Global Aid Policy - Associate Program Officer

Coefficient Giving • Washington, DC

2d • $195,500 • Onsite

About The Position

We're hiring an Associate Program Officer to join the Global Aid Policy team, based in Washington, D.C.

This is a substantive, senior individual contributor role. You'll be expected to take real ownership of grant opportunities and to build your own portfolio of relationships and grant decisions — including, over time, a multimillion-dollar portfolio of grants shaping U.S. aid policy and/or multilateral institutions like the World Bank. Strong performers can expect to grow into significant responsibility, including leading substantial portions of our grantmaking and managing relationships with senior government officials and civil society leaders. Day-to-day, your work will involve:

Speaking with leaders in the field to identify promising grantees and understand the policy landscape
Analyzing whether a grant will cost-effectively advance our program's priorities, including writing up your reasoning for making specific grants
Conducting back-of-the-envelope calculations (BOTECs) to estimate the social return on investment of different opportunities
Monitoring grantee progress and managing check-ins
Contributing to program strategy discussions and helping evaluate new policy priorities
Who might be a good fit
This role sits at the intersection of rigorous analytical thinking and effective policy engagement. The strongest candidates will bring both a genuine comfort with evidence-based reasoning and cost-effectiveness analysis, and the political judgment and relationship skills to translate that thinking into real-world impact.

We recognize that people come to this intersection from different directions. Some candidates will have built analytical depth first — through think tanks, research institutions, or multilateral organizations — and developed policy instincts along the way. Others will have spent years embedded in Washington's policy world, working on the Hill, in the executive branch, or at major advocacy organizations, and developed a view of how evidence can (and can't) drive change through clear-eyed observation. We're genuinely interested in both trajectories, and in candidates who combine elements of each.

Requirements

• Strong policy understanding and judgment — you can identify high-impact levers for policy change and have calibrated views about how governments actually work.
• Relational skills — you can build trust and collaborate with a diverse range of stakeholders, including policymakers, bureaucrats, nonprofit leaders, potential grantees, and co-funders. You're comfortable managing senior relationships.
• Analytical and quantitative ability — you can conduct cost-effectiveness analyses, construct BOTECs under uncertainty, and draw calibrated conclusions from both quantitative and qualitative data. You don't need prior experience with this specific approach, but you need to show the capacity for it.
• Excellent communication skills — you can synthesize complex information and communicate clearly, both verbally and in writing, for a wide range of audiences.
• High ownership — you are self-directed, focused on outcomes, and excited to build a multimillion-dollar portfolio of grants shaping U.S. aid policy and/or multilateral institutions like the World Bank.
• Global development experience (required) — ideally with some exposure to aid policy (government, think tank, multilateral institutions, advocacy, etc.), though this is not a hard requirement. Policy work of any kind is the most relevant background; candidates without policy experience will be more competitive if they have strong global development experience.
• Most competitive candidates will have around 10 years of total experience, with at least 3–5 years in a policy context. We care more about the quality and relevance of your experience than the number of years. Some of this can come from relevant graduate work.
• Be based in Washington, D.C. (required)
• Have the capacity to travel 3-6 times per year, though this can fluctuate
• Be excited about our mission and enthusiastic about contributing to its evolution

Responsibilities

• Speaking with leaders in the field to identify promising grantees and understand the policy landscape
• Analyzing whether a grant will cost-effectively advance our program's priorities, including writing up your reasoning for making specific grants
• Conducting back-of-the-envelope calculations (BOTECs) to estimate the social return on investment of different opportunities
• Monitoring grantee progress and managing check-ins
• Contributing to program strategy discussions and helping evaluate new policy priorities

Benefits

• 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 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. This policy also includes a productivity benefit, which provides a set amount for staff to expense items that enhance their productivity.
• 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 a Coefficient Giving coworking hub in your city. We currently have offices in San Francisco and Washington D.C., and multiple staff working from several other cities in the U.S. and elsewhere.
• 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).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed