Seeking expertise to improve EA organizations

[Julia_Wise]

[Edit, June 2023: another update here.
Edit, November 2023: finished materials here.]

There’s been a lot of interest in how EA might reform, both in response to the FTX crisis and in general.

We’re working on a project where a task force (exact members TBD, but including us and some others from across the EA ecosystem) will sort through different ideas for reforms that EA organizations might enact, and try to recommend the most promising ideas. This project doesn’t aim to be a retrospective on what happened with FTX, and won’t address all problems in EA, but we hope to make progress on some of them.

The output will likely be a set of recommendations to EA organizations, while recognizing that different practices will make sense for different organizations depending on their goals, size, and circumstances. Those recommendations might look like best practices for board composition, a proposed whistleblowing mechanism, etc.

As part of this process, we want to gather ideas and best practices from people who know a lot about areas outside EA. These could be people familiar with EA, or people outside EA with useful knowledge about other fields. We’d like your help in connecting with those people! We’re particularly interested in people with knowledge of these areas:

• Whistleblowing systems

• Nonprofit boards

• Conflict of interest policies

• Organization and management of sizeable communities

We can’t promise this task force will talk to everyone who’s suggested, but we’d welcome your input on this form. Thank you!

[LukeDing]

Thanks Julia and Ozzie. A few questions if I may.

Would you announce who is on the task force in due course?

I note that the form does not assume one could suggest oneself. Is that deliberate?

Also I note that the form does not have a section for the (relevant) bio of the person suggested so how do you decide how useful the person is unless you know the person very well already?

I also just want to mention the obvious that although there is some relevant expertise within the EA community in areas you are looking at, there is a lot of professional expertise in these areas outside the community too.

[Julia_Wise]

Hi Luke, thanks for the suggestions! I’ve changed the form to reflect that it’s fine to list yourself, and added a place to put more info about the person’s bio /​ skills.

The intention is very much to get in touch with expertise outside the community—I’ve added a bit to make that clearer.

I’m happy to have a default plan of announcing who’s on the task force after that’s finalized, unless someone actively doesn’t want to be identified.

[LukeDing]

Thanks so much Julia.

[Jason]

I don’t have anyone specific in mind (and you may have already thought of this), but my guess is that one could purchase a few hours of consulting time from a faculty member at a top nonprofit management program (e.g., IU Bloomington) and walk away with a pretty good list of who the top people are in the specific domains you are looking for and/​or who might be well suited for this kind of consulting work in general. Depending on the referrals you otherwise receive, asking an academic in nonprofit management might be worthwhile to maximize the use of the panel members’ time.