The Nonlinear Library EA - High Impact Engineers is Transitioning to a Volunteer-Led Model by Jessica Wen
Jul 2, 2024
07:25
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: High Impact Engineers is Transitioning to a Volunteer-Led Model, published by Jessica Wen on July 2, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Summary
After over 2 years of operations, High Impact Engineers (HI-Eng) is reverting to a volunteer-led organisational model due to a middling impact outcome and a lack of funding. We wanted to thank all our subscribers, supporters, and contributors for being the driving force behind HI-Eng's achievements, which you can read about in our
Impact Report.
What is High Impact Engineers?
High Impact Engineers (HI-Eng for short, pronounced high-enj) is an organisation dedicated to helping (physical - i.e. non-software) engineers increase their ability to have an outsized positive impact through their work.
Why Is HI-Eng Winding Down?
In December 2023, we sent out a community survey and solicited case studies and testimonials to evaluate our impact, which we wrote up in our
Impact Report. As shown in the report, there is some evidence of behavioural and attitudinal changes in our members towards more impactful career outcomes due to interactions with our programmes, as well as some ongoing career transitions that we supported to some extent, but even after consultations with grantmakers and other community builders, we found it difficult to determine if this amount of impact would meet the bar for ongoing funding.
As a result, we decided to (re-)apply for funding from the major EA funds (i.e. EAIF and Open Philanthropy), and they ended up deciding to not fund High Impact Engineers. Since our runway from the previous funding round was so short, we decided against trying to hire someone else to take over running HI-Eng, and the team is moving on to new opportunities.
However, we still believe that engineers in EA are a valuable and persistently underserved demographic, and that this latent potential can be realised by providing a hub for engineers in EA to meet other like-minded engineers and find relevant resources. Therefore, we decided to maintain the most valuable and impactful programmes through the help of volunteers.
Lessons Learnt
There are already many resources available for new community builders (e.g. the
EA Groups Resource Centre,
this,
this,
this, and
this EA Forum post, and especially
this post by Sofia Balderson), so we don't believe that there is much we can add that hasn't already been said. However, here are some lessons we think are robustly good:
1. Having a funding cycle of 6 months is too short.
2. If you're looking to get set up and running quickly, getting a fiscal sponsor is great. We went with the
Players Philanthropy Fund, but there are other options (including
Rethink Priorities and maybe your national EA group).
3. Speak to other community builders, and ask for their resources! They're often more than happy to give you a copy of their systems, processes and documentation (minus personal data).
4. Pay for monthly subscriptions to software when setting up, even if it's cheaper to get an annual subscription. You might end up switching to a different software further down the line, and it's easier (and cheaper) to cancel a monthly subscription.
5. Email each of your subscriptions' customer service to ask for a non-profit discount (if you have non-profit status). They can save you up to 50% of the ticket price.
(Jessica will write up her own speculative lessons learnt in a future forum post).
What Will HI-Eng Look Like Going Forward?
Jessica will continue managing HI-Eng as a volunteer, and is currently implementing the following changes in our programmes:
Email newsletter: the
final HI-Eng newsletter was sent in May. Future impactful engineering opportunities can be found on the
80,000 Hours job board or the
EA Opportunities board. Any other impactful engineering jobs can be submitted to these boards (
submission...
Summary
After over 2 years of operations, High Impact Engineers (HI-Eng) is reverting to a volunteer-led organisational model due to a middling impact outcome and a lack of funding. We wanted to thank all our subscribers, supporters, and contributors for being the driving force behind HI-Eng's achievements, which you can read about in our
Impact Report.
What is High Impact Engineers?
High Impact Engineers (HI-Eng for short, pronounced high-enj) is an organisation dedicated to helping (physical - i.e. non-software) engineers increase their ability to have an outsized positive impact through their work.
Why Is HI-Eng Winding Down?
In December 2023, we sent out a community survey and solicited case studies and testimonials to evaluate our impact, which we wrote up in our
Impact Report. As shown in the report, there is some evidence of behavioural and attitudinal changes in our members towards more impactful career outcomes due to interactions with our programmes, as well as some ongoing career transitions that we supported to some extent, but even after consultations with grantmakers and other community builders, we found it difficult to determine if this amount of impact would meet the bar for ongoing funding.
As a result, we decided to (re-)apply for funding from the major EA funds (i.e. EAIF and Open Philanthropy), and they ended up deciding to not fund High Impact Engineers. Since our runway from the previous funding round was so short, we decided against trying to hire someone else to take over running HI-Eng, and the team is moving on to new opportunities.
However, we still believe that engineers in EA are a valuable and persistently underserved demographic, and that this latent potential can be realised by providing a hub for engineers in EA to meet other like-minded engineers and find relevant resources. Therefore, we decided to maintain the most valuable and impactful programmes through the help of volunteers.
Lessons Learnt
There are already many resources available for new community builders (e.g. the
EA Groups Resource Centre,
this,
this,
this, and
this EA Forum post, and especially
this post by Sofia Balderson), so we don't believe that there is much we can add that hasn't already been said. However, here are some lessons we think are robustly good:
1. Having a funding cycle of 6 months is too short.
2. If you're looking to get set up and running quickly, getting a fiscal sponsor is great. We went with the
Players Philanthropy Fund, but there are other options (including
Rethink Priorities and maybe your national EA group).
3. Speak to other community builders, and ask for their resources! They're often more than happy to give you a copy of their systems, processes and documentation (minus personal data).
4. Pay for monthly subscriptions to software when setting up, even if it's cheaper to get an annual subscription. You might end up switching to a different software further down the line, and it's easier (and cheaper) to cancel a monthly subscription.
5. Email each of your subscriptions' customer service to ask for a non-profit discount (if you have non-profit status). They can save you up to 50% of the ticket price.
(Jessica will write up her own speculative lessons learnt in a future forum post).
What Will HI-Eng Look Like Going Forward?
Jessica will continue managing HI-Eng as a volunteer, and is currently implementing the following changes in our programmes:
Email newsletter: the
final HI-Eng newsletter was sent in May. Future impactful engineering opportunities can be found on the
80,000 Hours job board or the
EA Opportunities board. Any other impactful engineering jobs can be submitted to these boards (
submission...