This document is meant to serve as an explanation of the mission of our organization along with the metrics and instrumental goals we are using to achieve our desired impact. It is not an exhaustive statement of our goals or strategies. We plan to change and improve it as reasons to do so arise. If you have questions or suggestions (ie updating our goals/metrics, clearer communication, revising our mission) please add a comment or set up a 1-1 with Lenny to discuss.
We believe that it is more valuable to cultivate a few promising individuals who will dedicate their careers to tackling the world’s most pressing problems, rather than influencing many people who will go on to live lives that are only marginally affected by EA ideas. We’re seeking people who are both willing and able to orient their careers towards what’s most needed, not what’s most convenient. Our job is to equip these people with the knowledge, skills, and connections to (continually) update their career plans in the face of new evidence.
To summarize, we help people start embarking on a lifelong path of using evidence and reason to maximize their positive impact.
The majority of our efforts as an organization are meant to support future impact as opposed to creating direct impact ourselves. Therefore, we must be clear on how our actions are expected to translate into direct impact.
See this explanation from the EA Infrastructure Fund:
“It’s important to make the distinction between direct impact and instrumental impact. Direct impact means individuals working or interning in high impact careers that they would not have otherwise, doing research or creating content that they would not have otherwise, or (to a lesser extent) donating money that they would not have otherwise. Instrumental impact is qualified as increased engagement by members, whether it is an individual first engaging with EA or later becoming convinced of longtermism and changing their career for it. [...] It is the type of work that leads to direct impact, such as hosting a successful event, creating a robust 1:1 system, or leading a reading group.”
Unfortunately, metrics for direct impact are almost entirely “lagging metrics”, meaning that their ability to be measured is delayed in time. For example, we can’t immediately tell how many of our cohort of advanced fellows will go on to work or intern in high impact careers; such things will only become clear on a timescale of months and years.
Instead, we must initially use what are called “leading metrics,” metrics that can be tracked in real-time. Such metrics essentially boil down to quantitative and qualitative assessments of our members’ engagement and aptitude with EA topics. They include:
(Note that we are planning to build an interface in our Airtable that presents these metrics)