Program Associate/Senior Program Associate

We are looking to hire up to four new team members to join our Abundance and Growth team, led by Matt Clancy. The Abundance and Growth Fund (AGF) aims to accelerate economic growth, boost technological progress, and reduce unnecessary obstacles to prosperity, primarily in the United States. Our work focuses on removing barriers to increasing the supply of everything from housing to energy to healthcare, and enabling more discovery and invention. We aim to support the groundswell of energy and enthusiasm for policy changes that accelerate scientific progress and remove these constraints to create a richer, healthier world. In order to do so effectively, we need to grow our own team.

Over the past decade, Open Philanthropy has been one of the most active philanthropic funders in core areas of the pro-abundance and pro-growth movements – particularly in housing policy reform and innovation policy. You will help expand this new program and help more people to live richer, healthier, and fuller lives by making grants, and by conducting research to help develop our strategy. The program has a minimum budget commitment of $120 million over three years, with the possibility of extension as well as additional fundraising. You can find more information about our Abundance and Growth Fund here.

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, global health and development, 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 $4 billion in grants since our formation.

About the Role

We are planning to hire 2-4 new team members, across two different types of roles. If you are excited to work on several of the areas related to abundance and growth listed below, we encourage you to apply to this generalist role, which we expect to fill with 1-2 hires. We are also expecting to make 1-3 hires for our specialist role; if you bring deep expertise in one or two of the specific areas listed in that job description, and would prefer to remain focused on those areas, we recommend that you apply to the specialist role. This job description is for our generalist track.

Program Associates and/or Senior Program Associates, acting as generalists, will work across several different areas related to reducing the cost of living and accelerating economic growth in frontier economies like the United States. We expect that at least one hire will bring experience in federal policymaking and be based in Washington, D.C., but not all candidates need this type of experience. Beyond that, we are excited to build a team that reflects a diverse mix of backgrounds across the broad range of areas related to Abundance and Growth. These could include:

• Housing policy: How do we remove barriers to increasing the supply of housing, in order to bring down costs?

• Energy: Can we support policy ideas that make it easier to build the necessary infrastructure to provide abundant energy?

• Infrastructure: Are there policies we can support to bring the cost of building major transportation infrastructure costs more in line with international peers?

• State capacity: Can we make it easier for government to hire and retain high-quality employees? Can we reduce procedural barriers that make government operate slowly?

• Healthcare and clinical trials: Can we make clinical trials shorter and less expensive without sacrificing health standards? Can we make healthcare services more affordable by increasing the supply of doctors or nurses?

• Economic dynamism: Can we make it easier for people to find jobs that better match their skills and interests, such as by limiting non-competes and occupational licensing?

• High-skilled immigration: Can we make it easier for talented individuals to move to places where they can make more productive use of their talents?

• Building the abundance and progress studies communities: How do we support the ongoing growth of emerging communities that support innovation and growth?

We don’t expect you to bring experience across all of the above areas; however, we would expect that you bring a minimum of 2-3 years of experience across at least one of them. We’re also looking for evidence of engagement in the emerging abundance and growth policy world, the ability to quickly get up to speed across our portfolio, and excitement to work across a wide range of areas. You would likely do exploratory or opportunistic grantmaking across a wide set of these areas, including areas you don’t already know as well, while eventually focusing more on a smaller number of areas for deeper engagement, though we aren’t sure yet what these would be.

We are quantitative and take evidence seriously to inform our strategy. You will conduct research to help us prioritize our funding, oversee grantmaking across different areas, and help communicate our thinking to external audiences. A typical week would likely include a mixture of the following, with different balances for different profiles:

• Soliciting and reviewing proposals from new potential grantees or potential renewals to existing grantees

• Doing back of the envelope calculations on grants

• Running investigations on particular grant opportunities and writing reports with your recommendations on whether to fund a grant

• Speaking to existing grantees to check in on their progress

• Having conversations with peer funders or experts in the space to stay abreast of new developments, look for opportunities to collaborate, and help solicit information about potential grantees

• Doing research on a new sub-cause or area for discussion with AGF leadership

• Writing for external consumption about our approach or to encourage further investment in AGF areas

You will work with Matt Clancy, who leads the AGF, and Jordan Dworkin, who specializes in innovation policy. We expect to have a team of 4-6 people, including Matt and Jordan, by the end of this hiring round.

Who might be a good fit

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

• Bring 2-3 years of experience in relevant fields for the Program Associate position

• Bring 5 years of experience in relevant fields for the Senior Program Associate position

• Have academic experience that is directly relevant to the role – this is not a requirement, but would contribute in part towards the experience requirements for both versions of this role.

• Bring experience working with the federal government, and have a solid understanding of federal policymaking (Congressional, executive branch, or at the agency level). You are based in, or would be willing to move to, Washington D.C.

• Have a high level of comfort in quantifying concepts and theories of change, and grounding quantitative estimates in the best evidence available, even if imperfect.

• Write clearly about technical topics. You are experienced at writing for external audiences and can communicate our theories of change in a compelling way.

• Bring strong research skills. You are able to engage with academic research, modeling, and creative problem-solving around difficult research questions.

• Are excited about the potential impact this new cause area might have. We recommend reading this post before applying for the role to get a better sense of the kind of work you’d be focusing on.

• Are able to overlap with US Central Time working hours for at least 5 hours per day.

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 Program Associate and Senior Program Associate roles respectively is $126,233.59 or $172,388.73, which would be distributed as a base salary of $109,768.34 or $149,903.24 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $16,465.25 or $22,485.49 for U.S. 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 have a strong preference that at least one hire is based in Washington, D.C. We are also open to hires outside the U.S. who are willing to consistently overlap with U.S. Central Time working hours for 5 hours per day.

  • We are able 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.

• 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 personalhealth 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 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).

• Start date: 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 [email protected].

Please apply by 11.59 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, July 27 to be considered.

U.S.-based Program 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.