EA - Apply to join Rethink Priorities’ board of directors. by abrahamrowe

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Apply to join Rethink Priorities’ board of directors., published by abrahamrowe on November 29, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Right now (through January 13th), you can apply to join RP’s board of directors in an unpaid (3-10 hours per month) or paid (10-15 hours per week) capacity.Rethink Priorities (RP) has grown quickly, is now large, and remains ambitious (see our recent post for more details). We're looking for people to join our board who can help RP really secure its foundations, and scale in the next several years. While we had been planning on opening these roles prior to FTX’s collapse because we recognized governance as an area of growth for our organization, the recent events help in highlighting why these roles are important. We want to ensure that RP is healthy and sustainable, and thinking about risk and success well in the long-run.Our board of directors plays an active role in ensuring that our senior management is making responsible, legal, and risk-aware decisions for the organization in the long-run. They evaluate things like our financial controls, the performance of our Co-CEOs, and budgets and fundraising to help ensure the organization is acting legally and ethically. They also advise our senior management to help ensure the organization stays on track, and continues to target high-level goals for itself.If you have any questions about these positions, please contact [email protected]. If you have questions about RP’s governance generally, contact [email protected] does the board of directors do?Our board’s primary functions are:Providing long-term financial oversight to the organization including:Reviewing and approving the annual budget, and spending controls for the Co-CEOsReviewing annual audits of financial statements and financial controlsProviding oversight for the Co-CEOs including:Performance evaluations of senior managementServing as contacts for staff outside the chain of commandsProviding feedback on Co-CEOs strategic plansProviding legal oversight for the organization, such as:Helping assess risky and complicated situations, and providing feedback on plans to navigate those situationsEnsuring that RP is compliant with its charitable purposesAdvising on RP’s long-term strategy and directionWhat qualifications are you looking for in board members?We are particularly interested in adding individuals who have knowledge/experience within longtermism, launching/supporting new ventures, and/or scaling organizations. We’d also be excited for candidates with professional legal or nonprofit finance experience.Do I have to be an American to join the board?No! Though we are a US-based organization, these roles do not require US residency. However, we’d like the majority of our board to be made up of US residents (including non-US citizens), and some board functions may require US residency, so while location wouldn’t be disqualifying, it may be a consideration.What’s the difference between paid and unpaid roles?The majority of our board is required by our bylaws to be unpaid. However, we think that there is significant value in our board being more engaged than many members are able to be in a voluntary capacity, so we’d like to pay up to 2 members of the board to provide administrative assistance to the other members, and to tackle some of the more work intensive tasks (such as performance evaluations of senior management). In our view, a failure for many nonprofit boards is they select for skills but not time, and that contributes towards a tendency for boards to not do a very thorough job. We're excited to experiment with one to two people who are designated to spend 10-15 hrs/week on board duties. Right now we have some idea of how this will work, but it will be a first for us. We ...