“Building Ideas-First EA” by Mjreard

TLDR: Sarah Bluhm and I are funding and mentoring ideas-first (as opposed to, e.g., careers-first) EA community builders. If you’re at one of these universities or know someone who is, we want to talk to you, especially this subset: University of Toronto University of Michigan UCLA USC NYU Columbia Claremont Colleges (Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Pitzer) Stanford Harvard MIT Cornell Georgetown Northwestern **Contact us here or at [email protected]** The Network for EA Support & Training (NEST) We (Matt Reardon and Sarah Bluhm) founded NEST, whose mission is to build vibrant in-person EA communities by teaching organizers the craft of communicating EA ideas with courage and authenticity. I (Matt) am a former lawyer and 80k advisor who blogs, tweets, and podcasts about EA. Sarah worked on CEA's university groups team and has a background in bioengineering. NEST's philosophy is that EA communities should be platforms for individuals to form their own views on the central questions of Effective Altruism: what are the most important issues in the world, why those issues, and what should I do about them? This contrasts with approaches to community building that act as recruiting funnels for specific organizations or fields. We think [...] ---Outline:(00:56) The Network for EA Support & Training (NEST)(02:19) University groups(03:44) What we provide(05:46) The next step --- First published: June 11th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8pSppMFeQAeg4Pn8E/building-ideas-first-ea-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.