Hi Seema, thanks for this thoughtful post! I work as a grantmaker at Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Phil) and I’ve had similar thoughts in the past. Last year, CG began offering a modest severance package for staff who leave voluntarily to mitigate the golden handcuffs effect. Anecdotally, a number of colleagues have left for lower-paying jobs at other impactful nonprofits over the past year. It’s hard to say whether staff would pursue other opportunities more often if CG paid less, but it’s been reassuring to see that some staff feel comfortable leaving and the decision is celebrated by the org.
CG’s HR team also regularly conducts benchmarking exercises to sense-check that staff compensation is in line with other foundations and roles with similar levels of responsibility. Overall, CG (and I strongly suspect GW) spends considerably less on opex than peer foundations. Staff fly economy, bureaucracy is low, and people have the tools they need to work efficiently so the ratio of money moved per FTE is high.
A number of CG and GW staff members choose to donate some of their pay, and CG/GW may have this in mind when setting compensation. Personally, I’ve passed up pay or donated a little over half my income this year. Some staff use part of their pay for childcare, which helps them achieve their professional ambitions while maintaining work-life balance.
I share the concern that the ecosystem effects of drawing talent through high salaries may be under-appreciated. But when I zoom out, I directionally think that increasing compensation in the social impact space is valuable. For example, there has been a push to increase salaries in the animal advocacy field in recent years and my understanding is that this has increased professionalism and decreased workplace harassment—employers have a larger talent pool to draw from, and have an easier time replacing problematic employees.
Of course, there are always tradeoffs, and I sometimes feel uncomfortable that orgs working to end poverty offer lavish compensation (even by US standards). But all things considered, I think there are fair reasons why an org like GiveWell would choose the compensation structure it does.
On an unrelated note, I help organize Princeton’s Effective Altruism student group. We and the School for Moral Ambition club would love to host you at an event to discuss your work when you’re back from sabbatical—it’s wonderful to have a fellow randomista on campus!
Thanks for your reply, Sam. I also directionally think higher salaries overall would be good. I read your second paragraph (Staff fly economy, etc) as reasons why CG might use the talent more productively than peers would; that employee produces stuff but w/o the other operating expenses that another org might have. That’s the cleanest case where I see no major cons with the higher-than-peer salaries.
But my anecdotes are two cases in recent months where NGOs were trying to recruit people who were really attracted to the role but the salary was considerably lower than their current salary (at GW in one case and Gates in another). The NGOs “couldn’t” match because it wasn’t just matching one person’s salary; you wouldn’t want the new hire to be paid more than their supervisor so you’d have to re-align a lot of people’s salaries. The gap between that first choice candidate and other candidates wasn’t large enough to justify that total cost.
Anyway, I am quite open to the idea that, all things considered, the higher-than-peers salaries are the right thing to do. My hope was to prompt more explicit thinking about this, if it’s not occurring, and, if it is, more sharing of that thinking, in the spirit of radical transparency.
Look forward to meeting you when I am back next fall and happy to participate in a club event.
Hi Seema, thanks for this thoughtful post! I work as a grantmaker at Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Phil) and I’ve had similar thoughts in the past. Last year, CG began offering a modest severance package for staff who leave voluntarily to mitigate the golden handcuffs effect. Anecdotally, a number of colleagues have left for lower-paying jobs at other impactful nonprofits over the past year. It’s hard to say whether staff would pursue other opportunities more often if CG paid less, but it’s been reassuring to see that some staff feel comfortable leaving and the decision is celebrated by the org.
CG’s HR team also regularly conducts benchmarking exercises to sense-check that staff compensation is in line with other foundations and roles with similar levels of responsibility. Overall, CG (and I strongly suspect GW) spends considerably less on opex than peer foundations. Staff fly economy, bureaucracy is low, and people have the tools they need to work efficiently so the ratio of money moved per FTE is high.
A number of CG and GW staff members choose to donate some of their pay, and CG/GW may have this in mind when setting compensation. Personally, I’ve passed up pay or donated a little over half my income this year. Some staff use part of their pay for childcare, which helps them achieve their professional ambitions while maintaining work-life balance.
I share the concern that the ecosystem effects of drawing talent through high salaries may be under-appreciated. But when I zoom out, I directionally think that increasing compensation in the social impact space is valuable. For example, there has been a push to increase salaries in the animal advocacy field in recent years and my understanding is that this has increased professionalism and decreased workplace harassment—employers have a larger talent pool to draw from, and have an easier time replacing problematic employees.
Of course, there are always tradeoffs, and I sometimes feel uncomfortable that orgs working to end poverty offer lavish compensation (even by US standards). But all things considered, I think there are fair reasons why an org like GiveWell would choose the compensation structure it does.
On an unrelated note, I help organize Princeton’s Effective Altruism student group. We and the School for Moral Ambition club would love to host you at an event to discuss your work when you’re back from sabbatical—it’s wonderful to have a fellow randomista on campus!
Thanks for your reply, Sam. I also directionally think higher salaries overall would be good. I read your second paragraph (Staff fly economy, etc) as reasons why CG might use the talent more productively than peers would; that employee produces stuff but w/o the other operating expenses that another org might have. That’s the cleanest case where I see no major cons with the higher-than-peer salaries.
But my anecdotes are two cases in recent months where NGOs were trying to recruit people who were really attracted to the role but the salary was considerably lower than their current salary (at GW in one case and Gates in another). The NGOs “couldn’t” match because it wasn’t just matching one person’s salary; you wouldn’t want the new hire to be paid more than their supervisor so you’d have to re-align a lot of people’s salaries. The gap between that first choice candidate and other candidates wasn’t large enough to justify that total cost.
Anyway, I am quite open to the idea that, all things considered, the higher-than-peers salaries are the right thing to do. My hope was to prompt more explicit thinking about this, if it’s not occurring, and, if it is, more sharing of that thinking, in the spirit of radical transparency.
Look forward to meeting you when I am back next fall and happy to participate in a club event.