Who am I? EA aligned private equity investor / donor who has tried to become more involved in EA for almost a decade.
Ok. These incidents are all new to me but they’re all very bad.
Let’s separate two concepts: governance and controls. Governance is a whole bunch of structure and decision things including what boards of directors do. Controls are a whole bunch of policy and procedure things any and every organization should have to not have occasional very bad things happen. They include things like limits on account access, signatories, cash reserves and investment policies, independent auditors and, critically, audit expertise and the board level via an audit committee. Maybe we all know this but I wanted to separate them because:
I have been in a number of meetings where EA company/org leaders express concerns around establishing or expanding their boards because of “alignment issues” around potential members. I get it (kind of) - it’s hard to put a board together with the right expertise AND devotion to the cause the way you like to see it. I have heard similar sentiment around bringing in finance/accounting professionals. Anyway, a key point: if you are paranoid about mission drift and tight control by aligned founders, you can create an entire board infrastructure of non voting or ex officio members to serve on important committees like audit and governance etc. I have done this a few times at normie nonprofits: it’s a win for me because I get to contribute to something I care about without taking on the time commitment and liability associated with joining a board.
You all may know this stuff already, but I’ve been surprised how weak EA boards look from the outside: a handful of founders and the same 5-10 people from Oxford and adjacent circles… not ideal and frankly a huge red flag as a prospective donor/partner etc.!
Who am I? EA aligned private equity investor / donor who has tried to become more involved in EA for almost a decade.
Ok. These incidents are all new to me but they’re all very bad.
Let’s separate two concepts: governance and controls. Governance is a whole bunch of structure and decision things including what boards of directors do. Controls are a whole bunch of policy and procedure things any and every organization should have to not have occasional very bad things happen. They include things like limits on account access, signatories, cash reserves and investment policies, independent auditors and, critically, audit expertise and the board level via an audit committee. Maybe we all know this but I wanted to separate them because:
I have been in a number of meetings where EA company/org leaders express concerns around establishing or expanding their boards because of “alignment issues” around potential members. I get it (kind of) - it’s hard to put a board together with the right expertise AND devotion to the cause the way you like to see it. I have heard similar sentiment around bringing in finance/accounting professionals. Anyway, a key point: if you are paranoid about mission drift and tight control by aligned founders, you can create an entire board infrastructure of non voting or ex officio members to serve on important committees like audit and governance etc. I have done this a few times at normie nonprofits: it’s a win for me because I get to contribute to something I care about without taking on the time commitment and liability associated with joining a board.
You all may know this stuff already, but I’ve been surprised how weak EA boards look from the outside: a handful of founders and the same 5-10 people from Oxford and adjacent circles… not ideal and frankly a huge red flag as a prospective donor/partner etc.!