Project summary
CEEALAR (https://www.ceealar.org/) was launched in 2018 and offers free/subsidised accommodation to up to 27* EAs at a time, for anywhere from a few days to a year. Grantees do research in EA cause areas, launch EA projects or upskill in EA areas. As of 2024 we're experimenting with narrowing our focus to grantees working on Global Catastrophic Risks. We are:
Cost effective: At our target occupancy (20) it costs us just under $1000 to fund an individual for 1 month vs an average of $5,500 to support an independent EA researcher ( based on EA fund payouts)
A multiplier on the impact of EAs. We provide workshops, 1:1 meetings and community. ~80% of guests estimate significantly more productivity here than their counterfactual.
Unique and scaleable - we are the first project of this kind and are documenting our learnings and providing a blueprint for others.
For more information, see our recent update post:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/esFoMmj3PAECTqSrF/ceealar-2024-update
What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?
1) Increase the number of talented people working on Global Catastrophic Risks
2) Enable those people to develop the skills and connections they need to amplify their impact.
(See our theory of change for a full description of the path to impact: https://www.ceealar.org/learn-more/our-theory-of-change)
We achieve these goals through the following:
Financial assistance
Free/subsidised accommodation, communal meals and stipends so that grantees can focus full time on EA work without having to take non impactful jobs to fund themselves
Community building and networking for EAs from a range of cause areas and countries
We are currently developing the CEEALAR Alumni Network (CAN) to enable guests and alumni to better support each other
Hosting low or no cost retreats for EA organisations
A productive workspace
Ergonomic coworking spaces, breakout rooms, private studies, a home gym and the highest density of whiteboards in a several mile radius.
Learning and development opportunities
Talks and workshops tailored to grantees’ needs
How will this funding be used?
Our basic operations are currently funded until end of 2025 (assuming business as usual), but we have plenty of capacity to absorb additional funding - both for additional runway, as we have no guarantee of future funding from current sources, and for meaningful improvements to the space.
We're highly cost effective, and we're experienced at stretching a little a long way, but there is a lot of potential for impact from additional funding - we can do a lot with a little, but we can also do more with more.
Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?
Our track record is the past 5 years of CEEALAR, perhaps most notably surviving the covid pandemic and quickly returning to growth.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)
(In order of likelihood)
Funding shortfalls are by far the most likely fail state at present.
Some small but nontrivial chance of significant maintenance/repair issues resulting in prolonged closure due to the age of the buildings.
Similar probability of a staffing 'failure cascade' where an inability to hire for a key role (i.e. ops manager, executive director) leads to burn out for the remaining staff as they try to compensate for the shortfall, which leads to more staff losses and significant loss of tacit/institutional knowledge
An acute community crisis/scandal that results in significant reputational damage to CEEALAR such that we are obligated to shutdown. (In this context it's worth noting that in 5 years of operation we have had nothing like this happen and that guest feedback is overwhelming positive concerning the culture of CEEALAR)
Legal issues with local council or UK charity commission. Highly unlikely, but we are a fairly unique project and we cannot predict whether the future regulatory landscape will be hospitable to us.
What other funding are you or your project getting?
We were funded by SFF in 2023, and by AISTO and EAIF in 2024. We have also received significant financial support from the EA community and our alumni.
donated $40
Sasha Cooper
4 months ago
I'm obviously biased (former Trustee), but I think CEEALAR is unique in the EA community in many respects:
Tight feedback loops (rather than a lump sum grant, you can offer conditional support and see firsthand how the work is progressing, and offer support rather than a hard cutoff when there are problems) - which also means we can afford to cast the net wider
Develops meaningful EA relationships (rather than superficial 'connections')
Keeps costs about as low as is possible in the developed world
Highly scalable
I wish we could have offered more, but there were so many good projects on this list our EACC windfall got stretched rather thinly!
<3
donated $55
Camille Berger
4 months ago
I stayed at CEEALAR for a month -I was the most focused and productive I've been since a long time. It really helped me to complete the short project I aimed for then, and I believe that doing this in another environment would have been very difficult, because of the absence of silent workspace and motivated colleagues. It also helped me because of my limited financial situation, and lead me to have more time to dedicate to my mental health. I also had great exchanges there that I didn't have in regular EA houses and workplaces.
donated $150
ampdot
4 months ago
One of the most talented researchers I know (Rika Walters) is currently staying at CEEALAR and I think it helped her mature into a researcher ready to publish excellent work and assist related projects in AI Safety.
donated $150
donated $150
ampdot
4 months ago
I think CEEALAR is awesome– I just wish it or a sister organization were near a major US airport. It would pair extremely well with a Frontier All-You-Can-Fly pass, enabling members to perform networking efficiently. ($300 for unlimited flights between Sep 1 and Feb 29)
donated $1,050
Austin Chen
4 months ago
Per their request, I've relisted CEEALAR as a proposal to be considered as part of the EA Community Choice round, and lowered the minimum funding to be more in line with projects in this round.
Also making a token donation! I have not visited CEEALAR myself, but have been a fan of the concept since reading Scott Alexander's coverage of it way back in 2018. I like the ambition and would love for more similar endeavors to exist - indeed, I cited CEEALAR in the launch post for Community Choice as the kind of project we'd love to support. My biggest complaint is that it's just too far away for us Bay Area folks to come by and visit; to that end, if you're thinking about starting something similar but in California, apply for funding here or reach out to me at austin@manifund.org!
