Commitment: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Justice

This is a living document. Last Updated: July 1, 2023.

Effective altruism uses compassion and reason to do the most possible good. Our movement needs the active participation of individuals with diverse experiences, perspectives, and talents to have the greatest positive impact on the world.

As a formal organization and as an informal community, Effective Altruism New York City should be a welcoming, safe, and inclusive community for all people passionate about using evidence and reason to do the most good. The EA NYC organizing team explicitly endorses the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) because we believe these values 1) are important in their own right, 2) are well-aligned with the foundations of effective altruism, and 3) are important to promote as part of the path to positive impact. We work, and aim to do more, to create and sustain a community where all members are treated with respect and dignity.

We hold a firm belief that the effective altruism movement’s guiding principles, and its supporters’ actions towards making the world a better place, have created a generally accepting and safe community. However, like all large, decentralized, social groups, the movement does not have a perfect track record with supporting inclusivity, maintaining diversity, preventing interpersonal harms, or addressing mistakes.

There is more to be done. This commitment is a first step.

Inclusive Spaces

We work to foster and uphold an intentionally inclusive environment for community members by maintaining and enforcing a code of conduct for our events, and setting and evaluating standards for our formal community leaders. We expect our leaders to reinforce our values in their language (verbal and non-verbal), and we expect the members of our online platforms as well as attendees of all EA NYC-sanctioned events to communicate respectfully and to use non-discriminatory language. Additionally, we provide opportunities for underrepresented groups in EA to have their own dedicated spaces; subgroups are a chance to associate with other members around shared commonalities and to choose whether one’s voice is amplified or kept private.

Equitable Outreach and Opportunity

When evaluating existing opportunities for engagement, and when developing new approaches for nurturing our community, we aim to reflect and incorporate the diversity of New York City. We strive to invite people from a diversity of backgrounds (with an awareness of intersectionality) to speak at our events, to collaborate with and take part in our community, to serve as volunteers, and to apply to work on our team.

We seek feedback from all participants in an aim to best calibrate our efforts towards correcting for systemic inequities and providing equality of opportunity rather than unduly favoring certain viewpoints or demographics.

Bias Reduction

We recognize the impact of unconscious biases and that their small interactions can play a large role in influencing the direction of the community. We make decisions and have conversations from a position informed by this recognition; starting from acknowledged subjectivity helps all of us keep an open mind to where we may be making mistakes. We also aim to implement research-informed best practices and take advantage of educational opportunities to reduce bias.

Measure and Reflect

We understand the need to continuously reflect on and reassess EA NYC’s practices and policies to ensure they are truly inclusive. We aim to establish new measures of the impacts our decisions have made on the relevant communities and stakeholders, and to regularly assess policies, procedures, and practices within the organization to identify and address any potential biases.

Acknowledging Limitations and Implementing Oversight

We describe many unspecified aims in this statement, from new metrics to pursuing outreach and educational goals. We would prefer to make concrete commitments, but we do not have every goal clearly defined and still believe there is value in declaring intentions.

As a small organization with limited resources, we unfortunately cannot prioritize creating formalized policies that cover all situations, or document every action that we take and every conversation we hold in the interest of promoting DEIJ. In most cases, subjective judgments have to be made to the best of our ability, and evaluating these decisions is one of the primary reasons we have a board for oversight.

With all of these thoughts in mind, we recognize that DEIJ work is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. We commit ourselves to a long-term journey of continuous improvement. Our team will share updates as we develop further metrics, policies, or insights.

We welcome your feedback on how we can be a more inclusive community, here via anonymous form or here by email.