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PauseAI National Groups

What a PauseAI National Groups does

  • Manage, coach and coordinate their own local communities.
  • Organize national events.
  • Are responsible for national-level strategy and coordination.
  • Typically have their own website, social media accounts and legal entity.
  • Do national-level lobbying and media outreach.
  • At this point, most national groups are volunteer-run, exceptions are the USA, France and the United Kingdom.

What PauseAI Global provides

  • Digital infrastructure which involves things like signing up for the newsletter, joining the discord server, onboarding volunteers, etc.
  • Funding for national-level activities. National groups can apply for Microgrants from PauseAI Global to fund all sorts of activities. Still, national groups are encouraged to fundraise for their own activities.
  • Coaching and monitoring to ensure national groups are successful and aligned with the global strategy.
  • Marketing materials like flyers, posters, social media content, etc.
  • Strategy. National groups are expected to follow the PauseAI strategy (Theory of Change and Communication Strategy. However, national groups are expected to make modifications to the strategy to fit their local context.

How to set up a PauseAI National Group

Phase 1: Foundation

Focus: Connect with Global, define your vision, assign roles

Connect with PauseAI Global

Email the Organizing Director at ella@pauseai.info

to express interest in starting a chapter.

We will:

  • Host an initial meeting with you
  • Contact all signed-up members and volunteers from your country
  • Help you build an initial chapter team
  • Help you decide your early strategy and launch plan

Define Your Chapter Vision

Discuss with your founding team:

  • Why is AI safety advocacy important in your country specifically?
  • What unique opportunities exist in your national context?
  • What barriers do you anticipate?
  • Where do you want the chapter to be in 12 months?

Use this to construct your National strategy plan. 

Assign Initial Roles

Every chapter needs these core functions covered (one person can hold multiple roles):

  • National Lead: Overall coordination, Global liaison
  • Communications Lead: Social media, messaging, media outreach
  • Organizing Lead: Recruitment, volunteer coordination, events

Phase 2: Infrastructure

Focus: Create materials, set up platforms

Create Materials

Set Up Communication Channels

Internal team chat: WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, or Discord — choose what’s popular in your country

Social media: Prioritize 1-2 platforms relevant to your audience

  • Consider: X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok
  • Use a scheduling tool like Buffer
  • Read the Communication Strategy for messaging guidance

Website and Email Set Up

Our technical operations lead will set you up with an official email address, help you add your social media and website to our chapter list https://pauseai.info/national-groups & https://pauseai.info/communities, and get you on our about page https://pauseai.info/about. 

Make sure you send the below to patricio@pauseai.info

to get started: 

  • Email address ending on @pauseai.info you want (usually firstname@pauseai.info
     or fullname@pauseai.info
    ). You would be able to use this email for PauseAI related communications and access Google Drive files.
  • If you want emails with the info about the people from your country who fill out the webform at https://pauseai.info/join to go to this new email address or another one (specify which). It will also be linked on the national chapters page.
  • Any links to social media, internal chats or a website that you want to be public
  • (Optional) Discord username
  • (Optional) A head shot
  • (Optional) A logo of your chapter

Review Key Resources

Ensure all founding members have read:

  1. PauseAI Proposal
  2. PauseAI Communication Strategy 
  3. 2026 Chapter Programming (below)

Phase 3: Launch

Focus: Plan recruitment, schedule first activities

Plan Recruitment

Target communities:

  • EA and AI safety groups
  • University students and faculty
  • Tech industry professionals
  • Climate and other advocacy groups

Recruitment methods:

  • Networking events
  • Flyering and tabling (especially at student fairs)
  • Launch event (rent a venue, invite speakers — costs reimbursable via
    Microgrant)

Schedule First Month Activities

To meet our programming requirements, plan:

  • Strategic Meetings: your core leadership will come together to plan and coordinate
  • Growth goal: set an objective to achieve X amount of new sign-ups
  • Signature collection: decide how you will collect 20 or more signatures to our statement
  • Social event: set up your first monthly social event - meet in a pub, for a coffee, host a video call
  • Campaign action: decide what action your volunteers will take together, flyering, tabling, a workshop or email-writing together 

Find tips on all of these in our Local Organizing Guide

Difference between a Local Community and a National Chapter

Local Community: Informal group, no formal structure, uses PauseAI resources with permission

National Chapter: Formal leadership, signed MOU, meets baseline programming, approved foundational documents

Path: Individual → Group → Community → Chapter → Legal entity (optional)

If activity drops: After 3 months of not meeting baseline without communication, Global Organizing Director will reach out. Chapter may transition to Community status or receive support to rebuild.

Required Roles

National Lead (required for Chapter status):

  • Manages the national strategy
  • Manages reporting, fundraising, and all other roles
  • Primary contact with Global
  • Participates in campaign specific coordination

Communications Lead (required for Chapter status):

  • Manages national social media accounts aligned with campaign messaging
  • Participates in fortnightly Global Communications calls
  • Coordinates messaging with Global Communications Director
  • Primary contact for national press
  • Implements campaign communications strategies

Monthly Baseline Requirements

A note - the baselines outlined below are a target for national chapters. We understand that context is important and not all chapters will be able to consistently meet each objective. HOWEVER, in saying that, these are important goals against which we can track and measure our success.

If you’re not keen to go this far, our local communities might be more your style!

  1. Strategic Meeting - Core leadership plans and coordinates. Notes shared with Global.
  • Every month, National Chapter leaders meet with our Organizing Director to discuss their goals and progress and coordinate with other Chapters around key events.
  1. Growth Goal - Active recruitment viahttps://pauseai.info/join or national page
  • Small chapters (0-20 active): 5+ signups/month
  • Medium (20-50): 10+ signups/month
  • Large (50+): 20+ signups/month

  1. Signature Collection - Minimum 20 signatures tohttps://pauseai.info/statement or approved national alternative

  2. Social Event - Community building (pub meetup, coffee, video call). 

  3. Campaign Action - One quality action aligned with:

  • Education: Tabling, flyering, presentations, social media
  • Regulation: Letters, petitions, meetings with officials’ staff
  • Corporate accountability: Protest, petition delivery, shareholder action
  1. Social Media Activity - Consistent presence on national channels:
  • Minimum 3-4 posts per week across platforms
  • Mix of: campaign updates, volunteer spotlights, educational content, calls-to-action
  • Engage with relevant national conversations and influencers
  • Tag/coordinate with @PauseAI on major moments
  1. Traditional Media Activity - Relationship building, outreach and representation
  • Maintain press list of local and national media contacts, foster these relationships
  • Develop a media spokesperson for television and radio interviews, and nationally relevant podcasts
  • Write and publish articles reflecting PauseAI positions in relevant language for local media. 

Quarterly Requirement

  1. Public Protest/Picket - Major visible action generating media attention. Photos shared with Global.
  2. Mapping - collect information about your volunteers and their networks.