Application Deadline: January 8, 2023 at the end of day in your local time zone.

Q&A Webinar: December 15, 2022, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EST. If you’d like, you can anonymously submit questions here and join the webinar here. The webinar will be recorded and made available on our Careers Page.

Note Before Applying: We invite anyone who is interested to apply, and will assess applications primarily based on anonymized prompt answers, so please ensure they represent your fit for the position well. We will advance candidates to the next stages based on their quality of responses during our hiring process, putting only minimal weight on CVs and references. Please do not include a cover letter, photograph, or headshot of yourself, or any personal information that is not relevant to the role for which you’re applying (including marital status, age, identity traits, etc.). Additionally, please do not ask our staff members involved in the hiring process to meet with you – to ensure fairness, we try to minimize these interactions, and requests for meetings with the hiring committee members during the process will be declined.

Contact: Please email careers@rethinkpriorities.org if you have any questions.

About the Role

The development professional will be in charge of bringing in new funding to enable sustainable growth for Rethink Priorities (RP). Thanks to their networks with donors in effective altruism (EA) cause areas, the person in this position will be able to access new and, ideally, unrestricted sources of funding for our work. Specifically, the development professional will be responsible for prospecting and cultivating relationships with several new donors with the capacity to give at least $100,000 USD a year toward our annual budget of about $10 million. The person will also help us strengthen relationships with existing donors, both individual and institutional. The successful candidate will join our Operation department’s Development and Communications team, soon to be composed of at least four people, and report to the Director of Development.

We are interested in hearing from candidates who have relevant experience in fundraising in effective altruism and adjacent communities. That being said, we are open to receiving applications from strong candidates with varying levels of seniority. The title and compensation level will be commensurate with the candidate’s experience and the level of responsibilities they can assume. The most senior title available for this role is the Senior Development Officer and the most junior is Development Coordinator. Please see the “What we offer” section for details.

This role is fully remote and we are able to hire in many countries. While we welcome applicants from all time zones, you will be expected to attend meetings during working hours between UTC-5 and UTC+3 time zones, where most of our staff are based. This role is open to full-time and part-time candidates who are available for at least 20 hours per week.

Key Responsibilities

General Responsibilities:

Articulate a compelling case for unrestricted financial support to Rethink Priorities’ work
Map opportunities to access new sources of funding
Solicit major gifts from new funders
Deepen engagement with existing and potential supporters
Help identify what new materials and formats (brochures, presentations, etc.) RP should develop to inform donors about our work; work closely with colleagues and contractors to develop the necessary materials
Occasionally advise new projects supported by the Special Projects Program at Rethink Priorities on their fundraising
Work with the Director of Development and other organizational leadership to adapt Rethink Priorities’ fundraising strategy to the organization’s overall strategy and growth plans

For a more senior candidate with relevant experience in EA or with a track record of several years of professional experience, the role would also entail the following:

Full responsibility for developing a plan for growing our base of medium to large donors
Lots of freedom in pursuing new opportunities and trying out novel strategies
Sole responsibility for entire portfolios
Key role in strategy-setting for the development team
Potential management of future hires for the team

For a more junior candidate with a good understanding of the EA space and relevant networks, we would provide the following support to help the staff member succeed in their responsibilities:

Guidance and mentorship from the Director of Development
Opportunities for relevant training
Support from several members of the executive team (including input, sharing resources and networks, making introductions)
Room for professional growth and the space to explore and test out different development strategies

Skills, Competencies, Knowledge and Experience

Essential skills, competencies, knowledge, and experience

Fundraising experience:

Experience in a development role or similar position
Experience attracting major funding from a variety of sources
Existing networks in effective altruism and adjacent communities, especially with funders
Demonstrated ability to think strategically and exercise good judgment in identifying new sources of funding

Content knowledge:

Solid and nuanced understanding of EA and longtermism
Clear interest in RP’s mission and the cause areas in which we work (e.g. AI governance, animal welfare, EA movement research, global health and development, and longtermism)

Communication skills:

Excellent verbal and good written communication skills in English
Ability to communicate key elements of our research to our stakeholders in a nuanced way
Social acumen to engage funders in motivating personal communication

Interpersonal skills/mindset:

Intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness (willing to carefully consider colleagues’ ideas and comfortable explaining your own reasoning)
Resourcefulness and ability to problem-solve
Creativity and initiative for developing new ideas and strategies
Comfort with remote work and asynchronous collaboration using technologies such as G Suite (we're a remote-first organization with staff in multiple time zones)

Desired skills, competencies, knowledge, and experience

Experience volunteering or working in the EA field
Several years of working with major gifts
Large existing networks of donors to EA and longtermist causes
Understanding of the cryptocurrency space
Specialized knowledge and networks in one or several of the cause areas we work on (AI governance, animal welfare, EA movement research, global health and development, and longtermism)

What we Offer

Compensation:

Annual salary between the following ranges for a full-time position depending on the title (ranging from Development Coordinator to Senior Development Officer), prorated for part-time work:
$80,155 - $115,235 USD pre-tax
£66,189 - £94,368 GBP pre-tax
€77,650 - €110,846 EUR pre-tax
The exact salary will be based on the candidate’s prior relevant experience and corresponding title level, and calculated using RP’s salary algorithm. RP does not negotiate salaries to ensure fairness.
Compensation is not restricted to the currencies listed above. Payments may be made in different currencies and payment intervals depending on the location of applicants and legal requirements.

