Community Building Grants Associate

We are looking for an ambitious, engaging, and strategic professional to join CEA’s Groups team. The Groups team is in the middle of a strategic reorientation and wants to become more proactive with both seeding new groups and providing better support. We need somebody who can help lead these initiatives.

You will be a key team member who greatly increases our Community Building Grants (CBG) program’s impact and shapes how the city and national ecosystem evolves. Major tasks will include exploring strategic questions, piloting experiments, and attracting new community-building talent.

Background

Local groups are one of the most compelling and high-fidelity ways to introduce people to EA ideas and keep them engaged — and the CBG program provides funding and support to the highest performing city and national EA groups globally. The program has helped >100 grantees develop local impact-focused talent, apply EA principles, and build EA’s local infrastructure, for example, by incubating new EA organisations focused on the most pressing global problems.

The program currently provides over $2.5 million / year in support to local EA directors and is funding >20 FTE in 14 different locations. Examples of these locations include NYC, DC, London, the Netherlands, Australia, and India.

These groups have led to several exciting outcomes including:

• Introducing AI safety to somebody and this leading them to take a role as a technical safety staff at Anthropic.
• Counterfactually leading to several group members becoming researchers at Rethink Priorities.
• Preparing members to start effective charities through the Charity Entrepreneurship program, for example Lafiya Nigeria that focuses on contraception access for women in Nigeria.
• Helping people enter key policy roles, both in the fields of AI and Biosecurity. They report that without their group these positions would not have been on their radar and they would probably not have been able to start working in these fields.
• Working as a grantee was crucial for taking up longtermist roles, such as Chief of Staff at Forethought, or to found organisations like the Impact Academy.

We have the ambition to significantly improve the program and believe that some of our biggest wins in the past have come from seeding and incubating new groups. We’re eager to experiment more with this approach.

About the role

The CBG Associate will be one of the main drivers behind the CBG program’s ambition of significantly improving the program and experimenting with seeding new groups. We expect this to increase the amount of exciting case studies from CBG groups.

We are looking for someone who can develop a deep understanding of excellent groups through practically driven research, engage in talent acquisition, develop and execute new products and forms of support, and evaluate, explore, and lead our (experimental) seeding and incubation program.

As part of CEA’s Groups team, you will work closely with, and report directly to, Naomi Nederlof, the CBG Manager. The Groups team cares deeply about both improving the world and maintaining a positive working environment.

Responsibilities

We are committed to putting impact first and want you to be working on the most impactful projects. We are currently in a period of experimentation and impact evaluation within the team and may be shifting responsibilities as new information emerges. Therefore, your exact responsibilities will vary. However, they will likely include:

• Conducting practical research into what makes certain city and national groups excel. We want this research to go beyond the theoretical level and translate into concrete suggestions for changes and new products, including testing assumptions.
• Developing and leading the incubation program by conducting research into potential new locations for the program; quickly developing a network in promising locations; sourcing, recruiting, and vetting potential new CBG recipients; and developing support for incubatees.
  • This might include travel to promising locations.
• Developing and executing additional support for CBG grantees and non-CBG city & national groups. A part of this support will likely involve assisting the local groups in hiring rounds.
• General program support, including grant evaluation support, helping develop the program’s strategy and vision, and playing a role in further advancement of the program’s monitoring and evaluation processes.

About you

You might be a good fit if you:

• Think carefully about core EA ideas. You are familiar with the cause areas often prioritised by EA community members. You understand crucial considerations related to different worldviews, and can model good epistemics for group leaders.
• Are comfortable exploring complex questions, including prioritising the most salient aspects of a project. We are interested in developing a better understanding of excellent city and national groups, but don’t have a guidebook for how to go about it.
• Are passionate about the work of EA Groups and want to work professionally in effective altruism community building.
• Have strong interpersonal and communication skills. You’re someone who would enjoy frequent back-and-forth with co-workers, grantees, and external stakeholders, and are able to quickly build relationships in new locations.
• Are adaptable and comfortable with things changing while you are working. We have uncertainty about the vision and the best product-market fit of the program, so it’s likely that things will change when we learn more. The incubation program will start as an experiment and it is possible that we will revisit whether it’s a good use of our resources.
• Want to take ownership and proactively think through how to accomplish the program's goals. If you encounter problems, you find creative approaches to them, possibly iterating upon them many times.

Preferred but not required:

• You are an experienced community organiser. You have been actively involved in community building such as organising an effective altruism group, running an EAGx, or similar projects.
• You are familiar with the work of various city and national EA groups. You have detailed views on what constitutes good work in those contexts, and how you would like city and national groups to develop over the coming years.

Salary, benefits and location

This is a full-time position, but we may be open to considering other options for exceptional candidates. The position can be done fully remotely. Ideally, you would do your work from a timezone between GMT-6 and GMT+7. We welcome applicants from anywhere in the world, and may be able to sponsor visas for full-time staff who would like to work from our office in Oxford.

We’d love you to start in July 2024, but we are willing to accommodate start dates between June and October of 2024.

We are currently reviewing our compensation policies, and compensation may be subject to change. In particular, we may be willing to pay more for candidates with certain relevant experience. Based on our historical policy, the compensation range for candidates (depending on experience) working from the Oxford office would be £44,000 - £66,550, comprising £40,000 - £60,500 in salary with an unconditional 10% pension contribution. Salary ranges for remote employees would vary by location. US salaries currently vary significantly based on location. Depending on both the cost of living of the candidate's location and on experience, we think the total compensation for this role could range from $66,000 - $122,540 also comprising a base salary and a 10% 401k contribution.

Benefits include private insurance, flexible work hours, a £5,000 / $6,000 annual professional development allowance, a £5,000 / $6,000 mental health support allowance, extended parental leave, ergonomic equipment, 10% pension / 401k contribution, 25 days of paid vacation, and more.

Other information

• After considering your application, we will invite promising candidates to complete one or two short trial task(s) followed by a further interview. We will invite finalists to provide references and participate in a two day, paid, work trial.
• We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and we encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from self-identified women and people of color who are excited about contributing to our mission. We are an equal opportunity employer. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact jobs@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
• All information submitted in connection with this job opening is subject to the Effective Ventures privacy policy.

Contact

Please reach out to us at groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org if you’d like to learn more about this opportunity, or if you know anyone who might be a good fit for the role.