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: Meta EA Regional Organizations (MEAROs): An Introduction, published by Rockwell on February 21, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

Thank you to the many MEARO leaders who provided feedback and inspiration for this post, directly and through their work in the space.

Introduction

In the following post, I will introduce MEAROs - Meta EA Regional Organizations - a new term for a long-established segment of the EA ecosystem. I will provide an overview of the roles MEAROs currently serve and a sketch of what MEAROs could look like and could accomplish if more fully resourced. Though MEAROs have existed as long as EA itself, I think the concept has been underdefined, underexplored, and consequently underutilized as a tool for solving the world's most pressing problems.

I'm hopeful that giving MEAROs a name will help the community at large better understand these organizations and prompt wider discussion on how to strategically develop them over time.

Background

By way of background, I have worked full-time on a MEARO - Effective Altruism New York City - since August 2021. In my role with EA NYC, I consider my closest collaborators not only the direct

EA NYC team but also the leaders of other MEAROs, especially those who likewise receive a portion of their organization funding through

Centre for Effective Altruism's Community Building Grants (CBG) Program. As I

previously stated on the Forum, before the FTX collapse, there was a heavy emphasis on

making community building a long-term and sustainable career path.[1] As a result, there are now dozens of people working professionally and often full-time on MEAROs.

This is a notable and very recent shift: Many MEAROs were founded shortly after EA was named, or morphed out of communities that predated EA. Most MEAROs were volunteer-run for the majority of their existence. CEA launched the

CBG Program in 2018 and slowly expanded its scope through 2022. EA NYC, for example, was volunteer-run for over seven years before receiving funding for two full-time employees through the CBG Program in Summer 2020. This has led to a game of catch-up: MEAROs have professionalized, but many in the broader EA community still think of MEAROs as volunteer-operated clubs, rather than serious young nonprofits.

We also now have significantly more brainpower thinking about ways to maximize impact through the MEARO structure,[2] a topic I do not feel has been adequately explored on the Forum.

(I recommend Jan Kulveit's posts from October 2018 - Why develop national-level effective altruism organizations? and Suggestions for developing national-level effective altruism organizations - for among the most relevant early discourse I'm aware of on the Forum.) I hope this post can not only give the broader EA ecosystem a better sense of the roles MEAROs currently serve but also open discussion and get others thinking about how we can use MEAROs more effectively.

Defining MEAROs

MEAROs work to enhance and support the EA movement and its objectives within specific regions. This description is intentionally broad as MEAROs' work varies substantially between organizations and over time. My working definition of MEAROs requires the following characteristics:

1. Region-Specific Focus

True to EA values, MEAROs maintain a global outlook and are committed to solving the world's most pressing problems, but do this by promoting and supporting the EA movement and its objectives within a particular geographical area. The region could be a city, state, country, or alternative geographical unit, and the MEARO's activities and initiatives are typically tailored to the context and needs of that region.

2. Focus on Meta-EA

Meta Effective Altruism - the branch of the EA ecosystem MEAROs sit within - describes efforts to improve the efficiency, reach, and impact of the effect...