Communications officer (media relations)

We're hiring a Communications Officer focused on media relations to help shape how Coefficient Giving's work is understood by the public, policymakers, and potential partners. We're looking for a mission-driven candidate with strong news judgment, excellent writing, and an instinct for building trust with journalists. You'll serve as a spokesperson for the organization and own much of our day-to-day press work — pitching and placing stories, fielding inquiries, preparing staff for media opportunities, and helping us respond quickly and thoughtfully when our work is covered in the news — while maintaining our commitment to rigor and accuracy.

About Coefficient Giving

Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy) is a philanthropic funder and advisor. Since 2014, we’ve directed over $5 billion in grants as part of our mission to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. It's also a pivotal moment for Coefficient Giving: we gave around $1 billion last year, and are on track to more than double our giving this year. We work with a range of donors who share our commitment to cost-effective, high-impact giving. Our current funds include Science and Global Health R&D, Navigating Transformative AI, Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness, Abundance & Growth, Farm Animal Welfare, and more.

We’re proud of our track record:

• We jump-started the field of AI safety and security and have played a vital role in addressing other existential threats, such as mirror bacteria.
• Our grants to evidence-backed global health programs have saved over 100,000 lives, and our farm animal welfare grants have improved the lives of over 3 billion animals.
• We supported late-stage clinical trials for the R21 malaria vaccine, now being scaled to protect millions of kids globally.
• We were the earliest major funder of the YIMBY movement to build more housing. Our grantees have led the charge on major wins like City of Yes in New York, and SB 79 in California, which will enable hundreds of thousands of new housing units.

About the role

This role will focus primarily on media relations: how our work is covered, who covers it, and how well that coverage reflects what we actually do. You'll work to secure accurate, high-quality coverage across the breadth of our portfolio and to be a calm, credible point of contact for reporters. This role will report to Sharon Yang, Senior Communications Officer, who is based in New York.

For a look at what being on our small but growing communications team is like, see Sharon’s entry in our “Day in the Life” series.

Responsibilities may include:

• Serving as an on-the-record and on-background spokesperson. You'll speak with reporters on the record and on background on behalf of Coefficient Giving, representing us accurately and credibly across our portfolio.
• Pitching and placing stories. You'll develop story ideas and build relationships with journalists to secure accurate, high-quality coverage of our work across topics like AI safety, global health, scientific R&D, abundance and growth, and farm animal welfare.
• Building and maintaining journalist relationships. You'll cultivate and manage a network of reporters and editors across relevant beats, keep our media lists and relationship tracking up to date, and help ensure an appropriate cadence of contact with the people who cover us.
• Managing reactive press work. You'll often be a first point of contact for incoming media inquiries — triaging requests, drafting statements and talking points, and coordinating fast, well-judged responses on deadline. You’ll exercise sound judgement on when a story warrants a response and when it’s better left alone.
• Preparing spokespeople. You'll prepare staff, leadership, and (where relevant) grantees for interviews, producing briefing documents, Q&As, and talking points, running prep sessions and supporting media trainings, and giving candid feedback before and after interviews.
• Monitoring coverage and the landscape. You'll track how we and our grantees are covered, flag risks and opportunities early, and help craft quick, calibrated responses.
• Supporting reputational risk review. You'll bring a media lens to assessments of grants and communications for PR sensitivities, helping the team think through how decisions might be perceived externally.
• Collaborating with the broader communications team on cross-cutting projects (e.g. the newsletter, internal communications, social media) and helping maintain our standards and processes.

The exact scope of this role will evolve based on organizational needs and your strengths and interests. There's room to grow into more strategic ownership of our media work over time.

Who might be a good fit

We're looking for someone with roughly 3–7 years of professional experience, ideally including time in media relations, a press office, public relations, or journalism. Experience working on media relations related to AI and/or philanthropy is a bonus.

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

• Have experience as a spokesperson. A track record of speaking with reporters on the record is strongly preferred; you're comfortable being a named, on-the-record and on-background point of contact and representing an organization in your own voice.
• Have strong news judgment and instincts for press work. You understand how newsrooms operate, what makes a story, and how to pitch one. You can read a developing situation and judge whether, when, and how we should engage.
• Have strong judgment on sensitive, high-stakes situations. You can weigh reputational risks, anticipate how different audiences will react, and give thoughtful counsel under time pressure. You're the kind of person colleagues trust with delicate situations.
• Write clearly and quickly, and can adapt to different audiences. You can turn a complex topic into a crisp pitch, statement, or talking point, and calibrate tone for the context, without oversimplifying or overclaiming.
• Build productive relationships with journalists, and with researchers, leaders, and program staff who may have very different priorities and communication styles. You're collaborative, responsive, and bring a service mindset to your work.
• Stay calm under pressure. You are comfortable working on deadline and in tight, rapid-response environments.
• Are interested in our work. You don't need to be an expert in our focus areas, but you should be genuinely curious about them, motivated by our mission, and comfortable getting up to speed quickly across a wide range of topics.

The ideal candidate for this position will possess many of the skills and experiences described above, but 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 strongly encourage you to apply.

Role details & benefits

Compensation: The baseline compensation for this role is $166,750, which would be distributed as a base salary of $145,000 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $21,750 for U.S. hires.

These compensation figures assume a remote location; there would be geographic adjustments upwards for candidates who are based in the San Francisco Bay Area or Washington, D.C. and are willing to work from our local office approximately two days per week or more.

There would also be an adjustment upwards for candidates based in New York who are willing to work from our coworking hub at least one day per week.

For candidates with exceptional experience, we're open to hiring at a more senior level.

Time zones and location:

You can work remotely, although we have a strong preference for candidates based in one of our U.S. office hubs: New York City (where several members of the communications team, including Naina, our Managing Director of Communications, and Sharon, are based), Washington, D.C., or San Francisco.

We support successful candidates with relocation costs to the San Francisco Bay Area or Washington, D. C., and would consider doing so for candidates willing to relocate to New York City.

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 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.
• 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 continue to contact jobs@coefficientgiving.org.

Please apply by 11.59 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, August 9 to be considered.

U.S.-based Communications staff are typically employed by Coefficient Giving 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.

We may use AI to assist in the initial screening of applications, including to detect whether candidates have used AI models in drafting their application. Decisions are always made by a human on our team.

If you have any questions about our use of AI tools, you can email jobs@coefficientgiving.org.