Donor Briefing 09/2018
2018-09-04 General Operations
Thanks for getting current with RC.
Project Headlines – Rethink Charity kicks off the 2018 EA Summit with the opening keynote, RC Forward passes through another >$1M donation, SHIC releases a mid-year update on the Vancouver workshop experiment, Rethink Priorities gets press, LEAN hires new team members, and the 2018 EA Survey begins publishing results this month.
Full RC Briefing
Project Updates
Rethink Charity Overview
RC is building out the infrastructure for long-term operation after seeing encouraging performance across several fronts. Our projects appear to be growing in community relevance, thanks in no small part to being better resourced than ever. LEAN was an active participant in the (un)precedented 2018 EA Summit, where several RC staff members delivered talks on SHIC, the 2018 EA Survey, local EA groups, and the opening keynote that doubled as a commentary on the shifting memetic landscape of EA. We should be seeing even tighter associations with other movement building organizations.
Flashback – In the June edition, we wrote, “Rethink Charity projects are attracting interest from major institutional funders. Watch this space for more developments.” This has thus far materialized into an $85,000 grant to RP from Lewis Bollard at EA Funds and an $50,000 grant to LEAN from CEA.
Reversal – In June we also mentioned, “Current [SHIC] plans include training an educator in Toronto to deliver the workshop in the fall.” SHIC chose instead to double down on demonstrating continued engagement from workshop students in Vancouver.
RC Forward
– Within the next week or so, RC Forward will be releasing our Mid-2018 Update detailing the $3.6m CAD we have disbursed to high impact charities in 2018.
– Completed “the largest single donation by an individual in MIRI’s history” of $1.33m CAD.
Crypto for good – We also referred a second cryptocurrency donation, totaling nearly $1.6m CAD, to the Against Malaria Foundation. This is RC Forward’s single largest donation to date.
Students for High-Impact Charity (SHIC)
– SHIC published early results on the first semester of 2018’s workshop experiment that reached 855 students across 16 schools in the Vancouver area.
– The analysis of the student pre- and post-workshop surveys showed significant improvements in knowledge, attitudes and values about high-impact charity.
– The primary focus for the fall term is to test ways of further engaging interested students through advanced workshops, community building and coaching.
The Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN)
– LEAN welcomed new staff members to the project.
– Development work is now being undertaken on the new EA Hub.
Rethink Priorities (RP)
– The RP cause prioritization wiki, PriortyWiki, was featured in a Fast Company article.
– The project is currently investigating the potential for consciousness-indicating features of invertebrates.
– RP will be hiring researchers soon and a job ad will be up in early September.
What’s Next
Our current organizational model is trending toward increased project-level autonomy and further consolidation of supporting administrative systems. For example, Rethink Priorities launched early this year, requiring very little from RC beyond administrative assistance, eventually producing quality research that attracted substantial funding. The latest LEAN hiring round could be seen as an attempt to replicate this approach, with the expectation that the project will carve out its own identity as a largely autonomous movement building organization.
It was great to catch up with you again.