(I should note, Greg also personally invested in Manifold's seed round, for which we are grateful.)
donated $1,050
Austin Chen
4 months ago
@ampdot Hm, somehow this project got closed accidentally -- I think there might be something weird going on in the backend. Unlike the majority of projects in EA Community Choice, this one was a legacy project that I re-opened; maybe something in our codebase doesn't like how I've set this up.
I've re-opened it once more and reinstated my and Kyle's donation offers; if this bug keeps occurring I might have to ask CEEALAR folks to just create a new project. Sorry for the technical difficulties everyone!
donated $1,050
Austin Chen
4 months ago
Oh, derp -- turns out I accidentally set the project close date to Sep 2023 instead of 2024 in the database.
donated $150
ampdot
4 months ago
@Austin This is showing up at the bottom of Manifund.org. Might it be possible to bump it to the top or update the time?
Renan Araujo
over 1 year ago
I'd be curious about:
Some examples of successful projects that counterfactually came out of CEEALAR.
Your expected success rate based on the last 5 years (or maybe the last year, since this might be more representative of future success rate). By success rate I mean something like "impactful projects counterfactually coming out of CEEALAR that are above your bar of net value worth 1.4k".
Any examples of net negative projects or value that happened as a product of CEEALAR? Eg maybe someone being based in Blackpool who could instead have spent that time somewhere else, or some community health problem stemming out of many EAs living and working together.
🥥
Greg Colbourn
over 1 year ago
(Ops manager David posting on behalf of Greg)
1.) Here are some highlighted outputs from CEEALAR - due to the disruption caused by covid and related staff turnover, we've only recently re-established contact with our alumni and begun to capture more of our successes, thus there are currently large gaps in our known outputs (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D8zOegcciXgm0B9WBGsV1jAruv_KJvNhwbAO8on3kgU/edit?usp=sharing)
2.) Related to the above, our theory of change is that the work alumni go on to do after their stay with us is where the most impact occurs. That we form a critical part in the journey of aspiring EAs - affording them the opportunity, community and resources necessary to give them the best foundation from which to move the world.
Thus, for example, there have been many people for whom CEEALAR afforded the opportunity to transition into machine learning and AI Safety, and of those many are now working in the area - some of those we know about: one as an engineer at Deepmind, one as an assistant at Anthropic, one as a contractor for OpenAI
I apologise for the lack of concrete data at this stage, but of the ~200 past guests we know something about: at least half are still working in EA cause areas, of those I'd estimate at least a third had no counterfactual alternative to CEEALAR and would not have been able to start/continue working in EA causes areas otherwise, and roughly 10 are in high impact roles (e.g. deepmind engineer).
Turning this into a success rate depends on how you measure success, but relative to the most comparable alternative - funding independent EA researchers work at ~3x the cost - it certainly seems like a meaningful amount of impact for your $.
Apologies again for the lack of specificity, this will be remedied before we apply for funding again in future (assuming we get another ~12 months runway).
3.) I think it's unlikely that anyone missed out by coming to CEEALAR, the opportunity cost of being in Blackpool is dwarfed by the opportunities we provide. And indeed while Blackpool is often criticised for being Not-Oxbridge or Not-London, it is far closer to those places than many of the other places from across the world that our guests are arriving from - staying here affords many of our guests access to these locations that they would not otherwise have had.
3b.) In terms of community health, CEEALAR's community is one of our proudest achievements, and it is something we nurture and are fiercely protective of. Other EA community projects with much more pedigree and less history have had far more serious issues in this regard than we have had in our entire 5 year history.
In fact, for the majority of our serious failures those affected have been staff rather than guests - burnout has historically been a problem for those who have carried the torch of CEEALAR and faced adversity on its behalf.
Marcus Abramovitch
over 1 year ago
I think this is a decent giving opportunity. Will consider if I have left over. Would broadly support this over funding independent researchers. This $1400/month covers housing and work space and some basic services (and maybe food?) for someone in London? Seems very good.
Cillian Crosson
over 1 year ago
My understanding is that $1400/mth is the price per person for someone in BLACKPOOL (where CEEALAR is based) not London.
I think this is important to flag as Blackpool is ~5hrs north of London and a significantly less desirable place to live. https://goo.gl/maps/QZkXnTWLahnqq4bi9
(of course, this could still be a decent giving opportunity)
🥥
Greg Colbourn
over 1 year ago
@Cillerwhale @MarcusAbramovitch
(This is ops manager David posting on Greg's behalf)
Yes we're in Blackpool, a 3-4 hour (depending on the whims of British public transport) train journey from London.
It's definitely a less desirable city to live in, but I think most of our guests find CEEALAR itself to be an incredibly nourishing environment.
We provide accomodation, coworking spaces, communal vegan meals (and I'll go out on a limb here and say that even in London you'd be hard pressed to find vegan food this delicious), coaching and support, and host various talks and retreats which our guests benefit from.
Nowhere can EAs get so much for so little $. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, CEEALAR is unique - both in our mission to onboard and upskill promising EAs from diverse cause areas (we're also technically one of the oldest and most active AI safety organisations - between a third and half of our guests at any one time tend to be working in AI Safety) and in the permanent physical EA community we've nurtured here.
donated $50
David Moss
about 1 year ago
Fwiw I found Blackpool to be a very pleasant place to live (my wife and I lived there for just over a year, largely due to the presence of the EA Hotel) and would personally prefer to live there rather than London (even setting aside the dramatic cost difference). The EA Hotel itself also provides a concentration of engaged EAs that seems hard to match outside of the very largest EA centres.