The Community Building Grants (CBG) program, run by the Groups team at CEA since 2018, is undergoing substantial changes.

Through the CBG program, we fund a set of professional city and national EA groups[1] and support their leaders through retreats, regular check-ins and calls, a Slack space, and resources for running groups.

CBG groups have achieved exciting things, such as helping EAs navigate (policy) hubs, supporting hundreds of community members in taking next steps, and incubating new organisations.

In this post, we want to share what's changing and the reasoning behind it. In 2026, two things are changing:

• CBG grant evaluation is moving from the Groups team to EA Funds (which became part of CEA in the summer of 2025), where it will be managed alongside, but remain distinct from, the EA Infrastructure Fund. 
• CBG non-monetary support has been transitioned, integrated with other offers, or phased out.

Why we are making these changes

In 2025, we reviewed how the CBG program fits into CEA's broader strategy. As CEA aims to reach and raise EA's ceiling, we are shifting internal focus more towards scalable products that can support this ambition. After a long strategic process, we concluded that [...]

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Outline:

(01:15) Why we are making these changes

(03:01) Whats changing

(05:11) What has not changed

(06:23) Trade-offs

(07:42) Finally

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.