One specific thing I appreciate about GiveWell is the policy that no one donor can fund more than 20% of their operating expenses. I think there is a particular need for certain work to be broadly funded; generally, that work is at places like GiveWell, RP, ACE, etc. and will have an significant influence on what else gets funded / gets done.
There’s probably a happy medium between a hard one-organization limit and having no rules on multiple board service / board overlap.
I’m actually not convinced that we need a policy here, especially since people have very limited time and I suspect if someone is on like 12 different boards then they will have very little influence at each org because they’re spreading their time so thin. But I don’t have board experience, so I could be wrong here.
We consider CEOs of large companies as being capable of steering the whole company for better or worse, and they can have far more staff and decision-making requirements than the whole EA nonprofit world combined.
If someone is on so many boards that they have minimal influence at each, that is an independent reason to limit their service and ask someone else to serve. I’m really impressed, for instance, by RP’s open call for board member applications.
I’m more concerned about someone being on the board / in leadership of 3-4 particularly important organizations than in 12.
To be fair to OpenPhil, it’s common to have a major donor in a board seat as a means of providing transparency/accountability to that donor...
One specific thing I appreciate about GiveWell is the policy that no one donor can fund more than 20% of their operating expenses. I think there is a particular need for certain work to be broadly funded; generally, that work is at places like GiveWell, RP, ACE, etc. and will have an significant influence on what else gets funded / gets done.
There’s probably a happy medium between a hard one-organization limit and having no rules on multiple board service / board overlap.
I’m actually not convinced that we need a policy here, especially since people have very limited time and I suspect if someone is on like 12 different boards then they will have very little influence at each org because they’re spreading their time so thin. But I don’t have board experience, so I could be wrong here.
We consider CEOs of large companies as being capable of steering the whole company for better or worse, and they can have far more staff and decision-making requirements than the whole EA nonprofit world combined.
If someone is on so many boards that they have minimal influence at each, that is an independent reason to limit their service and ask someone else to serve. I’m really impressed, for instance, by RP’s open call for board member applications.
I’m more concerned about someone being on the board / in leadership of 3-4 particularly important organizations than in 12.
To be fair to OpenPhil, it’s common to have a major donor in a board seat as a means of providing transparency/accountability to that donor...