Operations Coordinator/Associate

At Open Philanthropy, our innovative grantmaking demands a robust and high-quality operations team. We always keep an eye out for people who would make great generalist Operations team members to support and improve the running of our organization.

We review applications for these roles on a rolling basis and will contact you to learn more if we think you might be a fit. By default, we won’t reach out unless we’re advancing your application, and we might not advance applications right away, depending on our current needs. If you aren't available immediately, that’s okay — expressing your interest now allows us to consider you for future opportunities as they arise.

These roles require you to work full-time from one of our offices in either San Francisco or Washington, DC. If you are unable to do so, or lack US work authorization, please submit a general application instead. Similarly, if you are only interested in senior/management roles, or roles in research or grantmaking, please apply through the general application.

About Open Philanthropy

Open Phil 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 2024, we recommended $650 million to high-impact causes, and we’ve recommended over $3.9 billion in grants since our formation.

About the Operations Team

Open Philanthropy has been growing rapidly, both in the number of staff (which recently exceeded 130) and in the volume of grants we make (more than 850 in 2023). This would not have been possible without our outstanding Operations team, whose goal is to help the organization run as smoothly and effectively as possible by providing excellent support to our staff, grantees, and collaborators. Operations work at Open Phil includes the following:

• Supporting staff and program teams — Directly supporting staff with administrative tasks (like booking travel, purchasing and expensing, receiving and forwarding mail, internal knowledge management, and policy support) and providing support to our program teams (e.g., cleaning up data or notes from grantee calls, light research and data analysis, organizing files, and helping with logistics).

• Ensuring Open Phil has productive and welcoming office spaces — Managing and improving our San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices, scoping requirements for potential new office hubs, greeting visitors, providing in-person support and reception, managing external contractors, ordering supplies, and fixing workstations.

• Providing executive assistance — Supporting directors and senior executives with logistics, calendar management, triaging tasks, communication, and general administration.

• Executing org-wide events — Collaborating with our People Operations team to organize and support quarterly “Togetherness Week” events and an annual retreat to bring our staff together.

• Assisting our IT team — Alongside our dedicated IT team members, supporting tech-related onboarding, provisioning accounts, and assisting staff with peripherals (e.g. monitors, mice, cables).

• Making Open Philanthropy more efficient and effective — Investigating and implementing scalable solutions to commonly faced problems (e.g., identifying software to facilitate booking meetings, or supporting the optimization of our new staff onboarding flow).

Handling anything else that needs to get done — We are a nimble team that takes on unique operations requests as they arise, including ad-hoc tasks and larger projects that facilitate strategic decision-making.

Who we’re looking for

We are open to hiring at the Coordinator or Associate level. Coordinator roles don't require specific experience, whereas we would expect significant relevant experience at the Associate level.

You might be a great fit if you:

• Communicate effectively, and in a professional and welcoming manner. Operations roles typically involve interacting with a variety of internal and external stakeholders.

• Work in a responsive, agile way; you stay calm when conditions change and can improvise and pivot quickly when priorities shift.

• Enjoy getting stuff done, even small or unglamorous tasks. You are excited to contribute to impact-driven work in a supportive capacity; you know that behind-the-scenes tasks are important, even if they seem indirect or tedious at face value.

• Have a “getting to yes”, solutions-focused approach. When someone comes to you with a problem, you want them to come away with a solution, even if that solution looks different from their original ask.

• Work with an “operations mindset”. You proactively notice what’s broken, move fast to fix it, and continually identify opportunities to do more with the same amount of time and resources.

• Are excited about Open Phil’s mission and its cause areas. You are enthusiastic about working in an organization that values a wide variety of viewpoints and navigates difficult tradeoffs between cause areas. 

We expect all our staff to: 

• Put our mission first, and act with urgency to help us realize our ambitious goals.

• Work to model our operating values of ownership, openness, calibration, and inclusiveness.

Role details & benefits

These are full-time, onsite roles in our offices in SF and DC. If you don’t live in one of these locations, you’d need to relocate (we’d assist with relocation costs). 

• For Coordinators, 

  • compensation in San Francisco is $103,862.80 (comprising a $90,315.48 salary and a $13,547.32 unconditional 401k grant).

  • compensation in Washington, DC is $102,324.10 (comprising a $88,977.48 salary and a $13,346.62 401k grant).

• For Associates, 

  • compensation in San Francisco is $126,797.57 (comprising a $110,258.76 salary and a $16,538.81 unconditional 401k grant).

  • compensation in Washington, DC is $124,919.10 (comprising a $108,625.30 salary and a $16,293.80 unconditional 401k grant).

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to sponsor visas for these roles, so candidates must have work authorization in the US to apply. 

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 

• 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’re considering applicants on a rolling basis. Please apply as soon as you can — we may stop accepting new applications without notice.

We aim to employ people with diverse 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.

US-based Operations staff are typically employed by Open Philanthropy Project LLC, which is not a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. As such, these roles are unlikely to be eligible for public service loan forgiveness programs.