Project summary
We are an org that tries to build EA communities in China, found and headed by native Chinese EAs. We do this by publishing EA content that is localized in both content and delivery. This attracts readers who are interested in an EA way of approaching altruism and looking at the world. For select portions of our audience, we run 1) a pledge program to attract donations to local effective charities; 2) a Chinese EA fellowship that uses an EA Handbook that we have written ourselves to align community members. Currently, we have ~30k social media followers and ~500 pledgers and fellows in several city groups.
We see ourselves as separately arriving at, and carrying out the vision of "creating a local movement from scratch that's inspired by the ideas of EA, but is highly adapted to the local context" that Benjamin Todd advocates to do instead of rushing to translate material here.
We're choosing to remain anonymous due to domestic optics risks for being associated in public with non-Chinese platforms. Due to this, we've chosen to not include information about our activities that would directly identify us. If you're interested in finding out more about us, or want make sure this is not a scam, please contact us at cneacommunity.modular556@passfwd.com
What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?
We hope to build a vibrant community of effective donors and local EAs in China. We do this by promoting a localized version of the effectiveness mindset (through our public writing), and by offering EA training to Chinese students and professionals.
As Chinese people ourselves, the establishment of a community which speaks our literal, cultural, as well as intellectual language is its own reward. However, we also expect to influence significant amounts of charitable donations as well as help direct the careers of young Chinese professionals to impactful cause areas that they care about.
How will this funding be used?
The majority will be used for paying the salaries of our employees (~6 FTE) in Q1 and Q2 2025, or for whichever two quarters after we receive the funds.
Approximately half of our activities are focused on EA community building in China, and so we are applying for approximately half of our budget.
We do not expect to be fully funded from Manifund, and so we've set our minimum funding goal to be a low amount.
Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?
As we have chosen to remain anonymous, we cannot reveal details here. However, please feel free to contact us if you want to find out more. (cneacommunity.modular556@passfwd.com)
We have previously attended several EAGs and EAGxs. We have previously been funded by several notable EA community-building funders. We have good relations with, and actively communicate with, many highly reputed EA orgs and notable EAs.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?
We already have moderate success with our pledgers and fellows communities. However, failure for us to continue to grow will be most likely due to insufficient funding.
The bottleneck on building an EA organization in China appears to be a core team of native Chinese EAs with significant experience accomplishing things in China, and who can be seen as ingroup by most Chinese people - based on my personal experience in the EA space, this seems to be extremely unlikely. Hence, my best guess for the consequences of the failure of this project is that an EA-adjacent community in China likely never emerges, and that EA cause areas in China will likely never receive the boost that may come from a community educated in the relevant facts and frames.
What other funding are you or your project getting?
Most of our current funding is from high net worth individuals in China.