Thanks to the boards for thinking through this and thinking about how Community Health can do better in the future.
I’m sorry for my mistakes here and the harms my mistakes have caused. In particular, I should have given more support to Julia’s decision-making by getting more details about the case, forming my own inside view and double-checking the actions taken in this case. I think that would likely have caused us to take different actions here and prevented some harms. Our changes, listed in more detail in Chana and Julia’s comments, make a mistake like this much less likely in the future.
I also wish I had ensured I had a clearer set of principles and policies for when, either as a board member or the manager of the Community Health team, an issue needed escalation to the whole board. We’re working on a team-wide policy to this effect.
In general, I’ve also made a lot of personal updates in line with the mistakes listed above (e.g., I put higher weight on the value of pre-agreed-upon policies relative to case-by-case decision-making than I used to). I’m grateful for everyone’s work and support on the changes our team is making; I think it’s making us better and more robust.
Nicole_Ross
Thanks for this post! I found it helpful to read.
Crisis Boot Camp: lessons learned and implications for EA
I think this is totally within scope and I’d personally find it interesting to read!
Updates to the Effective Ventures US board
I wanted to thank you for sharing. I think it can be hard or scary to raise concerns or feedback to a board like this, and I appreciate it.
(I can only speak for EVF US:)Since the beginning of all this, we’ve been thinking through board composition questions. In particular, we’ve been discussing what’s needed on the US board and what changes should be made. We’ve also explicitly discussed conflicts of interest and how we should think about that for board composition.
There are a variety of different issues raised in the post and comments, but I want to say something specifically about FTX-related conflicts. In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, EVF UK and EVF US commissioned an outside independent investigation by the law firm Mintz to examine the organizations’ relationship to FTX, Alameda Research, Sam Bankman-Fried, and related individuals. We’re waiting for the results of the investigation to make a determination about whether any board members should be removed for FTX-related reasons. We’re doing this to avoid making rushed decisions with incomplete information. Nick has been recused from all FTX-related decision-making at EVF US. (Nick and Will have also been recused from FTX-related decision-making at EVF UK side, though that’s an independent process that I’ll let an EVF UK board member comment on.)
We’re also actively working on getting new board members. We hope to be able to share new board members soon (though these things take time). We understand the community wants updates, and we’ll do our best to answer questions and provide further news as we can (though it may be slow and limited).
- Project on organizational reforms in EA: summary by (Nov 9, 2023, 6:58 PM; 84 points)
- 's comment on Should EVF consider appointing new board members? by (Feb 8, 2023, 6:23 PM; 80 points)
- Overview: Reflection Projects on Community Reform by (May 1, 2023, 3:14 PM; 67 points)
- Further possible projects on EA reform by (Nov 9, 2023, 7:06 PM; 43 points)
- 's comment on Why hasn’t EA done an SBF investigation and postmortem? by (Apr 3, 2024, 3:40 AM; 34 points)
I’m very sympathetic and would like to figure out how to say more.
Some updates in EA communications
Updates from Community Health for Q4 2021 & Q1 2022
I’m also very excited about this. Let me know if I or the community health team can help support this get off the ground!
I’m pre-ordering a copy! And I want to strong +1 that I think the case for pre-ordering the book could be quite high impact.
I was able to read a draft, and I wanted to share that I really liked the intro and first chapter. I really wish I had read those when I was a first year in university.
I’m excited about this! Thanks for working on it!
Interesting idea!!
If you have additional thoughts/ideas in the space or more detail on this idea, please do reach out! nicole . ross @ centreforeffectivealtruism.org
(I’m the manager of the com health team)
Does anyone know how I could get an audio version of this book?
Positives:
I feel like I was able to create a role that played to my strengths, and I feel excited about the expected value of my career.
I care a lot about my work.
I really like my colleagues.
Negatives:
It can be stressful. I feel like I’m working on important things, and care a lot about how they go. When things don’t go well or there’s something time-sensitive and important to get right, it can feel stressful. This might be particularly related to my role (I handle risky situations a lot).
It can be hard to take my brain off of work. I’m a lot better than I used to be, but it’s a concerted effort I have to make. (e.g. my partner will remind me not to look at my work computer, I’ve uninstalled my work slack from my phone)
I have a lot of “life shit” that has happened (chronic health issues, I’m accident-prone, my mom died). In addition, my role can be inherently stressful sometimes (I do some risk mitigation work). CEA has been amazingly supportive. CEA has helped me figure out a schedule that feels sustainable and part of a thriving life for me. CEA has helped me orient towards my “life shit” in much healthier and constructive ways. I now have an automatic reminder (or “TAP”) installed to talk to our people ops person whenever I feel angsty or stressed, or uncomfortable. She’s so good at helping me identify what’s going on and helping me figure out what to do about it.
What Amy said above! I’ve also been doing some thinking about how to improve the community’s epistemics in a more targeted way. As part of this, I conducted a small test run of a project that I hope will help (the “EA Librarian” project mentioned in Max’s link). I’ve also developed a few other ideas (e.g., a coaching program). Unfortunately, the work here has been pretty limited so far due to capacity constraints. Right now, I’m focusing on trying to hire to add more capacity. I’ve also been working on my project management skills to try to increase my ability to push things forward in this space.
I love this post. Thanks so much for sharing.
I’m very excited for this!
This post by my colleague Catherine Low might have some helpful advice in this direction: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TtdxpaJ4Cr9pQfbYt/advice-for-ea-org-staff-and-ea-group-organisers-interacting