Chairperson of the Czech EA Association, CFAR alumna and mentor. Experienced career coach.
I do not have experience with WSDNs but based on your description, the Czech Association for EA seems to have this model. The structure is such that people sign up to be members, members elect leadership and leadership reports back to the members.
The biggest difference seems to be that our members are not only employees but volunteers or general supporters.
I do not know this article but here are my thoughts on this problem, having worked at a private foundation myself.
The amount of money awarded per staff lies on a scale. On one end a foundation could just make 1 massive grant a year to one organization. On the other end, make millions of super small grants. As organizations navigate this scale from one extreme to the other, in my experience these are some of their considerations:
Me. But also a TON of people outside of the community. I have been a storng advocate for EA orgs hiring outside of the community for senior management roles.
Thank you for putting all of this together, I think it is a very useful post. I spent many years career coaching and advising people who were applying for jobs and I always stress this:
If you are not landing the job you want it is because of two main reasons:
a) You are not applying for the right jobs for you (you may be underqualified, overqualified, transitioning fields etc.)
b) Or you are in fact very well qualified but you are not good at presenting those qualifications to others, especially in a limited time and space.
Have you received any kind of feedback that would help you understand which was more common for you? If you think your case is a) then you need to find a different set of jobs to apply to - not better or worse, just different. If it is more b) then you may want to work on making sure that the reasons why you know you would be good at the job you are applying to translate into your resume, cover letter, interview etc.
I actually think it is quite common for people in the EA community to find themselves at a) because the jobs that are available to our community are very limited in numbers and scope. I think we need to expand the way we think about EA careers such that more people can find jobs that they enjoy which are also impactful.
You may also find yourself in b) because of cultural differences and bias. For example the job market in the US is very competitive and everyone is used to extremely inflating their resume and presenting themselves very confidently - which is not typical in some parts of Europe or Asia. Many recruiters and hiring managers also have bias against foreign applicants so part of the task is to present your qualities such that they come across accurately even at this disadvantage.
In my experience is not so much that they person does not grasp the ethical argument through empathy, many people do. The reason they do not change their behaviour is mostly because it is normalized in society. People do not usually realize it in the moment and so it is not what you would often hear as an answer but uppon reflection, that is what many vegetarians realize - they did understand they were acting wrong but it seemed like it was not a big deal because everyone was doing it.