as is,” without any endorsement by CEA." Things listed as going well include (1) comnunity health and events projects, (2) smart, talented, and thoughtful members, (3) kind members. Things which could be improved: (1) execution issues with EA Grants, EA Funds, and other projects, (2) communication and branding issues with EA Global and the EA Forum, (3) perception of low welcomingness, (4) demographic homogeneity. |
Roundtable: how can remote employees maintain a healthy work-life balance? |
2019-10-26 |
Cash Callaghan |
Animal Charity Evaluators |
The Humane League, Centre for Effective Altruism, Animal Equality, Rethink Charity, Animal Charity Evaluators, ProVeg International |
Stephanie Frankle, Julia Wise, Antonia Vitale, Baxter Bullock, Leah Edgerton |
General discussion of organizational practices |
AI safety|Animal welfare |
The blog post is a roundtable between people working in executive, operational, and community health roles at organizations in the animal welfare and effective altruism spaces. It is mainly focused on how organizations with remote employees can maintain a healthy work-life balance. Some of the organizations are completely remote (they have no central office) whereas others have both on-site and remote employees. Common themes emphasized by multiple participants include: work-life separation through time (keeping clear working hours boundaries) and space (e.g., having a designated space for working in one's home), open and proactive communication, encouraging time off with leadership setting an example, and keeping a healthy level of social interaction through tools such as Slack. Also cross-posted to the Effective Altruism Forum at [5] (no comments there as of November 10, 2019) |
Max Dalton appointed as CEA’s Executive Director |
2019-10-18 |
Owen Cotton-Barratt|Jenna Peters|Julia Wise|Nick Beckstead|Will MacAskill |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Max Dalton |
Successful hire |
Movement building |
The blog post announces that Max Dalton is now the Executive Director of CEA. Dalton had been serving as Interim Executive Director of CEA since the firing of Larissa Hesketh-Rowe from the Executive Director position in January. The blog post is written by the committee that had been entrusted with the CEO search. This committee "solicited recommendations for possible candidates from over 70 stakeholders and worked to investigate roughly a dozen recommended people. The committee would like to thank staff, stakeholders, and community members for their input and the candidates for their time and patience during this process." |
Roundtable: how can remote organizations effectively hire and onboard new employees? |
2019-09-28 |
Cash Callaghan |
Animal Charity Evaluators |
The Humane League, Centre for Effective Altruism, Animal Equality, Rethink Charity, Animal Charity Evaluators, ProVeg International |
Stephanie Frankle, Julia Wise, Antonia Vitale, Baxter Bullock, Leah Edgerton |
General discussion of organizational practices |
AI safety|Animal welfare |
The blog post is a roundtable between people working in executive, operational, and community health roles at organizations in the animal welfare and effective altruism spaces. It is mainly focused on how organizations with remote employees can effectively hire and onboard new employees. Some of the organizations are completely remote (they have no central office) whereas others have both on-site and remote employees. Common themes emphasized by multiple participants include: using "culture add" and not just culture fit (to reduce risk of homogeneity), frequent check-ins, in-person meetings where feasible, and culture orientation for new employees (either an explicit orientation session, or through Slack and check-in meetings). |
The peculiar #metoo story of animal activist Jacy Reese |
2019-03-28 |
Marc Gunther |
|
Sentience Institute, Centre for Effective Altruism |
Jacy Reese, Kelly Witwicki, Julia Wise |
HR controversy |
Animal welfare |
Marc Gunther, a commentator on animal welfare activism and nonprofit activity, discusses the backstory and implications of the apology post [6] of animal activist Jacy Reese. He includes more discussion of the role of the Center for Effective Altruism, and links to the Google Doc [7] with answers by Kelly Witwicki providing background. Witwicki works with Reese at the Sentience Institute and is also engaged to Reese |
Apology |
2019-03-22 |
Jacy Reese |
Effective Altruism Forum |
Sentience Institute, Centre for Effective Altruism |
Jacy Reese |
HR controversy |
