Senior Communications Officer

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We’re hiring a Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications to lead GiveWell’s development of messaging and narratives that explain its work across different audiences and contexts. You will translate the organization’s increasingly diverse and complex work into clear, accurate communications and lead major initiatives that require close coordination across GiveWell.

This role reports to Steven Profaizer, our Vice President of Communications, and will lead a small and growing team. This is one of three new communications leadership roles, alongside a Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs and a Senior Communications Officer, Editorial & Production.

About the role

Both our research and impact are expanding. Last year, we directed more than $400 million to highly cost-effective programs that save and improve lives. This year, we expect our grantmaking to approach, and possibly exceed, $1 billion.

To build toward the communications capacity this next stage requires, we are rapidly expanding our team. Together with the Vice President of Communications, the three new Senior Communications Officers will form GiveWell’s communications leadership team. Each leader will own their function, but much of the work that matters most—like team strategies, major initiatives, partnership campaigns, and how we present the organization as a whole—will involve all three. We will expect this group to set shared priorities and work closely together to achieve the team’s goals.

In this hands-on leadership position, you’ll own how GiveWell explains its work across different audiences and contexts, with end-to-end responsibility for this emerging function. You’ll set its strategy, hire and develop its people, build its systems, and personally own its hardest and most consequential work. This is an opportunity to build, not just inherit, an important function at a critical point in GiveWell’s development. You’ll start with a small team and grow it over time. 

While this role is set at the Senior Communications Officer level, we may consider hiring an exceptional candidate as a Communications Director—with greater expectations, responsibilities, and compensation.

What You'll Do

As Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications, you will be responsible for translating GiveWell’s research, grantmaking, and ideas into messages, frameworks, and products across a variety of channels and contexts. You will also lead major communications initiatives, advise senior leaders and teams, and help GiveWell assess and respond to emerging communications opportunities and risks.

Specific duties will include: 

• Own how GiveWell’s brand positioning and guidelines are applied across teams, channels, and partnership communications, and work closely with the Vice President of Communications on developing and maintaining them.
• Own the messaging and narrative that make GiveWell’s work accessible and relevant without sacrificing rigor, precision, or clarity about uncertainty.
• Translate GiveWell’s research, grantmaking, and ideas into messages and frameworks tailored to the audiences we most need to reach.
• Partner with Philanthropy on GiveWell’s donor communications strategy and lead donor-facing communications that require new or tailored messaging.
• Lead complex, cross-functional communications initiatives, including major partnership campaigns and other high-priority communications involving grantees and external partners.
• Serve as a strategic communications advisor to senior leaders and teams across GiveWell, bringing a clear point of view on audiences, framing, opportunities, and risks.
• Lead GiveWell’s internal assessment of emerging issues that may affect the organization and develop our position and messaging, working with relevant teams and the Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs.
• Own the strategic direction and institutional messaging for GiveWell’s website, working with communications colleagues on execution.
• Own GiveWell’s internal communications strategy and major internal communications, helping our growing organization stay informed and aligned.
• Manage and develop one or two team members initially, and help determine how the function’s team, systems, and capabilities should grow over time.

About You

You are skilled at using communications to help people understand complex ideas, build trust, and take action. You are comfortable being accountable for outcomes, making consequential decisions with limited oversight, and knowing which decisions genuinely require escalation.

You are energized by intellectually demanding work, and the challenges of creating engaging communications within a careful and precise style. You can engage deeply with GiveWell’s research, and you are comfortable understanding and communicating about data in detail. You have a long track record of getting up to speed quickly on complex subject matter and carefully communicating to a very high standard. You can build a compelling narrative that is entirely factual, representing what is known and unknown without overstating or hedging into vagueness—and you find the idea of working with GiveWell’s exacting communications standards exciting rather than limiting.

Your background includes significant experience leading communications in complex, high-stakes environments. This should include 10+ years of experience developing institutional narratives and messaging, advising senior leaders, communicating complex or technical material, and leading cross-functional initiatives. You have deep experience owning that work end to end, not just contributing to it. You’ve remained a hands-on leader who enjoys the work itself, as well as the strategy and systems behind it.

You can assess a situation from multiple angles, determine what an organization should say and how it should frame the issue, and turn that judgment into messages and communications that others can use. Experience with organizational positioning, brand strategy, donor communications, web strategy, and internal communications is desired, but we do not expect every candidate to have worked extensively in all of these areas.

