Executive summary: This exploratory post argues that while EA organisations are strong on compliance, norms, and resource allocation, they often lack effective oversight and performance monitoring, which creates predictable governance failures ranging from wasted resources and poor decision-making to leader burnout.
Key points:
Governance in EA can be thought of as involving boards (oversight, compliance, performance monitoring), funders (target-setting, resource allocation), and the community (accountability, norms).
Based on ~30 conversations, the author finds EA excels at compliance, norms, and resource allocation but often neglects oversight and performance monitoring.
Failures the author “would bet on” include: projects under-delivering on targets, small but significant financial leakage, sub-optimal decision-making, and underperforming leaders not being held accountable.
Failures that boards could help prevent or mitigate include supporting over-stretched leaders, preventing premature project closure, and offering peace of mind to executives.
Good governance requires impartial, skilled boards that set objectives, monitor progress, and intervene where necessary—not only to protect resources but also to sustain leaders and organisations.
The author plans to next discuss ways governance can itself fail to prevent these problems.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: This exploratory post argues that while EA organisations are strong on compliance, norms, and resource allocation, they often lack effective oversight and performance monitoring, which creates predictable governance failures ranging from wasted resources and poor decision-making to leader burnout.
Key points:
Governance in EA can be thought of as involving boards (oversight, compliance, performance monitoring), funders (target-setting, resource allocation), and the community (accountability, norms).
Based on ~30 conversations, the author finds EA excels at compliance, norms, and resource allocation but often neglects oversight and performance monitoring.
Failures the author “would bet on” include: projects under-delivering on targets, small but significant financial leakage, sub-optimal decision-making, and underperforming leaders not being held accountable.
Failures that boards could help prevent or mitigate include supporting over-stretched leaders, preventing premature project closure, and offering peace of mind to executives.
Good governance requires impartial, skilled boards that set objectives, monitor progress, and intervene where necessary—not only to protect resources but also to sustain leaders and organisations.
The author plans to next discuss ways governance can itself fail to prevent these problems.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.