As I understood it, CEA was originally just a legal entity to save 80k and GWWC from having to both individually get charitable status, though GWWC had been around in some form since maybe 2007ish, and 80k for a year or two (and Givewell, which had started about the same time as CEA and arguably has as good a claim to having started it had no formal association with any of these orgs). The emerging movement might have taken its name from the new org, or maybe just started using the phrase in response to the poll result.
At some stage IIRC, CEA started taking on more responsibilities and distanced itself, and eventually split from its child orgs. From that point on, I feel like they have generally not been well run—the staff seem to have been hired for enthusiasm and allegiance to the cause, and sometimes apparent nepotism (they seem to have hired internally for quite a few positions) rather than competence. As far as I can tell, staff have neither a carrot to motivate them or a stick: I know of only two examples of CEA employees being pushed out, one of who was CEO, and those were, as I understand it, for behaviour that was unambiguously termination-worthy (CEA may not want to disclose details of specific individuals being let go, and if that has happened those individuals might understandably not want to talk about it either, but the org doesn’t eg have a clear policy for expecting high standards). Meanwhile they run multiple programs, the nature of which is constantly changing and lacks meaningful outcome metrics, meaning both that it’s hard to gauge how well they do what they do, and hard for alternative organisations to offer them high fidelity competition.
(excuse all the self-citations—I don’t know anyone else who’s been publicly writing anything highly critical of CEA since the funds criticism, though I’ve had a number of conversations with people who’re also cynical about the org. I’ve been fairly reluctant go on record with these views myself, and suspect I’m harming myself in expectation by doing so, since I’m interested in doing future EA-funded work)
To be clear a) I don’t think all CEA staff have been bad—some I think highly of, the vast majority I have no specific opinion of, just that the overall org has generally functioned ineffectively, b) most of the specific actions I have in mind date back at least a couple of years, before Max Dalton became ED, and c) I had a recent conversation with him and gave him these concerns, which he seemed somewhat open to. So it may be that they’re in a much better state under him. But I’m also wary of under-new-management-itis, under which a nonprofit org can’t be criticised for a couple or years after a change—which potentially puts the org beyond reproach if it cycles EDs often enough.
As I understood it, CEA was originally just a legal entity to save 80k and GWWC from having to both individually get charitable status, though GWWC had been around in some form since maybe 2007ish, and 80k for a year or two (and Givewell, which had started about the same time as CEA and arguably has as good a claim to having started it had no formal association with any of these orgs). The emerging movement might have taken its name from the new org, or maybe just started using the phrase in response to the poll result.
At some stage IIRC, CEA started taking on more responsibilities and distanced itself, and eventually split from its child orgs. From that point on, I feel like they have generally not been well run—the staff seem to have been hired for enthusiasm and allegiance to the cause, and sometimes apparent nepotism (they seem to have hired internally for quite a few positions) rather than competence. As far as I can tell, staff have neither a carrot to motivate them or a stick: I know of only two examples of CEA employees being pushed out, one of who was CEO, and those were, as I understand it, for behaviour that was unambiguously termination-worthy (CEA may not want to disclose details of specific individuals being let go, and if that has happened those individuals might understandably not want to talk about it either, but the org doesn’t eg have a clear policy for expecting high standards). Meanwhile they run multiple programs, the nature of which is constantly changing and lacks meaningful outcome metrics, meaning both that it’s hard to gauge how well they do what they do, and hard for alternative organisations to offer them high fidelity competition.
(excuse all the self-citations—I don’t know anyone else who’s been publicly writing anything highly critical of CEA since the funds criticism, though I’ve had a number of conversations with people who’re also cynical about the org. I’ve been fairly reluctant go on record with these views myself, and suspect I’m harming myself in expectation by doing so, since I’m interested in doing future EA-funded work)
To be clear a) I don’t think all CEA staff have been bad—some I think highly of, the vast majority I have no specific opinion of, just that the overall org has generally functioned ineffectively, b) most of the specific actions I have in mind date back at least a couple of years, before Max Dalton became ED, and c) I had a recent conversation with him and gave him these concerns, which he seemed somewhat open to. So it may be that they’re in a much better state under him. But I’m also wary of under-new-management-itis, under which a nonprofit org can’t be criticised for a couple or years after a change—which potentially puts the org beyond reproach if it cycles EDs often enough.