If you’re an organisation that solicits donations part of your basic obligations in your relationship with your donors is to be clear about whatyyou have spent money on in the past, and intend to spend it on in the future, so that people can look at that and make a reasonable judgement about what their donation is likely to be used for
projectionconfusion
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Yeah this is my biggest concern. The whole value proposition of EA was to get away from the normal failure modes of charities. If they are falling into the same traps of using shoddy reasoning to justify self serving behaviour that’s a major structural problem, not just a matter of a single decision.
You can get to Luton, Milton Keynes, Stevenage or a number of other small London satellite towns in less than 2 hours from Oxford, and less than 1 from central London. These are all pretty banal collections of concrete buildings, but would allow you to buy a venue for a fraction of the cost. It seems hard to escape the conclusion that this decision was mainly made based on a Manor house in Oxford being more aesthetically appealing than a concrete office building on an industrial estate or small town centre.
At the point you are having to debate the definition of a castle you’ve lost the optics argument even if you’re technically correct.
While those are reasonable comparisons it rather raises the question of why you are buying a venue in one of the most expensive areas of the UK to begin with.
Were there any business cases made comparing this to other cheaper venues in different locations? That’s the kind of basic due diligence I’d expect at most organizations I work with in my professional life, and I’m concerned if it’s not the case here.
Frankly I would think that there was finally someone with a modicum of sense and understanding of basic PR working in the area. And upgrade my views of the competency of the organisation accordingly.
Also I’d not that “this will save money in the long run” is a fairly big claim that has not been justified. There are literally hundreds of conference venues within a reasonable distance of Oxford, all of which are run by professional event managers who are able to take advantage of specialisation and economies of scale. Making it difficult to believe
Agreed. The whole founding insight of the EA movement was the importance of rigorously measuring value for money. The same logic is used to justify every warm and fuzzy but low value charity. And it’s entirely reasonable to be very worried when major figures in the EA movement revert to that kind of reasoning when it’s in their self interest.
I feel like a lot of this is downstream from people being reluctant to hire experienced people who aren’t already associated with EA. Particularly for things like operations roles experience doing similar roles is going to make far more of a difference to effectiveness than deep belief in EA values.
When Coke need to hire new people they don’t look for people who have a deep love of sugary drinks brands, they find people in similar roles for other things and offer them money. I feel like the reason EA orgs are reluctant to do this is that there’s a degree of exceptionalism in EA.
Agreed. Its entirely possible to take someone’s money and spend it for good causes without promoting them and associating ones reputation with them
Forgive me if there’s a structural reason why this wouldn’t work. But why weren’t you saving a larger share of the money coming in, to provide a buffer in case funding dropped off for whatever reason? Seems like part of the underlying issue here was assuming that funding levels would remain constant in the future
A meta level structural problem may be that so much decision making seems to be focused on a relatively small group of people without much oversight. Even with the best people in the world that’s going to lead to group think and blind spots. Other charities and non-profits have extensive oversight systems that may be worth imitating.
How concerned were you about crypto generally being unethical?
Also to add to that, whether or not crypto is in itself ethical its known to be a very unstable sector and one with a particularly negative reputation. Was there any discussion of how to compensate for that potential volatility, and of potential reputational risks of being associated?
Please feel free to “be that guy” as hard as possible when we are talking about massive financial fraud.
Feels like it was a mistake to tell people to change their strategy if it can be reversed by a single donor having issues. All the emphasis on “we’re not funding constrained” may have done long term harm by reducing future donations from a wider pool of people.
Sorry I should have been clearer, I was meaning more in psychological terms than economic ones. An extra dollar might still do the same amount of good, but the way people intuitively assess impact it will feel very different depending on the funding context people feel it is in.
So what specific kinds of talented people does EA need more of? Well, the most obvious place to look is the most recent Leader Forum, which gives the following talent gaps (in order):
Is there a place you should go if you meet one of those particular talent gaps?
The focus on student groups is also inherently redflaggy for some people, as it can be viewed as looking for people who have less scepticism and experience.
There being a lot of funding available in EA also changes the calculus for people deciding if they want to donate their own money. If there are super rich people donating to EA, to the extent that finding ways to spend money is a problem, then the motivation for normal individuals to donate is lower.
Its not specific communications so much as it is the level of activity around specific causes. How many posts and how much discussion time is spent on AI and other cool intellectual things, vs. more mundane but important things like malaria. Danger of being seen as just a way for people to morally justify doing the kind of things they already want to do.
It’s entirely reasonable to say, as a normative claim, that people should be accurate in reporting.
But when you are thinking about reputational impact of a choice you should be examining not just what the reaction would be to strictly accurate reporting, but how people operating in bad faith could easily represent it, or how good faith people could misinterpret it. Whether they should or not is irrelevant to the predictable consequences.