Jonas V comments on EA Funds has appointed new fund managers

[Jonas V]

Yes, we still do have that intention. We’re currently thinly staffed, so I think it’ll still take a while for us to publish a polished policy. For now, here’s the current beta version of our internal Conflict of Interest policy:

Conflict of interest policy

We are still working on the conflict of interest policy. For now, please stick to the following:

• Please follow these two high-level principles:

  • 1. Avoid perceived or actual conflicts of interest, as this can impair decision-making and permanently damage donor trust.

  • 2. Ensure all relevant information still gets shared. The conflict of interest policy shouldn’t significantly hamper our ability to exchange information or evaluate grants.

• Any relationship that could cause significantly biased judgment (or the perception of that) constitutes a potential conflict of interest, e.g. romantic/​sexual relationships, close work relationships, close friendships, or living together.

• If you think you have a potential conflict of interest, disclose the conflict of interest to the chair of the fund. If you are the chair, disclose it to the ED. There is no requirement to specify the type of relationship (e.g., whether it’s a romantic relationship or friendship), but it can be useful to give a rough indication of how large the concern is in the situation at hand.

• The default suggestion is that you recuse yourself from discussing the grant and voting on it. You should also unshare yourself from the evaluation document (without looking at its contents) or ask someone to do so, so the other fund managers can speak their mind freely. (If you are doing so as the chairperson, you should ask someone else to oversee the grant at a high level, e.g., the chairperson of another fund, or the ED.) For unusually significant conflicts of interest (e.g., best friend or partner), the voting takes place in the evaluation document instead of the Airtable. The other fund managers can still ask you for information or for your opinion on the grant, and you can still offer to give input (just like an informal reference/​advisor).

• If the above means we can’t evaluate a grant, we will consider forwarding the application to another high-quality grantmaker if possible. If delegating to such a grantmaker is difficult, and this policy would hamper the EA community’s ability to make a good decision, we prefer an evaluation with conflict of interest over none (or one that’s significantly worse). However, the chair and the EA Funds ED should carefully discuss such a case and consider taking additional measures before moving ahead.

• There is no requirement to disclose conflicts of interests or recusals in our public grant payout reports, but you may choose to disclose if you find it useful.

• The chairperson and/​or ED take appropriate actions if the policy is violated, such as recommending greater caution in mild cases, issuing a warning in moderately bad cases, or removing the fund manager from their position and returning grant funding in severe cases.

• Example 1: Someone applies for a grant related to community building, and one of the fund managers is close friends with one of the grantees. The fund manager recuses themselves, but still reads the “Application for Sharing” document that we usually send to references. They share their thoughts with the primary investigator, who adds their input to the evaluation document and ensures they’re taken into account appropriately by the other fund managers.

• Example 2: Someone applies for a technical AI safety research grant, and they’re housemates with the only person who is knowledgeable about the particular research area, and other grantmakers in this area are either too busy or don’t have great judgment (in our view). In that case, we would carefully discuss the conflict of interest, potentially involve further people (e.g., ED or the trustees), and then potentially make the grant anyway.