Open Philanthropy is looking for a communications leader who can advance our role as an increasingly visible funder working on the world’s most important and neglected problems. The Director of Communications will lead and develop our growing communications team (currently three team members, who work closely with an external public relations firm). At an executive level, the Director of Communications will direct our strategies for sharing Open Philanthropy’s work with the world and shaping how the world sees Open Philanthropy.
We’re at a critical juncture in our organization’s growth, and our work on AI safety, pandemic preparedness, and effective altruism has been garnering more media attention. We believe that our communications team can greatly enhance the impact our grantmaking has in the world, and that the position of Director of Communications is likely to be one of Open Philanthropy’s most important hires of 2024.
About Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy is a grantmaker; our mission is to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. We stress openness to many possibilities and have chosen our focus areas based on importance, neglectedness and tractability. We’re particularly interested in high-risk, high-reward giving that may be too unconventional for other funders. Our current giving areas include potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, global health and development, scientific research, South Asian air quality, farm animal welfare, and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. In 2023, we recommended just under $800 million to high-impact causes, and have recommended over $3 billion in grants since our formation. Looking forward, the Director of Communications will play a vital role in guiding us through our next stage of growth.
About the Role
Under your leadership, the communications team will be responsible for:
Shaping Open Philanthropy’s brand. You will strategize on some of the biggest challenges Open Philanthropy may face in coming years. You’ll lead on questions such as how we preserve our strong reasoning transparency and DNA as we grow, how we effectively communicate the rapidly evolving risks of AI in mainstream media, and how to maximize our impact.
Overall communications strategy. You’ll create and maintain a comprehensive communications strategy, including our brand, our messaging, important audiences, risk management, and potentially fundraising. You’ll be a strategic thought partner at the highest levels of the organization, and take ownership for steering our organization’s communications strategy through a time of ongoing growth and increasing visibility.
Content publication strategy. You’ll amplify the impact of our work through exceptional content publication and act as a trusted thought partner to our senior leadership. You and your team will help our program and research teams set a publication agenda for their research and ideas.
PR and media. Your team will showcase stories about Open Philanthropy’s work to further our mission and help our world-class grantmaking staff with interviews on their areas of expertise. You’ll shape how the world understands diverse and rapidly changing concerns and causes in the world across a diverse range of Open Philanthropy’s cause areas, such as AI Safety, Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness, Global Health and Development, and Farm Animal Welfare.
Fast, reliable service on day-to-day communications operations. Your team will manage “bread and butter” communications items like updating the website, publishing grant pages to our grant database, and writing our quarterly newsletter.
Leading and developing your team. You’ll oversee a current communications department of three team members, manage consultations with our external PR team, and determine the strategic staffing and infrastructure needs of our communications function.
Who might be a good fit
You might be a good fit for this work if you:
Are excited at the prospect of furthering Open Philanthropy’s reputation as a highly impactful philanthropic funder, re-examining our communications strategy from the ground up, and significantly increasing our ability to do good.
Are an experienced manager and ideally a seasoned executive, with experience leading a strategic communications function and developing team members.
Are a gifted storyteller in terms of writing and thought leadership. You can craft a compelling narrative about our mission and shape our brand for years to come.
Have significant experience with PR and media, whether as a journalist or as a PR professional. You have good instincts for how a range of audiences are likely to perceive our written output. You can usually predict when something might be confusing, off-putting or easy to misconstrue, and you will proactively communicate complex ideas with sensitivity and nuance.
Are able to write and/or edit quickly and cleanly in our voice. To get a sense of the style of writing you would be asked to oversee, we encourage you to read a few past blog posts (a couple examples linked here and here). In general, we strive to communicate as clearly and carefully as possible, with strong reasoning transparency. While we want to make a positive case for our work, we care much more about maintaining accuracy and rigor than telling a compelling narrative, or otherwise making ourselves “look good.”
Have a solid understanding of Open Philanthropy’s focus areas and the ideas of effective altruism, including our work on existential risks from pandemics and advanced AI. You feel able to represent Open Philanthropy positively and persuasively to people with a wide range of backgrounds and levels of familiarity with our work.
Are sufficiently comfortable with scientific principles and quantitative reasoning to translate technical content for a non-technical audience (with support from other staff — you don’t need to be an expert on any of our focus areas yourself).
Have great interpersonal skills and the ability to interface effectively with people in all program areas at Open Philanthropy.
While not essential, we’re especially excited about candidates who bring some media connections that could help amplify the work that we do to the world.
Other relevant experience might include leadership roles in advocacy or political campaigns, leading a PR firm, or executive-level experience at multiple organizations.
The ideal candidate for this position will possess many of the skills and experiences described above. However, there is no such thing as a “perfect” candidate. If you are on the fence about applying because you are unsure whether you are qualified, we would strongly encourage you to apply.
Role details & benefits
Compensation: The baseline compensation for this role is $279,087.79, which would be distributed as a base salary of $256,087.79 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $23,000 for U.S. hires, though for an exceptional candidate compensation could be meaningfully higher. All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally-based hires.
Time zones and location: You can work from anywhere. We are open to hires outside the US, provided they would consistently work at least 5 hours overlapping with California business hours per workday. The communications team currently has members based in California and New York.
Benefits: Our benefits package includes:
Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any eligible dependents) and an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement for certain other personal health expenses
Dental, vision and life insurance for you and your family
Four weeks of PTO recommended per year
Four months of fully paid family leave
A generous and flexible expense policy — we encourage staff to expense the ergonomic equipment, software and other services that they need to stay healthy and productive
Support for remote work — we’ll cover a remote workspace outside your home if you need one, or connect you with an Open Phil coworking hub in your city
We can’t always provide every benefit we offer US staff to international hires, but we’re working on it (and will usually provide cash equivalents of any benefits we can’t offer in your country)
We aim to employ people with many different experiences, perspectives and backgrounds who share our passion for accomplishing as much good as we can. We are committed to creating an environment where all employees have the opportunity to succeed, and we do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.
If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact jobs@openphilanthropy.org.
