The Effective Institutions Project (EIP) is recruiting an AI Governance Senior Associate or Program Officer who will drive forward tens of millions of dollars in grantmaking across AI safety and AGI and democracy, with the possibility to influence more. We’re looking for someone to support our Senior Program Officer with evaluating individual opportunities, writing clearly for a donor audience, and big-picture thinking about new large-scale initiatives. The ideal candidate is creative, agentic, and capable of developing new AI project ideas for RFPs and project incubation.
About the Effective Institutions Project
Founded in 2021, EIP is a network of philanthropic and civic leaders striving to improve the quality of decision-making at important institutions around the world. We monitor national governments, major corporations, and multilateral bodies to determine what could shift their actions in ways that lead to better outcomes for all, and work in partnership with our global community of changemakers to respond to challenges and opportunities as they emerge.
Since EIP’s launch, we’ve:
- Recruited a founding board of directors featuring current and former leaders at some of the world’s largest private foundations and most important institutions
- Coordinated critical and timely funding for two organizations that played instrumental roles ensuring passage of the first major AI legislation in the Western world
- Convened dozens of funders collectively giving hundreds of millions of dollars in AI-related grants across four sensemaking workshops to identify and work through differences in goals and strategy
- Helped improve safety practices at a major AI research lab via increased investment and internal integration
- Pioneered the world’s first wellbeing cost-effectiveness framework tying the actions of key institutions to the empirical evidence on what outcomes drive life satisfaction
EIP is poised for major growth over the next two years and recently secured a multi-year, seven-figure grant commitment to increase our capacity and impact. Overall, we conservatively expect to oversee at least $45M in grantmaking over the next two years in the areas of AI governance, peace and security, global health, and institutional reform. We are developing relationships with donors who plan to give substantially higher amounts over their lifetimes.
About the role
EIP supports the giving of two family offices and a broader network of philanthropic partners. The AI Governance Senior Associate / Program Officer will spearhead day-to-day grantmaking to deliver highly cost-effective grant recommendations in AI safety with a secondary focus on AGI and democracy. One part of this task will involve refining the theory of change for our grantmaking and finding the top 20-40 funding targets. Another will involve developing plans for spending much larger amounts of capital to support the ambitions of donors in our network. The AI Governance Program Officer will work closely with Tyler John, our Senior Program Officer in AI, who has 5 years of experience directing $70m grants in AI governance and catastrophic risks.
The (Senior) AI Governance Program Officer will be responsible for leading the day-to-day work of AI grantmaking, including:
- Sourcing grant opportunities within AI safety and AGI and democracy
- Developing and evaluating theories of change for these opportunities for comparative cost-effectiveness
- Assessing key grantee details, such as track record, personnel, operations, and fungibility
- Managing relationships with grantees and advising them on productive directions for their work
- Communicating our theory of impact to donor advisees, especially in writing
- Coordinating with partner grantmaking organizations to share information relevant to new opportunities
- Managing and compare a list of shifting opportunities in an evolving landscape
- Ideally: creating new projects by identifying gaps in the space and using tools like seed funding, founder searches, and requests for proposal
- Ideally: scoping opportunities for very large fund deployment and analyzing key details
- Ideally: evaluating new, promising areas for AI grantmaking
Ideal profile
The work is fast-paced to match the constraints and opportunities of the external environment. Successful candidates will embrace the opportunity to develop areas of sustained expertise for the organization while actively seeking out unexpected connections across issue areas, geographies, and sectors. Our ideal candidate will have most if not all of the following:
- Strong ability to focus on what is most important
- Strong critical thinking skills and reasoning transparency, and an ability to express insights in clear written prose
- A willingness to move fast when needed
- Content expertise in AI safety, policy, or governance
- Fundamental trustworthiness with a strong ethical compass and high integrity
- An openness to new ideas and an appreciation for EIP’s analytical approach
- Appreciation for diverse perspectives and the importance of global representativeness across EIP’s networks and feedback loops
- Excellent organizational skills, reliability, and attention to detail
- Comfort with good-enough solutions, and with thinking both at the margin and at scale
- Direct, clear, and open communication
Beyond these core traits, we would be especially excited to hire a candidate with some of these exceptional qualities:
- Initiative-taking
- Ambition and risk appetite
- Capacity to think very big picture about the needs of a field and work backwards to a roadmap towards desirable outcomes
- Openness to working in areas of analysis outside of their experience and comfort zone
- Facility with forecasting, quantitative reasoning, and/or cost-effectiveness analysis
- Interest in and experience with AI and democracy or AI and geopolitics
Compensation and benefits
For a US-based candidate placed at the Senior Associate level, we expect the salary to start at approximately $80,000 per year with a benefits package including 20 days’ paid time off (on top of federal holidays and the last week of December), health insurance with option for family coverage, and a 5% 401(k) employer contribution on top of your salary.
Appointment at the Program Officer level would entail a starting salary of between $105,000-125,000 depending on experience. To evaluate candidates for placement at this level, we’ll look for indicators such as:
- Several years of highly relevant experience
- Being the principal decision-maker for a budget of USD $500,000 or more
- Experience autonomously overseeing major projects
We are open to hiring in most locations around the world, but prefer that the successful candidate work from the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, DC, or the Greater London Area. Candidates based in these locations will receive a $10,000 bonus each year on top of the base salary outlined above. We do our best to offer an equivalent compensation package regardless of location or country of residence. We require a minimum 4-hour overlap with US East Coast working hours (9am-5:30pm).
To apply
To apply, fill out our application form.
We will evaluate applications on a rolling basis and aim to fill the role in Q1/2026. Please note that we have a strong preference to trial working relationships with finalist candidates prior to making an offer, and will work with each finalist to arrange a short paid work trial that accommodates their schedule and existing commitments.
The Effective Institutions Project is committed to building a diverse applicant pool. We strongly encourage interested candidates to apply regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, physical ability, educational background, socioeconomic status, etc.