Introductory Course
Harness the power of reason and evidence to maximise your positive impact on the world through our comprehensive effective altruism introductory course.
What will you learn?
Through this free course, you'll meet like-minded people and explore ways to have more impact with your careers and donations.
Guided by a facilitator, you'll gain access to curated materials and practical exercises to help you have a greater impact in your career, donations and other projects.
"The huge network I've gotten in contact with through EA has been amazing. I've made this pivot much, much faster than I think I could have accomplished in other comparable fields."
Jesse Hoogland
AI Safety Researcher
How does this course work?
Following this intro course is free. Groups consist of 4-8 participants, with which you will meet up weekly online for 5 weeks to discuss the articles read during the previous week.
Our next programme will start in October 2025, and the application deadline for this is on 12 September.
The time investment is approximately 3.5 hours per week:
- Weekly sessions of 1 hour and 15 minutes
- Weekly reading and other course materials for 2 hours
Note that our course is for people living in or connected to the Netherlands. If you live abroad or like to start earlier, you can try signing up for an earlier cohort of the international virtual program here.
Questions we will answer
Who should we care about helping?
How much better are the best options to do good?
What matters most?
What guides good decisions?
Which topics will we cover?
Week 1 is all about getting to know your fellow participants, exploring why it's important to think carefully about how you spend your time and money to help others, introducing a few key principles, and learning the basics of cause prioritisation.
Week 2 will introduce you to a few tools and concepts to help you think about impact measurement. For example, the health metric 'QALY' and the reasoning tool Fermi estimation. There will also be a practical guide to giving. Throughout the week, you will be learning about the field of global health and development.
Week 3 will help you explore expanding your circle of concern. You will also discuss the importance of being open to unusual ideas about how we can improve the world. Finally, you will learn about the issue of animal welfare and read about some of the most promising strategies for making progress in this area.
Humanity appears to face existential risks: the chance of a catastrophe that destroys our long-run potential. One such risk is from a future pandemic that is worse than COVID-19. But what would the world look like if we took the interests of our grandkids' grandkids as seriously as our own?
We’ll discuss ways to apply the principles of effective altruism to your own life, particularly through your career, donations, and volunteering.
Meet your facilitators
Our courses are facilitated by dedicated members of the community. In addition to our regular volunteers, we are grateful to have several wonderful individuals who contribute by hosting courses on a more occasional basis.
James Herbert
Co-Director
Marieke de Visscher
Co-Director
Erwin Rossen
Facilitator Introductory Course
Ricardo van Mildert
Facilitator, trainer, coach, speaker and EAGx content manager
Tom Luken
Facilitator Introductory Course
Monique Kwakman
Facilitator Introductory Course
Make a positive impact now
Apply today and join our course to learn about the key principles of effective altruism and how to put them into practice.