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Growth and Engagement in EA Groups: 2022 Groups Census Results
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BrianTan·CEA Groups Team
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3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum
This census provides empirical data on EA community infrastructure growth and is useful for understanding how EA movement-building efforts have scaled, though it is tangential to core AI safety technical research.
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Building effective altruismCommunityData on the EA communityEffective altruism groupsCentre for Effective AltruismEA Strategy FortnightSurveys
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Importance: 30/100organizational reportdataset
Summary
The 2022 EA Groups Census surveyed 309 active EA groups across 56 countries, documenting 31% growth in groups in 2021-2022 with university groups nearly doubling. Notably, deeply engaged members per group doubled on average despite stable median group sizes, suggesting improved engagement quality. Rapid growth was especially pronounced in Asia, South America, and Africa.
Key Points
- •309 active EA groups surveyed across 56 countries; total group count grew 19% in 2020-2021 and 31% in 2021-2022
- •University groups nearly doubled, driven partly by the University Group Accelerator Program and EA Virtual Programs
- •Deeply engaged EAs per group doubled on average and tripled at the median, indicating quality improvement in engagement
- •Fastest regional growth in Asia, South America, and Africa at 65-86% annually, suggesting global EA expansion
- •Median group size remained stable, implying growth came from new groups rather than existing group expansion
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# Growth and engagement in EA groups: 2022 Groups Census results
By BrianTan, CEA Groups Team
Published: 2023-06-23
**Summary**
-----------
* In December 2022, [CEA sent out a survey](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Fn4B8RnGxGGQTgZEK/organizers-please-fill-out-the-ea-groups-census-2022) to all groups. 309 EA groups[^1rch0nicesq] reported that they were active.[^gt4rofs1999] However, based on our records, we estimate that ~63 active EA groups didn’t fill out the census. Therefore, it’s important to note that the data in this post are not representative of *all* active groups.[^duqo8rw8ojq]
* Almost half of all active groups (309) are university groups (150). After that, most groups are location-based (53 city groups, 25 city-university hybrid groups, and 40 national groups). There were 40 groups of other types (e.g. workplace).[^9hmgffne335]
* The number of groups has been growing quickly in recent years. The net growth in the number of groups was 19% in 2020–2021 and 31% in 2021–2022.[^wnmnep03hee] [^nun33oxkqr] Most of the groups that were founded in recent years are university groups: the number of university groups roughly doubled between 2020 and 2022.[^yjngf67egp]
* We hypothesize that the two main reasons for the fast growth rate in general are CEA’s[ University Group Accelerator Program (UGAP)](https://centreforeffectivealtruism.notion.site/centreforeffectivealtruism/University-Group-Accelerator-Program-6df8c8fccf8b4ffbb6488d9dfa275282) and the increased focus on and funding for EA community building in 2021–2022.
* We’d like to note that we don’t aim to just maximize the number of groups or members — we care about the quality and fidelity of groups, and we’re taking steps to measure and help improve group quality.
* There are active groups in 56 countries. Most of the currently active groups are in Europe and North America (39% and 30% respectively). However, the number of groups in Asia, South America, and Africa significantly grew in 2022, ranging from 65-86% growth per continent that year.
* We think the high growth in these continents is partially due to UGAP, EA Virtual Programs, and other community building efforts (e.g. by the [Spanish-speaking community](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/groups/M29yYwNDhFHwxQd4t)).
* We also asked groups for attendance and engagement data.
* The data we have shows that the median group size remained constant between 2020 and 2022, although due to changes in the questions we asked between the 2020 and 2022 surveys, we can only meaningfully compare the attendance and engagement data of groups on two measures (total event attendees and [engaged EAs](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aetatCMGqcAPsNbLs/growth-and-engagement-in-ea-groups-2022-groups-census#Definition_of__engaged_EAs_)).
* While the total number of attendees per group stayed the same, the number of members who engaged with EA deeply — [defined as 100 hours of engagement with EA
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