This page provides a public summary of the internal Conflict of Interest Policy that applies to all Open Philanthropy team members. The policy is updated from time to time, and this page will be updated in the future if there are material changes.
Many Open Phil team members are actively involved in, or have close personal ties to, organizations and communities whose work benefits from Open Phil’s grantmaking and operations. These connections can be helpful in giving team members useful context and information, while at the same time creating actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest. The goal of Open Phil’s Conflict of Interest Policy is to ensure we openly and fairly deal with situations where personal gain, gain for family members, or gain for other close relations could improperly influence decision-making or lead to the perception of unfairness at Open Phil.
Defining “Conflict of Interest”
We define a conflict of interest as an actual or perceived conflict between an individual’s private interests and their official Open Phil responsibilities. This can come up in decisions to recommend or fund grants, hiring decisions, decisions regarding vendors and procurement, personal social or financial benefits offered based on team members’ affiliation with Open Phil, or any number of other scenarios.
Conflicts of interest can be roughly categorized as (1) one-off or situational conflicts, or (2) ongoing or relational conflicts.
Situational conflicts generally arise due to a particular circumstance or transaction. This can include situations such as:
- A grantee pays for an Open Phil team member’s attendance at an event (when other attendees are not similarly treated)
- Open Phil procures our holiday gifts from a company owned by a team member’s spouse
- An Open Phil team member refers their family member for an open role
Relational conflicts arise when there is the potential for ongoing overlap or tension between a team member’s personal relationships and their Open Phil role. As possible examples:
- The spouse of an Open Phil team member is an executive at a grantee organization
- A team member sits on the board of a company that provides paid services to Open Phil
- An Open Phil team member is responsible for investigating a grant, supervising someone investigating a grant, or initiating grant payments to a friend or romantic partner
Disclosing and Resolving Conflicts
Conflicts in Grant Investigation and Recommendation
Grant investigators (GIs) play a pivotal role in Open Phil’s core mission and are often closely tied to the community of other funders and grantees in their areas of focus. GIs, therefore, have a special responsibility to proactively deal with actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest that may arise in their grantmaking role. In light of this, GIs have an extra layer of disclosure and review.
Open Phil requires GIs to engage in proactive disclosure of certain close relationships that may lead to actual or perceived conflicts of interest in the scope of the investigator’s work. Each team member in a grant investigator role is required to maintain a list of relationships and financial interests that may come up as conflicts during grantmaking work at Open Phil. Wherever there is potential overlap with a GI’s grantmaking portfolio, they are asked to disclose family, romantic partners, close friends, providers of financial support, prior employers, professional mentors/mentees, or any other interests where a conflict of interest may arise.
GIs are required to update their disclosure lists once per year at a minimum, but should aim to keep their lists up to date as new conflicts arise. (The timing and frequency of updates is, to some extent, a judgment call for the team member, but as with all conflict of interest matters, we ask GIs to err on the side of disclosure.)
After reviewing these disclosures, the Open Phil legal team (in consultation with leadership as well as, where appropriate, the GI) prepares a “material conflicts” list that requires the GI to take certain steps to ameliorate the conflict. This can range from disclosing the conflict to other approvers, to requiring an independent reviewer to evaluate the grant opportunity, to recusing themselves from the investigation altogether. The steps required will be based on the intensity of the conflict, the availability of reasonable alternative reviewers, and the actual or perceived risk of bias, impaired judgment, or perceived unfairness. In all cases, at the beginning of an investigation or renewal process, GIs are responsible for ensuring their manager and any other approvers are aware of the conflict and any required amelioration steps.
Giving and Receiving Gifts/Personal Payments
Receiving Gifts: If a grantee, potential grantee, or contractor gives a gift (e.g., a bottle of wine, chocolates, nice swag) to a member of the OP team, the default approach should be to simply refuse these if it is socially acceptable. In situations where it is not feasible to decline the gift, all gifts valued at above $50 must be disclosed. If the gift is shareable (e.g., a fruit basket), team members are encouraged to share with others.
Giving Gifts to Third Parties: The Operations Team is responsible for giving gifts to third parties (e.g., vendors), and any gifts from or on behalf of Open Phil should be approved by and coordinated with the Operations Team. Depending on the recipient and the size or type of gift, the Operations Team may contact the legal team and/or go through the COI disclosure process. No gift or anything else of value may be provided to any government official unless specifically cleared as being compliant with law.
Personal payments: Receiving a gift, honorarium, employment wages, contractor fees, etc. from a person or entity outside of Open Phil always requires prior approval. All such arrangements should be disclosed in advance, even if the terms are market rate and the team member believes the arrangement is not being offered because of their Open Phil affiliation.
Events: For team members attending non-Open Phil events, comped attendance fees or other expenses can raise special tax issues for Open Phil. Any offer of free or reduced-cost attendance or payment of travel expenses should be disclosed to the legal team for evaluation. In some cases, we may ask team members to decline the offer and charge the expenses against Open Phil’s expense policy.
Personal Financial Investments
For any team members engaging in active personal financial investments with the ability to create conflicts, we have provided detailed guidance in separate internal policies. “Personal financial investments” exclude things like index funds or mutual funds, but include individual stocks as well as bets on PredictIt, impact certificates, and similar investments. In brief, all team members are prohibited from (i) trading in companies on the restricted securities list maintained by Open Phil, and (ii) trading on material nonpublic information, as further described in our personal financial investments policy.
Other Conflicts
In any other situation, if a potential conflict of interest arises, the conflict should be brought to the legal team, who will be responsible for the process of reviewing it and returning a decision. Team members are encouraged to disclose the conflict to their direct managers first, but this is not required. A potential conflict should generally be disclosed at the earliest point where the team member can reasonably foresee it concretely arising. Again, we encourage team members to err on the side of disclosure. While over-disclosure will never be held against a team member, failing to disclose a potential conflict of interest may be considered a performance issue. In some cases, the legal team may be able to quickly determine that there is no conflict, without going through a detailed evaluation process.