Hey, thanks for the suggestion. To save interested people from having to email us, here are links to our conflict of interest policies. We have two: one for our board and one for staff. These are probably pretty standard documents and I would think they do not differ much between organizations (except at grantmaking foundations, where I imagine they are more complicated). I expect the real value comes from really thoughtfully detecting and enforcing conflicts of interest, as opposed to having a written policy that is not well understood or enforced.
I do think you’re right that they’re often pretty boring and the important stuff is in organizational practice. In this case, though, I’m especially interested in what sort of things the policies require employees to disclose (internally), which I think probably does (or at least should) vary meaningfully?
Thanks! I appreciate the speedy responses, though they aren’t necessary!
After I’ve been able to look at ones for a bunch of organizations I think I’ll probably do some sort of comparison.
Some things that jumped out to me on skimming these:
The board member one seems to only be concerned with financial conflicts of interest, but interpersonal ones also seem like they could be an issue?
The employee one maybe covers interpersonal stuff, but not very explicitly. For example, it’s not obvious to me under which circumstances two RP employees would need to disclose that they’ve begun dating.
We have a separate “Personal Relationship Policy” that governs disclosure around dating. The summary is that if an employee has a personal relationship with another RP employee or external stakeholder (e.g., at an EA grantmaking organization) who has perceived or real authority / influence / power to affect RP or its employees, they must disclose such a relationship.
Is there any chance you might be up for posting that policy as well? I’m interested in understanding how different organizations have decided to handle these.
Would nepotism be handled by one of these, or would that be another policy?
Hey, thanks for the suggestion. To save interested people from having to email us, here are links to our conflict of interest policies. We have two: one for our board and one for staff. These are probably pretty standard documents and I would think they do not differ much between organizations (except at grantmaking foundations, where I imagine they are more complicated). I expect the real value comes from really thoughtfully detecting and enforcing conflicts of interest, as opposed to having a written policy that is not well understood or enforced.
Thanks; requested access to both!
I do think you’re right that they’re often pretty boring and the important stuff is in organizational practice. In this case, though, I’m especially interested in what sort of things the policies require employees to disclose (internally), which I think probably does (or at least should) vary meaningfully?
Sorry I didn’t realize they were restricted. I’ve made both documents publicly viewable.
Thanks! I appreciate the speedy responses, though they aren’t necessary!
After I’ve been able to look at ones for a bunch of organizations I think I’ll probably do some sort of comparison.
Some things that jumped out to me on skimming these:
The board member one seems to only be concerned with financial conflicts of interest, but interpersonal ones also seem like they could be an issue?
The employee one maybe covers interpersonal stuff, but not very explicitly. For example, it’s not obvious to me under which circumstances two RP employees would need to disclose that they’ve begun dating.
We have a separate “Personal Relationship Policy” that governs disclosure around dating. The summary is that if an employee has a personal relationship with another RP employee or external stakeholder (e.g., at an EA grantmaking organization) who has perceived or real authority / influence / power to affect RP or its employees, they must disclose such a relationship.
Is there any chance you might be up for posting that policy as well? I’m interested in understanding how different organizations have decided to handle these.
Would nepotism be handled by one of these, or would that be another policy?