Operating Values

This page describes Coefficient Giving’s four operating values: ownership, openness, calibration, and inclusiveness.

Ownership

We take responsibility, personally and holistically, for our work.

At some companies, the ideal employee executes instructions exactly as specified. At Coefficient Giving, the ideal employee seeks to understand the reasoning behind each of their projects, and looks for ways to do their work better than assigned. We rely on each employee’s unique vantage point within the organization to notice when a project could be done better or faster — or, perhaps, shouldn’t be done at all.

Ownership includes:

• Putting the mission first: At our best, we treat improving the world as more important than Coefficient the organization, or our own standing within it.
• Asking questions: We strive to understand the full context of our work, to the point where we believe that the task at hand is the best way to achieve our goals, rather than just another item to cross off on a checklist.
  • When we can’t resolve a disagreement, we aim to “disagree and commit,” voicing our concerns openly and then putting our full effort behind the decision.
• Having pride in our work: We aim to produce work and generate outcomes that not only meet the defined criteria for success, but are also excellent by our own standards and judgment.
• Moving fast and valuing our time: We constantly ask whether there’s a more efficient way to reach the outcomes we want, and we strongly prefer an 80/20 solution to a costly, polished one. 
  • In our view, working excessive hours rarely increases productivity by more than 25-50% (and even this is rarely sustainable), whereas making good decisions about what steps are essential to complete and which can be skipped, approximated, or shortcutted can often result in severalfold (or better) improvements in productivity.

Openness

We constantly seek, incorporate, and share new information in order to improve our work.

Openness includes:

• Giving, seeking, and receiving feedback: We strive for a culture where feedback is honest, clear, direct, and frequent — and delivered respectfully and constructively — across all levels of the organization.
  • Critical feedback can be challenging to give and receive, but we consider it essential.
    • This includes feedback in many directions: to direct reports, to peers and colleagues, to other teams, to your own manager, all the way up to the leadership team. We recognize that giving critical feedback can be uncomfortable, but we explicitly endorse doing so.
    • In turn, we value the critical feedback we receive and carefully consider whether to act upon it. Feedback from outside your management line carries no default expectation that you will adopt it, and those offering it can share it freely without assuming it will be acted on.
    • Those of us who manage others take particular care to invite upward feedback and welcome useful disagreement.
  • We also regularly share positive feedback across levels.
    • This can feel “optional” since it doesn’t require a change in action, but that dynamic can lead to people doing excellent work hearing more criticism than praise. Knowing what we’re doing well is important to sustaining a high-performing culture. 
• Checking in: Coefficient practices a collaborative and iterative working style with frequent check-ins and course correction (though the cadence varies by role, tenure, and team). This applies to everyone, including senior staff. The goal of this practice isn’t oversight or control, but to save time and achieve better outcomes by incorporating outside perspectives early and often. 
• Being open to errors in our worldview or strategy: We remain open to the possibility that our basic assumptions about philanthropy, philosophy, or how the world works are mistaken, and that some bets we make will be proven wrong. We value truth-seeking behavior, and welcome an honest accounting of our performance, even when it might reflect poorly on us. 
• Weighing risk appropriately: We believe that failures and mistakes are inevitable if we’re taking appropriate risks and challenging ourselves. We evaluate performance in terms of long-term value added, not by mistakes (or lack thereof) made. We judge whether a decision was sound given what was known at the time, not by how it turned out.
• Making space for new ideas: We explore promising ideas, even when they are unconventional or not fully formed. We engage with unfamiliar arguments on their merits, even when they have unusual implications.

Calibration

We think and communicate clearly about our state of uncertainty: recognizing and stating what we know and what we don’t, and adjusting accordingly as we learn new information.

Calibration includes:

• Sharing our reasoning as clearly as we can: We give a full and honest picture of what we believe, how confidently we believe it, what our reasons are, and why someone might reasonably disagree. For example, we use forecasting practices — such as quantified probabilities — to communicate our level of uncertainty.
• Using quantitative and systematic frameworks: We use methods such as back-of-the-envelope calculations, that can help locate key assumptions and disagreements.
• Practicing empirical and logical reasoning: We seek out evidence that bears as directly as possible on our key questions, grounded in verifiable facts and reasoning. Rather than blindly accepting expert conclusions, we look to understand and pressure-test the reasoning and methodology that produced them.
• Weighing others’ views and deferring when warranted: At the same time, it isn’t always worth the time to work through every view in full, so we sometimes defer to another’s judgment — especially when they’re positioned to see something the rest of us can’t.
• Conducting accurate self-assessment: We strive for an accurate picture of our strengths, weaknesses, and growth areas. When we’re honest with ourselves and each other, we can move toward work that plays to our strengths and away from work that doesn’t. 

Inclusiveness

We strive to be a place where all staff dedicated to our mission can do their best work.

Inclusiveness includes:

• Conducting fair hiring practices: We work to counter bias in our hiring and workplace through practices such as identity-blinded work tests and proactive outreach to underrepresented communities. We ask that all employees consider which behaviors of theirs might be implicitly rewarding or punishing characteristics that aren’t directly relevant to the work. 
• Being flexible: We believe people flourish when they’re supported to work in ways that suit them best. We offer flexible hours and remote work wherever possible, reimburse expenses that enhance productivity, and encourage staff to let us know what they need to excel.
• Embracing dignity and belonging: Each of us deserves to be free from harassment, unwanted attention, or inappropriate behavior. We want people to bring their full selves to their work, and to know that their identity will never be a barrier to having their ideas judged on their merits.
• Being collegial: We want people to feel genuinely welcomed and valued, and to build real friendships across teams and roles. We show up for each other through hard stretches, celebrate each other’s successes, and bring good humor and enthusiasm to our work.