Senior Communications Officer

Senior Communications Officer

Open Philanthropy is seeking a skilled communications professional to support our role as an increasingly visible funder working on the world's most important and neglected problems. The Senior Communications Officer will play a key role in our growing communications team, working closely with and reporting to the Director of Communications, Naina Bajekal. 

As a senior member of the communications team, you will help implement our strategies for sharing Open Philanthropy's work with the world and shaping how the world sees Open Philanthropy. 

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. 

We’re at a critical juncture in our organization’s growth, and our work has been garnering more media attention. We believe that our communications team can greatly enhance the impact our grantmaking has in the world.

About the role

Working closely with the Director of Communications and a small but growing team, the Senior Communications Officer will:

• Lead strategic communications initiatives: Develop and execute targeted projects to enhance Open Philanthropy's impact, particularly in translating complex topics for mainstream audiences in areas such as AI safety, global health and development, scientific research, and biosecurity.

• Manage media relations: Build and maintain relationships with journalists to help shape how the world understands our diverse and rapidly changing cause areas.

• Drive content strategy: Lead efforts to amplify the impact of our work through exceptional content publication. Collaborate with our program and research teams to develop compelling narratives around their work while maintaining rigorous accuracy.

• Help shape brand and messaging strategy: Work with the team to develop comprehensive approaches for major communications efforts. Examples could include overseeing a website redesign or reshaping our social media efforts.

• Provide strategic input and PR analysis: Offer guidance and insights for staff across Open Philanthropy, including grantmaking and research teams, senior leadership, and partnerships team members, through a period of ongoing growth and increasing visibility. 

• Support department leadership: Partner with the Director of Communications to guide strategic development of the communications function, including coordinating with external PR firms and developing communications infrastructure.

• Support day-to-day communications: Help ensure the smooth execution of some routine communications tasks, including supporting staff who update the website, publish grant pages to our grant database, and contribute to our newsletter.

Who might be a good fit

You might be a good fit for this work if you:

• Have significant communications expertise in one or more of these areas: AI safety, science (especially biology), and/or global health and development. AI expertise would be especially valuable to meet our current communications needs. 

• Have substantial experience with PR and media relations, either as a journalist or communications professional. We’re especially excited about candidates who bring some media connections that could help amplify our work.

• Have great interpersonal skills and the ability to interface effectively with people in all program areas at Open Philanthropy, as well as manage external relationships. You would be able to represent Open Philanthropy positively and persuasively to people with a wide range of backgrounds and levels of familiarity with our work. 

• Excel at translating complex technical topics for mainstream audiences, with strong instincts for how different audiences will perceive content. 

• 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 few examples linked here, 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 otherwise making ourselves “look good.” 

• Are excited about furthering Open Philanthropy's reputation as a highly impactful philanthropic funder.

• Are open to travel for the role, e.g. attending events or in-person meetings in the U.S. and internationally (depending on where you’re based). 

• Are responsive. Given the nature of communications, you may occasionally need to have flexibility in being able to work weekends or evenings, sometimes at short notice. We value sustainable work practices, and you would be able to take time off in lieu. 

The ideal candidate for this position will possess many of the skills and experiences described above. If you are on the fence about applying because you are unsure whether you are qualified, we would strongly encourage you to apply. We are also open to making multiple hires to enable greater specialization in each focus area.

Role details & benefits

• Compensation: The baseline compensation for this role is $203,855.76, which would be distributed as a base salary of $180,855.76 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $23,000 for U.S. hires. Compensation could be materially higher for especially qualified candidates.

  • These compensation figures assume a remote location; there would be geographic adjustments upwards for candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area or Washington, D.C., which are Open Philanthropy’s primary staff hubs.

  • All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally based hires.

• Time zones and location: You can work remotely. Given the nature of this role, we have a preference for candidates who are able to work from New York City, Washington D.C., or another major media hub (including outside the U.S., provided you are able to consistently work at least 5 hours overlapping with Eastern Time business hours per workday.) The communications team currently has members based in California and Oregon, while Naina is based in New York City.

  • We are happy to consider sponsoring U.S. work authorization. However, we don’t control who is and isn’t eligible for a visa and can’t guarantee visa approval.

• Start date: We’d like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer — we expect to extend an offer in February or March 2025 at the latest, and are open to moving faster for strong candidates who would need to make a decision significantly sooner. 

• Benefits: Our benefits package includes: 

  • Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the U.S. 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

  • Note: We can’t always provide every benefit we offer U.S. 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) 

  • Note: U.S.-based communications staff are typically employed by Open Philanthropy Project LLC, which is not a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. As such, this role is unlikely to be eligible for public service loan forgiveness programs.

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.

Please apply by 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) on Wednesday, 4 December to be considered.