I really like the availability of food at EAGs. I’d spend more and be hungrier if that weren’t the case. Here are some suggestions to reduce costs while not reducing availability:
Reduce the amount of alcohol. This feels less important to me, though I guess I don’t really drink so I’m biased
Reduce the amount of snacks/ deserts. I like these but they seem less important than ensuring people are fed
Have less fancy vegan food. I would happily eat beyond meat burgers like 25% of the time, or as a filler alongside the nicer food
Have less huel/soylent. I like this, but maybe there is a cheaper option. The bottled stuff is pretty pricey.
Spending any money on alcohol (at least at catering prices) seems like bad optics at a minimum. I’d argue that is always so, but especially in light of current dynamics. It would give the impression that providing expensive free booze for insiders is more important than returning every penny that was stolen from FTX depositors. (Of course, this concern will expire if EVF makes a firm commitment to disgorge all funds ever received from an FTX or Alameda associated source.)
I’m pretty sure EVF will send all that it’s legally required to send to EVF depositors.
After that I really hope that the argument “that money could instead go to FTX depositors” will not replace “that money could literally save several lives”, when talking about buying food/drinks vs donating money.
For various reasons, there may be a difference between returning all that is legally required and returning every penny received (we don’t know yet). From an optics perspective, I think there is very much a reputational hit for any charity—EA or not—that does not return an amount equal to what it got. But that hit is magnified if it then spends money in a way that seems to benefit insiders more than the charitable mission.
I wasn’t intending to restate the debate over whether monies used to fund meta things would be better spent on direct work—I have my opinions on that (which would favor no free alcohol for the reasons you imply), but I don’t presume that I have anything to add to what has been said in the past on the meta/direct tradeoff more generally.
On the broader scale, I think one of the greatest long-term existential risks to any charitable organization or movement is a slow, nearly inperceptible drift to decisions being made based on the interests of insiders as opposed to beneficiaries. It’s happened too many times to count with other charities/movement, and is in my mind a likely outcome for any charity/movement that does not maintain constant vigilance surrounding its culture. So in addition to the optics question and the question you posed, I would ask: “Does incurring this expense create a risk of subtly moving culture and expectations away from a beneficiary-focused mission, in which meta is a means to an end and not an ultimate end in itself?”
Many venues don’t let you bring in outside food. Catering is extremely overpriced (the cost per person per meal) and oftentimes you can’t sign a contract for a venue without agreeing to catering costs.
I think this probably isn’t the case for the venue’s CEA is renting for EAG etc, because most of these venues wouldn’t be able to meet CEA’s catering constraints (vegan but not anywhere near your typical vegan, etc)
Replied on the other thread, but yeah I’ll note that this is annoyingly the case for most of the EAGs we run — we just get the caterers to build out custom menu for our events (usually with a lot of back and forth).
I really like the availability of food at EAGs. I’d spend more and be hungrier if that weren’t the case. Here are some suggestions to reduce costs while not reducing availability:
Reduce the amount of alcohol. This feels less important to me, though I guess I don’t really drink so I’m biased
Reduce the amount of snacks/ deserts. I like these but they seem less important than ensuring people are fed
Have less fancy vegan food. I would happily eat beyond meat burgers like 25% of the time, or as a filler alongside the nicer food
Have less huel/soylent. I like this, but maybe there is a cheaper option. The bottled stuff is pretty pricey.
Spending any money on alcohol (at least at catering prices) seems like bad optics at a minimum. I’d argue that is always so, but especially in light of current dynamics. It would give the impression that providing expensive free booze for insiders is more important than returning every penny that was stolen from FTX depositors. (Of course, this concern will expire if EVF makes a firm commitment to disgorge all funds ever received from an FTX or Alameda associated source.)
I’m pretty sure EVF will send all that it’s legally required to send to EVF depositors.
After that I really hope that the argument “that money could instead go to FTX depositors” will not replace “that money could literally save several lives”, when talking about buying food/drinks vs donating money.
For various reasons, there may be a difference between returning all that is legally required and returning every penny received (we don’t know yet). From an optics perspective, I think there is very much a reputational hit for any charity—EA or not—that does not return an amount equal to what it got. But that hit is magnified if it then spends money in a way that seems to benefit insiders more than the charitable mission.
I wasn’t intending to restate the debate over whether monies used to fund meta things would be better spent on direct work—I have my opinions on that (which would favor no free alcohol for the reasons you imply), but I don’t presume that I have anything to add to what has been said in the past on the meta/direct tradeoff more generally.
On the broader scale, I think one of the greatest long-term existential risks to any charitable organization or movement is a slow, nearly inperceptible drift to decisions being made based on the interests of insiders as opposed to beneficiaries. It’s happened too many times to count with other charities/movement, and is in my mind a likely outcome for any charity/movement that does not maintain constant vigilance surrounding its culture. So in addition to the optics question and the question you posed, I would ask: “Does incurring this expense create a risk of subtly moving culture and expectations away from a beneficiary-focused mission, in which meta is a means to an end and not an ultimate end in itself?”
I would think that if Huel/Soylent substitutes at all for other catered food, it’s likely very cost-effective to stock
Many venues don’t let you bring in outside food. Catering is extremely overpriced (the cost per person per meal) and oftentimes you can’t sign a contract for a venue without agreeing to catering costs.
I think this probably isn’t the case for the venue’s CEA is renting for EAG etc, because most of these venues wouldn’t be able to meet CEA’s catering constraints (vegan but not anywhere near your typical vegan, etc)
Replied on the other thread, but yeah I’ll note that this is annoyingly the case for most of the EAGs we run — we just get the caterers to build out custom menu for our events (usually with a lot of back and forth).