Program Officer/senior Program Associate - Global Health And Wellbeing, Lead Exposure

About Open Philanthropy

Open Philanthropy is a philanthropic funder and advisor. 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. 

Our current giving areas include potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, scientific research, global public health policy, farm animal welfare, and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. In 2023, we recommended just under $800 million to high-impact causes, and we’ve recommended over $3 billion in grants since our formation.

About the Global Health and Wellbeing team

The Global Health and Wellbeing team focuses on scientific research, policy advocacy, and global development work. We aim to improve lives as much as possible by reducing premature deaths and increasing incomes, particularly for the world’s poorest people. 

About the role

Over the next four years, we will manage the allocation of over $20 million per year to address lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries. We will be the largest philanthropic funder focused on addressing lead exposure, and we expect this allocation to more than double the available funding in the field. As a grantmaker within our lead program, you would have an influential role in shaping the field, and be a leader in addressing a problem we think is important, neglected, and tractable. 

We are open to hiring either at the Program Officer or Senior Program Associate level. At the Program Officer level, you would co-lead the work with Santosh Harish, Program Officer, and report to James Snowden, Senior Program Officer. At a Senior Program Associate level, you would contribute significantly to our work on lead exposure and report either to Santosh or James.

Your responsibilities would include:

• Setting the program’s strategy and direction based on your own analysis of expected benefits.
• Soliciting and investigating new ideas or approaches and continuing to build and update our strategy as conditions evolve.
• Sourcing and investigating promising grant opportunities related to lead exposure.
• Establishing and maintaining relationships with current and prospective grantees, funders, and other stakeholders in the field.
• Following up with grantees periodically and keeping abreast of their progress to inform our evaluation efforts.
• Representing Open Philanthropy at relevant external meetings and conferences.

Who might be a good fit

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

• Bring excellent written and oral communication skills, especially the ability to explain your views clearly.
• Possess strong analytical and quantitative skills. These include the ability to think in probabilistic terms, quantify the cost-effectiveness of potential grant opportunities, and critically evaluate assessments by others, to inform your decisions.
• Bring strong interpersonal skills, and the ability to work effectively with ideologically and culturally diverse partner organizations.
• Bring knowledge or experience related to health policy (advocacy, evaluation or implementation).
• Are able to travel periodically (e.g. for occasional conferences).

Open Philanthropy has a culture of reasoning transparency. As a result, successful Program staff are often particularly strong at explaining the reasoning for their grants in writing compared to similar roles at comparable grantmaking organizations. Some people find writing to be one of the best ways of thinking things through, and this profile tends to work particularly well at Open Phil. This includes the ability to clearly communicate your reasoning for recommending a grant, give the best case against your recommendation, and make decisions partly on the basis of explicit quantitative models. 

A successful candidate is likely to have experience working in the fields of environmental health or public health policy. Experience and knowledge related to lead exposure is highly valued. However, we appreciate that few people hold this background, and we’d strongly encourage you to apply if you don’t possess this particular experience but otherwise feel you are a strong fit.

Candidates for the Program Officer role are likely to have 10+ years of relevant experience, and experience coordinating multiple actors to achieve policy goals. Candidates for the Senior Program Associate role are likely to have 5+ years of relevant experience.

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 the role of Program Officer is $203,855.76, which would be distributed as a base salary of $180,855.76 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $23,000.00 for U.S. hires.
  • The baseline compensation for the role of Senior Program Associate is $160,355.45, which would be distributed as a base salary of $139,439.53 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $20,915.93 for U.S. hires.
  • All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally-based hires.
  • 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.

• Time zones and location:

  • 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.
  • You can work remotely. However, the incoming hire would need to be able to join calls at 9am PT at least three times a week. James Snowden is based in San Francisco, US, while Santosh is based in Bangalore, India.

• 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.
  • A continual learning policy that encourages staff to spend time on professional development with related expenses covered.
  • 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).

• Start date: We expect to make an offer by early October, and we’d like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer.

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.

The deadline for this application is Sunday June 30, 2024 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. We will consider all applications as a cohort.