I originally thought this was a good reason for recusal but no longer do. I was told that outside EA it is pretty normal for grantmakers to get board seats. If you are going to give a load of money to a project it seems pretty reasonable to have some level of control, as shares would in a business. Likewise a project may want easy access to someone from the grantmaker so they can get future grants.
Not to say this is always good, but I don’t think it requires recusal in many cases (it may be the literal reason for the seat), compared to many other examples.
It sounds like you’re describing a case where a granting organization intentionally has one of their staff on the board of a project? I agree that’s fine, but it’s not the only way you could have a board-member related COI. A classic case would be if a charity applies to a fund (for the first time) and it happens to be a board member at the charity works for the fund. Another way this could happen is if a trusted advisor of a fund happened to be on the board of a charity the fund was considering granting to. Personally, I think these should definitely be disclosed, and depending on the nature of the relationship recusal would often be a good idea?
I originally thought this was a good reason for recusal but no longer do. I was told that outside EA it is pretty normal for grantmakers to get board seats. If you are going to give a load of money to a project it seems pretty reasonable to have some level of control, as shares would in a business. Likewise a project may want easy access to someone from the grantmaker so they can get future grants.
Not to say this is always good, but I don’t think it requires recusal in many cases (it may be the literal reason for the seat), compared to many other examples.
It sounds like you’re describing a case where a granting organization intentionally has one of their staff on the board of a project? I agree that’s fine, but it’s not the only way you could have a board-member related COI. A classic case would be if a charity applies to a fund (for the first time) and it happens to be a board member at the charity works for the fund. Another way this could happen is if a trusted advisor of a fund happened to be on the board of a charity the fund was considering granting to. Personally, I think these should definitely be disclosed, and depending on the nature of the relationship recusal would often be a good idea?