January 10, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Since this article went to press, GiveWell’s board has removed Holden Karnofsky as its executive director and board secretary. For more information, read The Chronicle’s update on the board’s actions.
GiveWell promises to be the “world’s first completely transparent charitable grant maker” (The Chronicle, December 13). But a recent effort by the nonprofit organization’s co-founder, Holden Karnofsky, to promote GiveWell has him apologizing for being less than open with the public.
On his organization’s blog, Mr. Karnofsky writes that he had a “horrible lapse of judgment” by hiding his identity on Metafilter, an online message board. In anonymous messages, he asked for ideas on how to choose a charity to support and then “answered” by touting GiveWell’s evaluations of nonprofit groups.
The act of self-promotion was uncovered by Metafilter members and deleted because it violates the Web site’s rules.
Mr. Karnofsky’s actions prompted an angry outpouring on a number of different philanthropic blogs, with writers upset by the contradiction between his behavior and GiveWell’s mission.
“As the director of a 40-year-old 501(c)3 nonprofit, I’m amazed at this event. Were I to make a lapse in judgment and ethics similar to those made by Holden, I would fully expect my Board to remove me from my position,” one commenter wrote.
Tim Ogden, a GiveWell board member, writes on Metafilter that the incident will be discussed at the next board meeting. “Speaking entirely for myself, I believe this to be a quite serious issue because of the conflict between what Holden did here, and the goals of GiveWell to encourage more information, more transparency, and more real accountability in charitable giving,” he writes.
But Mr. Ogden also praised Mr. Karnofsky’s integrity and commended him for promptly notifying the organization’s board of the questionable move.
