Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs

GiveWell

3d • $225,000 - $250,000 • Remote

About The Position

GiveWell is seeking a Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs to lead the representation of GiveWell's work in media and public conversations. This role involves setting strategy, building relationships with journalists and influencers, identifying opportunities to increase understanding of GiveWell's work, and managing external responses in dynamic situations. The position reports to the Vice President of Communications and will lead a small, growing team. This is a hands-on leadership role with end-to-end responsibility for developing this function, including strategy, hiring, systems, and direct execution of key tasks. The role requires a blend of long-term strategy, relationship-building, and rapid response capabilities. The organization is expanding its grantmaking significantly and is building its communications capacity to match this growth.

Requirements

• Skilled at using communications to help people understand complex ideas, build trust, and take action.
• Comfortable being accountable for outcomes and making consequential decisions with limited oversight.
• Energized by intellectually demanding work and creating engaging communications within a careful and precise style.
• Ability to engage deeply with GiveWell’s research and communicate about data in detail.
• Ability to get up to speed quickly on complex subject matter and communicate to a very high standard.
• Ability to build a compelling narrative that is entirely factual, representing what is known and unknown without overstating or hedging into vagueness.
• Significant experience leading communications in complex, high-stakes environments.
• 10+ years of experience in media relations, thought leadership, and public engagement.
• Deep experience owning communications work end to end.
• Hands-on leadership experience, enjoying both the work itself and the strategy/systems behind it.
• Understanding of how journalists, influential voices, events, and other public forums shape understanding.
• Demonstrated ability to build meaningful external relationships.
• Ability to identify opportunities worth pursuing.
• Ability to personally represent an organization’s perspective.
• Ability to navigate public-facing situations with limited context and short timelines.
• Exceptional communications judgment, including understanding audience, context, risk, timing, and message substance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to make complex ideas clear and compelling without sacrificing rigor or nuance.
• Track record of building and leading a team or function, including hiring, developing, and managing people.
• Recent, hands-on excellence at your craft, with work produced or substantially shaped in the past few years.
• Experience producing direct and factual communications that are engaging and effective.
• Intellectual curiosity and ability to engage deeply with GiveWell’s research and ideas.
• Experience advising executives or other senior decision-makers directly.
• Strong alignment with GiveWell’s mission and values, including truth-seeking, transparency, and accurate/thoughtful communication.

Nice To Haves

• 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.
• Proactive and anticipatory individuals who identify opportunities, risks, bottlenecks, and communications needs before they become obvious.
• Collaborative leaders who raise the quality of work around them and build strong relationships across teams.
• Individuals who coordinate well with peers, resolve dependencies and disagreements, and make shared work clearer rather than more complicated.

Responsibilities

• Set GiveWell’s strategy across media, thought-leader engagement, online communities, public forums and events, and other earned communications opportunities.
• Build and maintain high-trust relationships with journalists, editors, podcast hosts, event organizers, thought leaders, subject-matter experts, and other influential external stakeholders.
• Identify, develop, and pitch substantive stories, event opportunities, and thought-leadership ideas.
• Own inbound media engagement, including rapid responses and coordination with subject-matter experts.
• Build and maintain GiveWell’s readiness for sensitive or fast-moving situations, monitor emerging issues, and lead external response.
• Advise GiveWell’s leadership on external opportunities and relationships, and prepare senior leaders for public appearances.
• Exercise sound judgment about when and how GiveWell should enter public conversations, evaluating value, reputational considerations, and communications risks.
• Evaluate and help shape public-facing communications partnerships.
• Serve as a spokesperson for GiveWell in select media interviews, events, and other public forums.
• Work with grantees and other partners on press releases and other media-facing communications.
• Manage and develop one or two team members initially, and build the function's capacity over time.

Benefits

• Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance (100% of premiums covered in the US for employee and 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

What This Job Offers

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