About Our Austin TX Community
EA Austin exists to help aspiring altruists in Austin, TX do more good in the world.
We understand your time is valuable, so we plan everything we do to help you increase your impact in some way. EA Austin offers:
Community: Engage and recharge with a local, value-aligned, intellectual community of people striving to do the most good they can. We foster a supportive group of like-minded altruists by organizing socials and providing community infrastructure like a Facebook group and Slack workpace (for much more than work).
Education: We aim to quickly get you up to speed on some basic ideas so you can save energy doing good, feel confident in your altruistic endeavors, better contribute to our discourse, and thoroughly critique our ideas, too. We run workshops and courses and maintain spaces for you to ask questions of us and other members.
1-on-1 Support: We are happy to have 1-on-1 advising sessions on how you personally can do more good, refer you to high-impact opportunities, help you with your self-development projects, and review your applications to grants and jobs.
Working and Learning Together: We run co-project days, competitions, virtual and in-person coworking sessions, reading groups, and topical discussions, to keep everyone motivated and interested to learn and aim for high impact opportunities.
All our offerings are free thanks to generous donors in the effective altruist network.
Our Values
Commitment to Others: We take the well-being of others very seriously, and we are willing to take significant action to improve the world for all.
Scientific Mindset: We strive to base our actions on the best available evidence and reasoning about how the world works. We evaluate perspectives on their merits. If good arguments or evidence show that our current plans are not the best way of helping, we will change our beliefs and actions.
Epistemic Humility: We recognize how difficult it is to know how to do the most good. So we avoid overconfidence, seek out informed critiques of our views, and take alternative points of view seriously.
Openness: We are open to helping any beneficiaries in any way which we can evaluate. We acknowledge that abilties and passions vary, so it’s ultimately up to each person to figure out what “doing good better” looks like for them.
Integrity: Because we believe that trust, cooperation, and accurate information are essential to doing good, we strive to be honest and trustworthy.
Collaborative Spirit: We affirm a commitment to building a friendly environment in which many different approaches can flourish. In order to encourage cooperation, we resolve to treat people of different worldviews, values, backgrounds, and identities kindly and respectfully.