“Good Governance: Unweirding Boards” by Stephen Robcraft

Introducing the 'Unweirding Boards' Sequence Over the past three months I’ve spoken with ~30 founders, board members, and staff at EA organisations, in an attempt to better understand what governance looks like within this community. These conversations have taken the form of semi-structured interviews, exploring each individual's experience of governance. Most have started broad, answering something like "what is and isn't working?", before focusing on specific challenges or opportunities for improvement. This isn't formal or representative research (I would very much like to speak with more people in general, and those at funders/fiscal sponsors/large organisations in particular!) but some clear patterns are emerging. I feel confident in beginning to share some initial reflections on the 'state of governance' in the EA community, and some suggestions for improving governance that will apply to many EA organisations. With that in mind, this is post 1/n in an 'Unweirding Boards' [...] ---Outline:(00:11) Introducing the Unweirding Boards Sequence(01:42) The State of Governance(01:45) Setting up and maintaining a board is hard(02:13) Getting clear on purpose(02:39) Right-sizing time/effort spent on governance(03:20) Clarifying decision-making(03:38) Running effective meetings(04:01) Appropriately engaging and getting support from board members(04:36) Identifying board members(04:57) When governance is good, its really good(05:22) Leadership is held to account(05:44) The organisation is held to account(06:07) The organisation benefits from perspective and insight(06:26) Leadership enjoys peace of mind(06:47) Next Steps(07:03) Getting More Perspectives(07:36) Writing the Sequence--- First published: August 14th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hDiQCkfMivwysxegq/good-governance-unweirding-boards --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.