Other Benefits:

Opportunity to contribute to a fast-growing, high-impact organization—our research is used by key decision makers who influence the distributions of hundreds of millions of charitable dollars.
Flexible work hours and location.
Comprehensive global benefits package (while our benefits vary country by country, we make every effort to ensure that our benefit package is equitable and high-quality across all the countries where our staff is located). Generous paid time off leave, including, but not limited to:
Unlimited vacation with a minimum of 30 days off per year (including public local holidays, vacation time, and “mandated” 3-weeks total mid- and end-year organization-wide breaks).
Unlimited (within reason) personal and sick leave.
Parental leave - up to 6 months of parental leave during the first 2 years after a child’s birth or adoption (regardless of gender).
For more details about our benefits, see: Benefit Package for Permanent Roles
A caring team that looks out for each other, is friendly, respectful, and values having a healthy work-life balance.
Opportunities to grow/advance your career and engage in professional development.
Low administrative bureaucracy.
We don’t provide snacks but we could mail you a box of Oreos if you want!

Additional Information:

Extension requests: We will try to accommodate extension requests that are made before the deadline and are up to seven (7) days. We generally cannot accommodate extension requests made on or after the application deadline, or are longer than 7 days, and cannot accept late submissions to ensure fairness to other applicants.
Language: Please submit all of your application materials in English and note that we require professional level English proficiency.
Travel: A majority of our staff travel a few times per year for conferences, team and all-staff retreats, coworking, as well as other work-related purposes. In many cases, travel is not mandatory, but encouraged. Please do not be discouraged from applying due to travel restrictions, if travel is not listed as an essential requirement for the role. Where possible, “virtual participation” option or other accommodations could be offered.
Accessibility: We’re committed to running an inclusive and accessible application process. We warmly invite you to reach out to careers@rethinkpriorities.org with any questions or accessibility requests such as chat box use during interviews.
Inclusivity and fairness: RP is committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and supportive community for you to thrive and do your best work. We’re committed to finding the best people for our team, so please don’t hesitate to apply for a role regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, personal preferences, physical abilities, veteran status, neurodiversity or any other background. We provide reasonable accommodations and benefits, including for example, flexible work schedules and locations, mental health coverage in medical benefits (as available), as well as technology budgets and professional development time that can be used, for example, to purchase assistive technology or engage in job coaching.
Other: Visit our Career Opportunities webpage if you’d like to know more about our hiring process, culture, and what working at RP is like.

About Rethink Priorities

Founded in 2018, Rethink Priorities (RP) is a nonprofit organization that addresses global priorities—important and neglected issues—by researching solutions and strategies, and mobilizing resources, and empowering our team and others. RP’s mission is to generate the most significant possible impact for others in the present and the long-term future.

Our cause areas include animal welfare, artificial intelligence, climate change, global health and development, and other work to safeguard a flourishing long-term future. RP also aims to understand and support those working on these issues.

Rethink Priorities works as all of the following:

A consultancy doing commissioned work in response to demands from organizations aligned with effective altruism (EA).
A research institute driven by research agendas we set according to our own priorities.
A think tank aiming to inform public policy to improve the world.
An accelerator, incubator, and base for priority projects.

Some of our recent accomplishments include:

Helping major foundations to answer their questions on climate change solutions, weather forecasting in lower- and middle-income countries, increasing access to medicine, and the effectiveness of prizes and other interventions.
Comparing the capacity of different animal species to experience pleasure and pain to help philanthropists decide how to allocate funding.
Investigating various animal welfare interventions, as well as bringing to light the neglected areas of invertebrate and insect welfare.
Publishing pieces on nanotechnology and ways to use forecasting to improve the long-term future, as well as supporting those interested in these types of topics.
Launching a Special Projects Team to incubate promising new initiatives, such as Epoch (a new AI research organization) and Condor Camp (EA and longtermism movement-building in Brazil and Latin America).
Conducting surveys to better understand the EA community, the general public’s familiarity with EA and their attitudes towards related issues over time as well as message testing specific issues for various EA groups.

We welcome you to review our database of published work here.

We’re supported by Open Philanthropy, Effective Altruism Funds, the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and additional institutional and individual donors.