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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: My Reflections Facilitating for EA Virtual Programs, published by ElikaSomani on May 2, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. TL:DR We need to put more resources, support, and perhaps a restructuring of the fellowships into Virtual Programs if we are to reach CEA’s organizing goals of expanding community diversity (geographically in particular) and increasing virtual programs introductory participant to high-impact EAer rate. I have some thoughts on how we can do this! Setting the Stage - A Brief Overview of Virtual Programs (VP) and Myself I have been facilitating Virtual Programs for ∼ 5 months. So far I have facilitated four cohorts (2 introductory, 2 in-depth) and participated in 1 introductory and 1 in-depth program. I'm planning to keep doing 2 groups a round I have also helped with some EA DC and Twin Cities community-building, ran a fellowship amongst friends, as well as volunteered on some specific cause area projects I also am starting some specific community-building projects related to community health and making EA a more welcoming, person-first space. There’s not much to share or reflect on since this is so new, but the projects definitely stem from the need for better VP community building that I’ve noticed in my facilitating Virtual programs (VP) is run by the Center for Effective Altruism and essentially provides EA seminar programs for anyone around the world. I would say its main focus is running introductory, in-depth, and The Precipice fellowships/reading groups. These fellowships are ‘run’ by facilitators - whose volunteer role is to facilitate the fellowship meetings. VP also hosts many other one-off virtual events for the community. The Problem: My Experience with VP: I took both fellowships through VP and, to be honest, did not have the most positive experience. It was not related to the material; rather I did not feel any sense of community with my cohort or with the broader EA community. I should note that my perception of EA (which was a misconception) delayed me from taking this fellowship in the first place (by about two years). Thus, the language we use and how we spread EA to new members and via word of mouth is important to get right. Since then – due to having friends/family that encouraged and welcomed me into EA outside of the fellowship – I have become highly engaged in EA. I have attended 2 conferences (and plan to attend many more), helped with community building and various cause-area volunteer projects, and even switched my career from public health to biosecurity (a work in progress) based on longtermism’s neglectedness. I have reason to believe this isn’t an experience unique to me Out of my intro and in-depth fellowship group, I am aware of only one other person who is still active in the EA community. Coincidence or not, she happens to also have a family member who was already active in the EA community. From my (limited) observation, the fellowships (intro and in-depth) are the main pathway for those not involved in university/city groups to become highly involved in EA. However, I don’t think the current structure of the fellowships run by VP are optimized to produce highly-engaged EAs. I also would not be surprised if VP’s retention rate (what % of those who take the fellowships stay involved in EA) isn’t as high as in-person university/city-group organized fellowships. I’d be curious to see the data. To clarify, this is definitely not the organizer's fault! Community building is hard and getting people to act on EA ideas (not just be interested in them) is extremely hard. I believe doing it virtually is even harder. This is a secondary issue that I haven’t fully fleshed out yet, but I think we need to do more to support facilitating fellowships for non-English speakers and people not living in the US/Europe/the UK. In ...