Special Projects Director

Rethink Priorities•Remote, PA

8d•$130,000 - $160,000•Remote

About The Position

Rethink Priorities’ (RP’s) Special Projects Program (SP) — RP's portfolio of fiscally sponsored and incubated projects — is entering its most significant growth phase yet, and this role will own the program end to end. Whoever takes this on will define how SP scales from here, with leadership over its strategy and its growing team. RP is a US 501(c)(3) research and implementation nonprofit working across global health and development, animal welfare, and reducing global catastrophic risk, including risks from advanced AI. Beyond our own research, RP acts as a fiscal sponsor — under a Model A structure — to a portfolio of independent, high-impact projects, each running its own show day to day while RP provides the legal, financial, HR, and compliance support to accelerate them towards spin-off and further impact. SP helps founders get started on their project from day one, eliminating the 6–18 months a founder would otherwise spend standing up a legal entity and becoming tax-exempt. That acceleration matters enormously when the window for impact is short. Beyond speed, SP sponsorship provides a lower-risk environment for testing proof of concept: projects can validate mission fit and demonstrate traction before committing to the cost and complexity of independent legal existence. Our SP program has supported numerous projects through their fastest growth phase, from a headcount size of one to 30+ and multi-million dollar budgets — including Epoch AI, Apollo Research and IAPS, all of which grew under SP before spinning off as independent organizations. SP is growing — more projects, more countries, more complexity — and the systems and approaches that got it this far won't hold at the next size. Growth at this stage could look like taking the team from around 7 FTE today to somewhere in the 12–16 FTE range within a year, and launching upwards of 10 new sponsored projects — but figuring out what growth is actually necessary and appropriate, and at what pace, is a core part of what this role is for. You'll be the first person whose full-time job is building what comes next: a real risk framework, a sustainable fee model, a clear graduation path for projects that have outgrown fiscal sponsorship, and a growth strategy for the ones still to come. You'll manage the Special Project Managers and the rest of the SP team who support sponsored projects day to day. This is a Leadership position at RP, meaning you’ll have a seat at the table for all major organizational strategic decisions and authority to set your team’s strategy, growth plans, and budget. It's a high-leverage position: getting the right systems in place now will position SP for further growth and the ability to support even more impactful projects. This is a role for someone comfortable being the person that a fast-growing team will rely on for new answers and solutions — where "I don't know, let me find out" is a normal Tuesday, and good judgment matters more than a playbook, because there might not be one yet. You won't need to arrive knowing intricate employment law or new AI regulation yet — but you will need to be someone who picks new topics up fast. You'll report to RP's COO, Carolyn Footitt, work closely with our Finance and People & Culture colleagues in the Operations Department, and have real latitude to shape how this program runs. Most of our meetings happen between UTC-5 and UTC+2, where most SP and Core Operations staff are based, so we strongly prefer candidates within these timezones. This isn’t a heavy travel role, but you can expect somewhere around 3-4 trips per year for conferences and team or company retreats. We're able to legally hire in many countries and may be able to offer visa sponsorship or relocation support to the US or UK. This role is open to candidates who are able to commit a minimum 35 hours per week, with a preference for full-time (40 hours) candidates.

