The Nonlinear Library EA - EA Netherlands' Annual Strategy for 2024 by James Herbert
Jun 5, 2024
11:20
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA Netherlands' Annual Strategy for 2024, published by James Herbert on June 5, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Summary
In Q4 last year we spent time strategising for 2024. We already shared the resulting strategy with our amazing organisers at our Christmas EA Organiser Meetup but we thought it'd be valuable to share it here as well.
We think the EA community in the Netherlands can be much bigger, we want to ensure we have a good reputation, and we want to do something about the lack of opportunities for Dutch EAs to put their values into practice through their work or volunteering.
This being the case, our 'guiding policy' is targeted expansion whilst ensuring growth does not compromise our core epistemic values. This will require maintaining a balance between outreach, intellectual rigour, and field building.
More concretely, we will:
Develop and implement a communications strategy targeting people who we think would like to be a part of the community, but don't yet know of its existence (thus leading to growth, a stronger reputation, and more new projects)
Develop and implement a global catastrophic risk field-building initiative (thus contributing to our level of intellectual rigour and providing more career opportunities)
Use EAGxUtrecht to encourage and support attendees in starting new projects or initiatives (thus leading to more career opportunities)
Increase our use of volunteers to help with all of the above
Meanwhile, we will maintain our existing programmes, e.g., our national EA crash course, our support for organisers around the country, and our co-working office.
Introduction
Previously, we shared our theory of change. In this post, we're sharing the annual strategy we've been working with in 2024. Together, these are our main strategic documents. They are supplemented by a set of five-year aspirational goals[1] and quarterly OKRs.
We developed this strategy in Q4 of 2023 after conducting 20 or so 1-1 calls with key stakeholders. We then held a feedback session using the near-final draft with 30+ key organisers at our Christmas get-together (we sure know how to have a good time!).
We developed it using advice from Rumelt's book, Good Strategy Bad Strategy. It consists of a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and a set of coherent actions.
It's important to note that our strategy for 2024 is not an exhaustive description of what we will work on. Instead, it describes what we will focus on improving whilst continuing to run our established programmes. For example, we will continue as usual with our national intro programme, our support for organisers around the country, and our co-working office.
Diagnosis
We begin by defining and explaining the challenges we face and making a 'diagnosis'. This simplified model of reality allows us to make sense of the situation and engage in further problem-solving.
The first challenge is the size of our community. With an estimated ~700 effective altruists in the Netherlands, we're smaller than many student associations. This limits our influence and obstructs our capacity to create substantial positive change: namely, helping more people use evidence and careful reasoning when trying to help others.
Suppose we want to end factory farming or spend a not-insignificant proportion of society's resources on ensuring the longterm future goes well. In that case, more people need to get involved and start new initiatives.
EAN has a good track record here. Many new initiatives from the Netherlands have an origin story closely tied to our community, e.g. Doneer Effectief, several AI Safety Initiatives, and the Tien Procent Club. If we have a bigger community then more of this can happen.
The second challenge is the proliferation of negative narratives surrounding effective altruism, primarily in English-speaking regions, and t...
Summary
In Q4 last year we spent time strategising for 2024. We already shared the resulting strategy with our amazing organisers at our Christmas EA Organiser Meetup but we thought it'd be valuable to share it here as well.
We think the EA community in the Netherlands can be much bigger, we want to ensure we have a good reputation, and we want to do something about the lack of opportunities for Dutch EAs to put their values into practice through their work or volunteering.
This being the case, our 'guiding policy' is targeted expansion whilst ensuring growth does not compromise our core epistemic values. This will require maintaining a balance between outreach, intellectual rigour, and field building.
More concretely, we will:
Develop and implement a communications strategy targeting people who we think would like to be a part of the community, but don't yet know of its existence (thus leading to growth, a stronger reputation, and more new projects)
Develop and implement a global catastrophic risk field-building initiative (thus contributing to our level of intellectual rigour and providing more career opportunities)
Use EAGxUtrecht to encourage and support attendees in starting new projects or initiatives (thus leading to more career opportunities)
Increase our use of volunteers to help with all of the above
Meanwhile, we will maintain our existing programmes, e.g., our national EA crash course, our support for organisers around the country, and our co-working office.
Introduction
Previously, we shared our theory of change. In this post, we're sharing the annual strategy we've been working with in 2024. Together, these are our main strategic documents. They are supplemented by a set of five-year aspirational goals[1] and quarterly OKRs.
We developed this strategy in Q4 of 2023 after conducting 20 or so 1-1 calls with key stakeholders. We then held a feedback session using the near-final draft with 30+ key organisers at our Christmas get-together (we sure know how to have a good time!).
We developed it using advice from Rumelt's book, Good Strategy Bad Strategy. It consists of a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and a set of coherent actions.
It's important to note that our strategy for 2024 is not an exhaustive description of what we will work on. Instead, it describes what we will focus on improving whilst continuing to run our established programmes. For example, we will continue as usual with our national intro programme, our support for organisers around the country, and our co-working office.
Diagnosis
We begin by defining and explaining the challenges we face and making a 'diagnosis'. This simplified model of reality allows us to make sense of the situation and engage in further problem-solving.
The first challenge is the size of our community. With an estimated ~700 effective altruists in the Netherlands, we're smaller than many student associations. This limits our influence and obstructs our capacity to create substantial positive change: namely, helping more people use evidence and careful reasoning when trying to help others.
Suppose we want to end factory farming or spend a not-insignificant proportion of society's resources on ensuring the longterm future goes well. In that case, more people need to get involved and start new initiatives.
EAN has a good track record here. Many new initiatives from the Netherlands have an origin story closely tied to our community, e.g. Doneer Effectief, several AI Safety Initiatives, and the Tien Procent Club. If we have a bigger community then more of this can happen.
The second challenge is the proliferation of negative narratives surrounding effective altruism, primarily in English-speaking regions, and t...