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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: Call for action for German university groups!, published by Arne on February 2, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Are you part of the German community? Read it and leave your feedback! Are you a community builder? I would love to hear your thoughts. And for everyone, I'd welcome every feedback on my first forum post. TL;DR There are no big local student groups (30+ active members) in Germany. I want them to grow, because student groups and friends are among the most important factors for the growth of the EA community. Reasons why no large local student groups have appeared might include cultural differences to the US and UK, as well as the status quo of the German EA community. That's why, I call for coordination and a spirit of optimism. Here is a short plan for the coming semester: First Week of the semester: Advertisement Second Week: Intro talk + social Third Week on the Weekend: Impact workshop Fourth Week: 1-1s and social Fifth Week: German-wide fellowship starts as well as a career planning fellowship Throughout the semester: Socials as well as lunch breaks in the uni café Halfway through the fellowships and the semester: ((f)un)conferences After the semester: another ((f)un)conference Plus EAGx Berlin in autumn ^^ What's the problem? State of EA groups in Germany There are currently 22 German local groups listed on effektiveraltruismus.de and 25 groups on eahub. More than half of the local groups are student groups. And even though the German community is the third-largest EA community, the typical German local group is in a tough spot. The core of a typical group is at best a strong group of friends of max. 4-5 people. The average to me looks more like 2.5 organizers per student group. Dying student groups are not uncommon. In addition to the local chapters, NEAD (Netzwerk für Effektiven Altruismus Deutschland) exists as the Germany-wide head organization and runs their own fellowship (now for the third time in a row), writes a newsletter and provides some group support. Just recently, the German community hired it’s second paid community builder (part-time), welcome, Christiane Ranke. Until then, it was just Manuel Allgaier, who also was responsible mostly for EA Berlin. Furthermore, there has been less funding requested for German groups than for their counterparts in the US, UK, and probably France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Last but not least there are very few senior EAs working from and/or in Germany. State of EA groups outside Germany Student groups outside Germany are hitting membership numbers far beyond everything that we are dreaming of. I am remembering thousands of newsletter subscriptions in Yale and the board alone of EA Oxfords student group consists of 18 people according to their website. PISE in Rotterdam has an executive board of six and six additional committees. Look how they celebrated their giving pledges. Some local groups even have an (un)official EA house, office hours, or one of the craziest things I’ve heard was an EA (dance) ball. Another big step would be to hire campus specialists for German universities, or to be present with workshops and/or a booth at job fairs. Non-EA groups in Germany Outside the EA realm, large student groups and initiatives do exist. Student parliament and university political organizations attract a lot of new students (often close to political parties RCDS, JULIS, JUSOS, SDS, Campusgrün). Similarly, Antifa (loose network of very different types of smaller and bigger groups), Green peace (100 groups, ~50 people per group (unsure)), Amnesty (650 groups) and Enactus (1700 students in 35 German cities, average of 48 students per group) are among the biggest student networks/initiatives I can think of from the top of my head. Some of these networks have adopted grassroots democracies (Basisdem...