Frequently asked questions

The Alliance is a group of people working together to improve the world. Members spend a fraction of their time – currently 15 minutes a week – completing tasks on our online platform. These tasks are designed by a full-time strategic office to advance our priorities.

Our long-term goal is to unite humanity behind a democratic, expert-developed plan to end global crises. Right now, we are running experiments to test our organizational structures and processes.

We define "the Alliance" as the body of our members, not as any legal entity.

Membership is currently by invitation only. You can request to join, and we will follow up with a signup link if there is a fit.

The Alliance is composed of a body of members and a full-time strategic office.

1. The office is responsible for developing plans, and corresponding tasks, that effectively advance Alliance priorities.
2. Members are responsible for reliably completing tasks they are assigned on our online platform.

In no particular order, we are focused on:

1. Extreme poverty
2. Environmental destruction
3. The decline of democratic institutions
4. Dangerous technological development

Our foundation explains how we derived them.

We conduct a membership-wide oversight process that occurs on a regular basis. In the process, the Alliance office asks members what they think about the direction of the Alliance and whether or not they have any major concerns. The office collects and responds to feedback until we reach an approval threshold of 75%.

This procedure achieves two goals:

1. Members determine the high-level goals and methods of the Alliance.
2. The office retains the freedom to plan any action that advances approved goals with approved methods. It is not required to do what is most popular, nor do actions need unanimous support, so it can operate efficiently and effectively.

In addition to formal governance, the office incorporates member input by other means. For instance, the office hosts discussions, asks members for action proposals, solicits open-ended feedback, and so on.

Our governance page sets out the procedures in full.

Members are expected to complete all tasks they are assigned on time. Members are not required to contribute to the Alliance financially.

We define members of the Alliance as individuals that have signed and abide by our membership contract.

Action design is a creative, open-ended process that searches for levers of change that members can pull. The office draws inspiration from many places, including life experiences, subject matter experts, and member suggestions.

The office selects actions according to several criteria, including the quality of the experience they provide to members, the impact they achieve, and how they help the Alliance learn and build capacity.

Right now, we are taking small-scale actions focused on learning, not direct impact. Our progress page lists what we have done so far.

Reliability is the foundation of the Alliance. Since the office knows exactly who and how many members will complete tasks, it can design concrete and effective action plans.

For example:

1. The office was able to motivate a group of cafes to adopt a sustainable policy before members took action because it could promise that members would help them attain media coverage later.
2. The office was able to design a statistically meaningful experiment because it knew how many members would participate.

Strategically, the Alliance operates like a sports team, orchestra, or company—not like a loose crowd. A crowd can be large and energetic, but it is unpredictable: people drift in and out, and no one knows exactly who will act when needed. By contrast, a sports team, orchestra, or company can set specific goals and execute precise strategies because every person will show up and do their part.

In the long run, the willingness of members to take actions that are inconvenient or do not personally benefit them will allow people with many different interests from around the world to help each other. Given the urgency of global crises, we prioritize effective action over perfect consensus.

If you have already spent 15 minutes completing tasks in a given week, you can withdraw from your remaining tasks without affecting your membership status.

If you have a moral objection to a task, you can withdraw from that task without affecting your membership status.

Otherwise, a member who misses all assigned non-optional actions for 3 weeks in a row will have their contract suspended and will be unable to participate in Alliance governance.

Former members can rejoin the Alliance by re-signing the contract.

Alliance membership is open to anyone.

However, some actions require members to live in the United States. If an action is restricted to US members, we provide non-US members with a modified action, or we do not assign them that action.

As the Alliance grows, actions will have greater global coverage.

The Alliance is run by Sidney Hough and Mark Xu. The full list of Alliance staff is on our people page.

Initial funding for the Alliance was provided by Elizabeth Barnes. Funds are managed by the Alliance Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.