The Grants Management team takes pride in making grantees and program staff’s lives easy so they can stay focused on their work. We’re always looking for ways to improve our systems, remove administrative hassle and grow our own expertise in grantmaking law so we can solve more problems faster going forward.

Our grantmaking has been growing rapidly (in 2021, OP committed approximately $450 million in total funding — this year we’re on track for $800 million). For every grant we make, a Grants Associate on our team is responsible for:

• Determining how to structure the grant (in consultation with our legal team if necessary)
• Doing due diligence on the grantee and collecting any information we’re missing
• Tracking relevant details in our grants database (we use Salesforce)
• Keeping program staff and grantees in the loop and answering their questions throughout the diligence and payment process
• Tracking grant payment dates and follow ups (we also run a grantee satisfaction survey)

When we encounter grantmaking roadblocks we’ve never dealt with before, we work to break them down as quickly as possible — our aim is for bureaucracy to never get in the way of funding a grantee doing impactful work. When a challenge comes up repeatedly, we look for structural solutions (e.g. in the past we designed an Individual Grants Program to more easily fund individuals).

Generalist vs. Longtermist Grants Associates

When you apply, you’ll have the option of letting us know if you’d prefer to be a generalist grants associate (meaning you’d be handling grants across all our cause areas), or specialize entirely in processing grants focused on longtermist effective altruism community growth and existential risk reduction (via our work on biosecurity & pandemic preparedness and risks from advanced artificial intelligence).

The volume of grants in these areas has grown particularly fast over the past year, and we think having some grants associates focused on understanding those teams’ specific needs and providing more tailored support will be valuable going forward (e.g. these teams are making a much larger volume of small grants to support early career talent, and those grants come with a unique set of challenges).

Who we’re looking for

We’d ideally like applicants to have at least 2 years of operations-relevant experience. We don’t expect you to have any familiarity with grantmaking yet (we have lots of training and resources available), but past experience related to legal compliance (e.g. as a paralegal), finance or consulting is a bonus. You might be a great fit if you are:

• A transparent, professional and empathetic communicator; you can break down complex information for grantees in an accessible, non-intimidating way (while conveying you understand their challenges and concerns).
• Unintimidated by complexity; you can work without a clear playbook, break novel challenges down into manageable steps and come up with creative solutions.
• Unusually organized and conscientious. You’re motivated by the idea of keeping systems clean, accurate and up-to-date — it’ll bother you if the details of the grants you’re working on aren’t properly accounted for.
• Excited to become an expert in all aspects of US and international grantmaking law. We manage one of the most complex portfolios of grants in all of philanthropy, and members of our grants team develop a uniquely wide breadth of knowledge for the field.

We expect all our staff to:

• Put our mission first, and act with urgency to help us realize our ambitious goals for impact.
• Work to model our operating values of ownership, openness, calibration and inclusiveness.

Role details & benefits

• Compensation: The baseline compensation for this role is $104,132.47, which (for US hires) would be distributed as a base salary of $90,549.97 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $13,582.50.
  • 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.
  • All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally based hires.
• Time zones and location: You can work from anywhere. While we are not able to sponsor visas for this role, we are open to hires outside the US willing to consistently overlap with US business hours for 5-6 hours of the day.
• Benefits: Our benefits package includes:
  • Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any dependents)
  • 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
  • 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’d ideally like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer, though we’re willing to wait for the right candidate.

We’re considering applicants on a rolling basis. Please apply as soon as you’re able — we may give priority to candidates who are able to move through the process sooner. 

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.