In addition to demonstrated expertise in the duties listed above, you should have:

• Exceptional communications judgment, including the ability to understand audience, context, risk, timing, and the underlying substance of a message.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to quickly make complex ideas clear and compelling without sacrificing rigor or nuance.
• A track record of building and leading: you have created or substantially rebuilt a team or function—not only run ones you inherited—and you have hired, developed, and managed people.
• Recent, hands-on excellence at your craft: you can point to work from the past few years that you personally produced or substantially shaped.
• Experience producing communications that are direct and factual while being engaging and effective with their target audiences—work that succeeds through substance and clarity rather than embellishment.
• Intellectual curiosity and the ability to engage deeply with GiveWell’s research and ideas, even without prior experience in our giving areas.
• Experience advising executives or other senior decision-makers directly.
• Strong alignment with GiveWell’s mission and values, including truth-seeking, transparency, and a commitment to communicating accurately and thoughtfully.

We also think these qualities will help you do well in the role and at GiveWell: 

• People who can develop a strong point of view and hold it with confidence, but remain genuinely open to challenge, new information, and better ideas.
• Self-starters who take ownership, are comfortable creating structure in an evolving environment, and can make thoughtful decisions without always having complete information.
• People who are proactive and anticipatory, who identify opportunities, risks, bottlenecks, and communications needs before they become obvious.
• Collaborative leaders who raise the quality of the work around them and build strong relationships across teams.
• People who coordinate well with peers, resolve dependencies and disagreements, and make shared work clearer rather than more complicated.

Key Questions & Information

What are some of the reasons I might not like this role?

• You want to step into a mature function with established systems, rather than build one while you run it.
• You do best with clear direction and established priorities. We’ll expect you to set most of your own, make most decisions yourself, and reach substantial autonomy within your first six months.
• You prefer advising on communications to producing and being accountable for them.
• You want sole ownership of an organization’s overarching communications strategy and brand. At GiveWell, the Vice President of Communications owns that direction; you would help shape it and lead your function within it.
• You want to lead a large team from day one. This team is small today, and much of the most difficult work will be yours to do directly.
• You find standards of precision and understatement limiting and frustrating. We work extremely hard to only communicate accurately what we know and what we don’t.

Can I apply to more than one of the Senior Communications Officer roles?

You can, but most people shouldn’t. We’re looking for deep expertise in these areas, and we expect most candidates with required expertise will be a clear fit for a single role. If you’re one of the few with real depth in more than one area, apply to both and tell us why. Otherwise, apply for the role you are most qualified for, and we’ll let you know if we think another role might suit you better.

What does this interview process entail?

We’ll use a combination of interviews, written exercises, and work trials to assess the qualities described above. We’ll share more specific details if we invite you to move forward to any of the following stages, but our current plan is:

• Application
• Interview with a member of the Talent Acquisition Team
• Compensated, ~4-hour work trial
• Interview with the Vice President of Communications
• Values interview
• Compensated, ~4-hour work trial with the Vice President of Communications
• CEO interview and References

Note that you don’t need to submit a cover letter. We rely heavily on your resume and answers to the application questions below when we’re making early decisions. We encourage you to spend time responding to the application questions thoroughly and carefully.

Details

• Team: You’ll report to our Vice President of Communications, collaborate closely with the two other Senior Communications Officers, and lead a small team that you’ll develop over time.
• Compensation: This role is set at the Senior Communications Officer level. For an exceptional candidate, we may consider hiring at the Communications Director level—with greater expectations, responsibilities, and compensation. 
  • NYC or the San Francisco Bay Area: $247,500
  • All other U.S. locations: $225,000
  • International: Custom based on location. We can give you a specific number at the penultimate stage of the hiring process.
• Location: GiveWell’s staff work primarily remotely within the U.S. and abroad.
  • Offices: You are welcome but not required to work from our offices in Oakland, California, or Brooklyn, NYC.
  • International work: We are happy to employ staff internationally on a case-by-case basis. Given the managerial nature of this role, a successful candidate will need to work hours that have a certain minimum overlap with American working hours and the schedules of key coworkers.
• Flexibility: We support and encourage flexible working, including flexible hours, working remotely, and working from the office when you choose. The majority of our staff, including senior management, work flexibly in one way or another.
• Visa Sponsorship: If you want to work in the United States and need a work visa, we’ll do our best to sponsor it (and also cover up to 100% of relocation expenses on a case-by-case basis). Please note that government entities ultimately dictate our ability to sponsor visas.
• Benefits: Our benefits include:
  • Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any dependents)
  • Four weeks of paid time off per year
  • 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave
  • Ergonomic home workstations or coworking space memberships
  • 403(b) retirement plan
• Travel: Communications staff members should expect to attend three week-long retreats each year to bond with other team members and complete in-person work. Other domestic and international travel may be required, but isn’t expected to be a regular part of these roles. We’ll discuss travel obligations in more detail during late stages of the hiring process, and we’ll give reasonable consideration to staff who have family or other obligations.
• Start date: We’d like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer, but we’ll offer flexibility for candidates whose personal or professional circumstances require them to moderately delay their start date.