Animal welfare |
Jacy Reese, a public figure in animal welfare advocacy and a key member of the Sentience Institute, posts an apology on the Effective Altruism Forum: "It has recently been brought to my attention that I have made people uncomfortable through my verbal and written advances. I’m deeply sorry to everyone I hurt or made uncomfortable. I intend to step back from public life and the activism communities I’ve belonged to and reflect on my mistakes further." Marc Gunther, a commentator on animal welfare activism and nonprofit activity, describes the post as follows in [8] "An 812-word statement, under the headline “Apology,” posted last week by Reese on the forum of the Centre for Effective Altruism, the global hub of the effective altruism movement." |
Comment on After one year of applying for EA jobs: It is really, really hard to get hired by an EA organisation |
2019-02-27 |
Aaron Gertler |
Effective Altruism Forum |
Centre for Effective Altruism, Open Philanthropy, Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Ought, Vox, AI Impacts, Center for Human-Compatible AI, Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative |
|
Job application experience |
Various |
Gertler describes his experience applying to various effective altruism-related organizations. |
Does anyone know what happened at CEA regarding the leadership change? |
2019-02-26 |
Milan Griffes |
Effective Altruism Facebook group |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Larissa Hesketh-Rowe |
Employee departure |
Effective altruism/movement growth |
Milan Griffes seeks more background for the public announcement of the departure of CEA CEO Larissa Hesketh-Rowe [9] In the comments, Sam Deere of CEA says "We don't provide specific details when staff depart the organisation." Also, others in the comments say that the announcement by CEA was unprofessional in many ways. Relatedly, Milan notes in the comments that Kerry Vaughan also appears to have left CEA |
Comment on After one year of applying for EA jobs: It is really, really hard to get hired by an EA organisation |
2019-02-26 |
Max Daniel |
Effective Altruism Forum |
Open Philanthropy, OpenAI, Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, Centre for Effective Altruism, Future of Humanity Institute, AI Impacts |
|
|
|
Daniel gives his experience applying to various effective altruist organizations, detailing the time he spent on applications and preparation. |
After one year of applying for EA jobs: It is really, really hard to get hired by an EA organisation |
2019-02-25 |
EA applicant |
Effective Altruism Forum |
Open Philanthropy, Centre for Effective Altruism, Future of Humanity Institute, Effective Giving UK, Rethink Charity, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Global Priorities Institute, Ought, Veddis, Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative |
|
|
|
A pseudonymous effective altruist gives their experience applying to various effective altruist (and related) organizations. |
Announcing a change of leadership at CEA |
2019-02-08 |
|
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Larissa Hesketh-Rowe |
Employee departure |
Effective altruism/movement growth |
The post announces that Larissa Hesketh-Rowe is stepping down as CEO of CEA, and says that she was asked to resign because she was unable to meet the performance expectations for the role |
I took a significant pay cut to work as a software engineer for CEA |
2019-01-27 |
Sarah Spikes |
Jeff Kaufman |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Sarah Spikes, Sam Deere |
Job experience |
Effective altruism/movement growth |
In this comment on a post by Jeff Kaufman, Sarah Spikes describes her experience working for CEA, which she finds disappointing in various ways, due to the lack of recognition for her experience and the cancellation of the projects she was working on, without explanation. A later comment also notes her salary of $84,000. Original thread on Facebook: [10] |
Since I am mentioned in person in this comment … |
2017-01-15 |
Oliver Habryka |
Facebook |
Centre for Effective Altruism |
Oliver Habryka |
|
Movement building |
In response to an anonymous comment saying in part “I feel like a lot of skilled people are now wasting their time on EA (e.g., Oliver Habryka), many of whom would otherwise be working on issues more directly related to AGI”, Oliver Habryka responds that he is no longer working in effective altruist movement building and that he almost certainly should not have spent two years working in the area. |