I believe quite strongly that EVF should prioritize expanding its board, regardless of whether Will and Nick resign or are removed. [1] This belief (which predates the FTX situation) centers around three points.
The current board is too small and too busy to provide good oversight to EVF and its constituent parts. Including Will and Nick there are seven people tasked with providing oversight for 10 orgs/projects, plus EVF as a whole, in addition to their other responsibilities. I don’t know why anyone would expect that to go well. The need for good oversight is quite important: CEA, one of the biggest and most important projects, has chosen to rely quite heavily on board oversight rather than e.g. publishing internal program evaluations for public scrutiny. This might be a good model (FWIW I personally find it problematic), but it certainly a level of board attention that seems implausible in the current setup.
Best practices for nonprofit boards would encourage adding some new blood. Term limits are common for nonprofit boards (nearly 90% have them), and several EVF board members have served in that role for much longer than normal. It is also frowned upon to have paid staff on the board. This means the US board, where Nicole is one of just three board members (with Nick recusing himself on some important issues), could especially benefit from new (non-staff) members.
I largely agree with Peter in that to the extent they are already on a de facto on a leave of absence, “not making this leave of absence official I think is just getting all the costs of declaring a leave of absence without any of the benefits.”
It’s somewhat concerning how almost all of EVF UK’s board members are on the longtermist side of EA:
Will MacAskill—wrote What We Owe the Future, was part of the Future Fund grantmaking team
Nick Beckstead—was part of the Future Fund grantmaking team, grantmaker on the longtermist side at Open Phil, wrote dissertation on longtermism[1]
Tasha McCauley—actually I’m not sure how involved she is in EA, but she also serves on the OpenAI board[2]
Owen Cotton-Barratt—research scholars program director at Future of Humanity Institute[3]
Claire Zabel—senior program officer for global catastrophic risks at Open Phil[4]
While I respect all of them and care about longtermism, I think the EVF board should aim to become more ideologically diverse as it expands. There doesn’t seem to be a single board member whose primary cause area is animal welfare or global health and development. An EVF board of directors with more people from the animal welfare and GHD sides of EA would probably be better at balancing the interests of all three major camps of EA. (Aside: There don’t seem to be any people of color on the board, either.)
Very good point (I was disappointed to see it getting downvoted without explanation).
The current board’s ideological composition is unfortunate given the problems CEA has had in the past around representing cause priorities. It is also likely to affect which projects get the operational and credibility benefits of operating under the EVF umbrella. The current project roster skews very longtermist, and I haven’t received any answers to my questions about how EVF selects its projects and the degree to which cause focus plays a role.
I’d also point out that the US board also tilts longtermist and doesn’t have anyone who is an obvious neartermist. While Nicole’s resume doesn’t suggest a clear ideological leaning, Nick and Rebecca (who worked at CSET and founded a longtermist incubator) both seem to be firmly in the longtermist camp.
And yes, I would hope that if/when the board expands, it would include some people of color.
I believe quite strongly that EVF should prioritize expanding its board, regardless of whether Will and Nick resign or are removed. [1] This belief (which predates the FTX situation) centers around three points.
The current board is too small and too busy to provide good oversight to EVF and its constituent parts. Including Will and Nick there are seven people tasked with providing oversight for 10 orgs/projects, plus EVF as a whole, in addition to their other responsibilities. I don’t know why anyone would expect that to go well. The need for good oversight is quite important: CEA, one of the biggest and most important projects, has chosen to rely quite heavily on board oversight rather than e.g. publishing internal program evaluations for public scrutiny. This might be a good model (FWIW I personally find it problematic), but it certainly a level of board attention that seems implausible in the current setup.
CEA is responsible for executing certain tasks on behalf of the community, e.g. operating effectivealtruism.org, promoting community health, running “communications for all of EA, not CEA in particular”, etc. In the past, there have been significant problems in how CEA has conducted this work (e.g. inappropriately favoring cause areas preferred by CEA staff and poor management of effectivealtruism.org). Having (at least) one board member who is responsible for keeping CEA (and other parts of EVF) accountable to the community seems like positive step, especially if the community had input on the selection. Right now, Claire Zabel is the board remember responsible for ensuring CEA follows through on its commitments to the community. But I assume she’s also representing OpenPhil’s interests, which could certainly conflict with the community’s. A dedicated community representative wouldn’t have that problem.
Best practices for nonprofit boards would encourage adding some new blood. Term limits are common for nonprofit boards (nearly 90% have them), and several EVF board members have served in that role for much longer than normal. It is also frowned upon to have paid staff on the board. This means the US board, where Nicole is one of just three board members (with Nick recusing himself on some important issues), could especially benefit from new (non-staff) members.
I largely agree with Peter in that to the extent they are already on a de facto on a leave of absence, “not making this leave of absence official I think is just getting all the costs of declaring a leave of absence without any of the benefits.”
It’s somewhat concerning how almost all of EVF UK’s board members are on the longtermist side of EA:
Will MacAskill—wrote What We Owe the Future, was part of the Future Fund grantmaking team
Nick Beckstead—was part of the Future Fund grantmaking team, grantmaker on the longtermist side at Open Phil, wrote dissertation on longtermism[1]
Tasha McCauley—actually I’m not sure how involved she is in EA, but she also serves on the OpenAI board[2]
Owen Cotton-Barratt—research scholars program director at Future of Humanity Institute[3]
Claire Zabel—senior program officer for global catastrophic risks at Open Phil[4]
While I respect all of them and care about longtermism, I think the EVF board should aim to become more ideologically diverse as it expands. There doesn’t seem to be a single board member whose primary cause area is animal welfare or global health and development. An EVF board of directors with more people from the animal welfare and GHD sides of EA would probably be better at balancing the interests of all three major camps of EA. (Aside: There don’t seem to be any people of color on the board, either.)
Nick Beckstead’s website
Tasha McCauley on Linkedin
Owen Cotton-Barratt—FHI
Claire Zabel—Open Phil
Very good point (I was disappointed to see it getting downvoted without explanation).
The current board’s ideological composition is unfortunate given the problems CEA has had in the past around representing cause priorities. It is also likely to affect which projects get the operational and credibility benefits of operating under the EVF umbrella. The current project roster skews very longtermist, and I haven’t received any answers to my questions about how EVF selects its projects and the degree to which cause focus plays a role.
I’d also point out that the US board also tilts longtermist and doesn’t have anyone who is an obvious neartermist. While Nicole’s resume doesn’t suggest a clear ideological leaning, Nick and Rebecca (who worked at CSET and founded a longtermist incubator) both seem to be firmly in the longtermist camp.
And yes, I would hope that if/when the board expands, it would include some people of color.