Program Officer Senior Program Officer, Strategic Communications AI Governance and Policy

📋 Description

• • Own and evolve the strategic communications grantmaking portfolio for AI governance and policy, shaping how governments, civil society, and the public understand and respond to transformative AI risks.
• • Design and continuously refine a multi-year communications strategy that identifies the highest-leverage audiences (law-makers, regulators, journalists, technologists, and the general public), the messages that move them, and the timing that maximizes impact.
• • Proactively scope and launch new projects—ranging from national polling and message testing to rapid-response media campaigns—by spotting gaps in the current landscape and recruiting the best people or organizations to fill them.
• • Evaluate inbound proposals with rigor and speed, making funding decisions that can range from $50 k experiments to multi-million-dollar, multi-year initiatives, while balancing risk, tractability, and neglectedness.
• • Serve as a trusted thought-partner to grantees: pressure-test strategy, open doors to new networks, troubleshoot crises, and synthesize lessons learned so the entire field levels up faster.
• • Convene and facilitate cross-sector workshops, press briefings, and private round-tables that bring together AI researchers, policy makers, advocacy leaders, and communications professionals to align narratives and coordinate action.
• • Translate complex technical and policy concepts into clear, persuasive language for op-eds, talking points, white papers, and social content that can win hearts and minds without sacrificing accuracy.
• • Monitor the global media, policy, and technology landscape daily, flagging emerging threats or opportunities and recommending pivots in messaging or grantee support within hours—not weeks.
• • Advise internal program teams on how their funding choices or public statements will be perceived, helping avoid reputational pitfalls and amplify positive narratives across the portfolio.
• • Build and manage a small, high-performing team of communications specialists and analysts (especially at the Senior Program Officer level), setting vision, coaching for growth, and ensuring collective impact exceeds the sum of its parts.
• • Track and quantify the real-world influence of communications investments—shifts in public opinion, policy discourse, or regulatory timelines—and iterate strategy accordingly.
• • Travel regularly to Washington, D.C. and San Francisco for stakeholder meetings, grantee site visits, and convenings, while maintaining seamless remote collaboration with global colleagues.
• • Champion Coefficient Giving’s operating values—ownership, openness, calibration, and inclusiveness—by modeling transparent decision-making, soliciting dissent, and creating space for diverse voices in every conversation.
• • Contribute to the broader AI governance field by publishing lessons learned, speaking at conferences, and mentoring emerging leaders so that strategic communications capacity grows well beyond the grants you personally make.
• • Work cross-functionally with the Science & Global Health R&D, Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness, and Farm Animal Welfare teams to spot synergies where aligned communications can amplify impact across multiple cause areas.
• • Maintain a bias toward action: when a new AI breakthrough or policy crisis hits, you are the person who drafts the rapid-response plan, rallies the right partners, and secures the resources to execute—all before the news cycle moves on.