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CEA History | Centre For Effective Altruism
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Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: Centre for Effective Altruism
This page is relevant as background context on CEA, a central institution in the EA ecosystem that funds and supports many AI safety and existential risk organizations; useful for understanding the organizational landscape rather than technical AI safety content.
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Importance: 25/100homepagereference
Summary
A chronological history of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) from its founding in 2011 through its major milestones, including the incubation and spin-off of key EA organizations, the coining of the term 'effective altruism,' and the development of community infrastructure like EA Global conferences and EA Funds. The page documents how CEA evolved from an umbrella organization for Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours into a broader community-building institution.
Key Points
- •CEA was founded in 2011 as an umbrella for Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours, and coined the term 'effective altruism' during this process.
- •CEA incubated several major EA organizations including The Life You Can Save and Animal Charity Evaluators before they spun off independently.
- •Key infrastructure milestones include EA Global conferences (2015), EA Funds (2017), Community Building Grants (2018), and the EA Forum relaunch (2018).
- •CEA underwent significant structural changes including merging with Giving What We Can (2016) and establishing a Berkeley office alongside its Oxford base (2017).
- •The organization shifted focus toward community health, local group support, and content production over time.
Cited by 2 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Centre for Effective Altruism | Organization | 78.0 |
| EA Global | Organization | 38.0 |
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About CEA
# Our history
### 2009
- [Giving What We Can](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/), a community of effective givers, is founded in Oxford, UK.
### 2011
- [80,000 Hours](https://80000hours.org/) is founded to help people lead high-impact careers.
- The Centre for Effective Altruism is founded as an umbrella organization for Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours. In the process, [we come up with the term "effective altruism"](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/5w/the_history_of_the_term_effective_altruism/).
### 2012
- Giving What We Can incubates [The Life You Can Save](https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/), which later spins off as a separate organization.
- 80,000 Hours incubates [Animal Charity Evaluators](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/), which later spins off as a separate organization.
### 2014
- We host [Good Done Right](http://www.stafforini.com/blog/good-done-right/), an academic conference on effective altruism.
- We work with the Future of Humanity Institute to form the [Global Priorities Project](http://globalprioritiesproject.org/) (which merged back into CEA in 2016).
### 2015
- We trial [EA Ventures](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/fo/announcing_effective_altruism_ventures/) to fund experimental projects (the project was closed in 2016, and later replaced with EA Grants).
- We begin to run the [EA Global](https://www.eaglobal.org/) conference series.
- The 80,000 Hours team participates in the Y Combinator startup accelerator.
- We help to promote [Doing Good Better](https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-Altruism/dp/1592409660), the first widely-read book on effective altruism.
### 2016
- CEA helps local organizers run the first [EA Global X](https://www.eaglobal.org/eagx/) community conferences.
- Giving What We Can merges into CEA.
- CEA's Special Projects division is formed; it includes our Philanthropic Advising and Fundamentals Research teams.
- The Global Priorities Project is discontinued and merged into the Future of Humanity Institute and our Fundamentals Research team.
### 2017
- We participate in the Y Combinator startup accelerator and launch [Effective Altruism Funds](https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds).
- We establish a new permanent office in Be
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