Requirements

Solid experience in an operations role — HR, legal, finance, or general operations — with working knowledge of US 501(c)(3) rules and how they shape org decisions.
Familiarity with the effective altruism landscape and at least one of RP's cause areas (AI safety/global catastrophic risk, animal welfare, or global health and development), enough to understand what our sponsored projects are actually trying to do.
A generalist streak: you've had to get up to speed on unfamiliar domains before and know how to do it fast.
People management experience, including managing managers across a scaling team
Project/program management for large, varied portfolios
Strategic Thinking and Systems Evaluation — Understands the bigger picture of how SP functions as a system; identifies performance indicators and the actions needed to improve them.
Judgment and Decision-Making — Weighs costs and benefits of potential actions, spots risk before it becomes a crisis, anticipates opportunities, and stays comfortable operating across a genuinely varied portfolio.
People Management — Motivates, mentors, and develops direct reports (including other managers); builds a durable management layer rather than concentrating decisions personally.
Business Development and Relationship Management — Builds real trust with project directors, funders, and peer fiscal sponsors, and is comfortable representing SP externally.
Solution Orientation — Proactively proposes solutions and improves systems and processes rather than waiting for problems to surface.
Social Perceptiveness — Navigates complex, multi-stakeholder relationships (project founders, RP leadership, funders) with sensitivity and respect.
Cultural Competence — Works effectively across a remote, multi-country team and a diverse portfolio of sponsored projects.
Adaptability — Adjusts strategy and structure as SP scales; knows when to seek expertise from Core Ops, legal counsel, or RP leadership.
Communication — Conveys strategy, policy, and difficult decisions (including saying "no") clearly in writing and speech.
Execution. Strong prioritization and attention to detail, the ability to get an 80/20 understanding of an unfamiliar topic fast, and self-direction so that you don't need close oversight to stay on track.
Professional-level English proficiency is required.

Nice To Haves

Fiscal sponsorship (particularly Model A structures), and how that shapes what a sponsored project can and can't do.
Financial forecasting, budgeting, and fee or pricing model design
UK and US nonprofit and employment regulatory environments
Experience working with a PEO (we use Justworks) or an EOR (we use Remote) to employ staff compliantly across borders.
Experience working with project management software (we use Asana) to manage work, delegate, and keep people informed of project progress.

Responsibilities

Own SP's overall strategy and roadmap, positioning the program to capture the current wave of AI-related philanthropic capital and project demand.
Decide which projects join, graduate, or spin off from fiscal sponsorship, and build the frameworks behind those calls
Own SP's value proposition and Theory of Change with input from RP leadership
Evaluate the inbound project pipeline and proactively source new fiscally-sponsored opportunities rather than only waiting for them to arrive
Represent SP externally to prospective projects, funders, and peer fiscal sponsors, and sharpen how SP positions itself against other sponsors
Explore new service lines where they'd extend SP's value, such as regranting structures
Establish a formal project risk assessment framework covering financial, employment, legal/reputational, and leadership risk, with mitigation measures for top risks.
Serve as a senior escalation point on operations compliance matters: HR, finance, and compliance matters.
Create a project graduation framework — criteria for when a project should spin out vs. stay within RP, with clear spin-out milestones.
Keep the SP fee model fair and sustainable for RP and project directors
Track a defined SP revenue target quarterly against a forecast.
Decide when to add capacity, what roles come next, and how management layers evolve as headcount and project count grow, in coordination with the COO and other Ops teams
Manage the Special Project Managers directly: weekly 1:1s, performance and feedback, coaching and professional development
Watch for capacity strain and wellbeing issues on the team before they become a problem
Handle skip-levels and interpersonal issues, and know when to loop in People & Culture
Ensure SP’s processes are documented and standardized — onboarding, offboarding, financial reporting, risk review — so growth doesn't depend on tacit knowledge
Set and track OKRs for the team
Keep SP's relationships with funders, project directors, and other RP departments strong
Make sure project directors are genuinely satisfied with the support they're getting

Benefits

Comprehensive global benefits package (varies by country; RP aims for equity and quality across all staff).
Generous paid time off, including unlimited vacation (with a minimum required statutory minimum), "mandated" mid- and end-year organization-wide breaks, unlimited personal/sick leave (within reason), and parental leave (4–9 months paid/unpaid, taken within 2 years of a child's birth or adoption).
Technology stipend of $2,000 USD equivalent every 3 years for work and office equipment.
AI tools budget of $40 USD equivalent monthly.
Professional Development Budget of $5000 USD per year.
Learning opportunities, including workshops/training sessions and 10% of work time dedicated to professional and personal development.
Paid work trips, including one annual all-staff Mega Team Retreat and relevant conferences.
Virtual co-working spaces, including a private Rethink Priorities Focusmate group.
RP Peer Support Program for New Employees.
Other benefits at the discretion of RP Leadership.
A caring team that values respectful work relations and a healthy work-life balance.