Program Officer- Livelihoods

GiveWell

📍Remote (Global) 🕔 Full Time
💰$205,600 - $226,800 USD 🔄 Rolling Applications

We're hiring a Program Officer to scale up GiveWell's livelihoods grantmaking. This work will evaluate and recommend cost-effective programs that have the main aim of increasing income and consumption for people in extreme poverty. While we’ve previously made some grants to livelihoods programs, we've historically mostly funded programs that aim to avert death and disease.

As a Program Officer leading the development of the portfolio, you will be a senior leader on this team, responsible for setting its grantmaking strategy and making recommendations that will shape its size and direction. If you find there is substantial cost-effective grantmaking potential, you may have the chance to grow the team and scale up the impact of our livelihoods investments. This is an exciting opportunity to help shape GiveWell’s thinking and funding in a space that is both underexplored and potentially high-impact.

The Role

As the Livelihoods Program Officer, you will: 

• Establish and develop GiveWell's livelihoods portfolio strategy and execution:

  • Develop a strategic vision for GiveWell's livelihoods grantmaking. This will consist of formulating and testing hypotheses on the most promising investment areas in livelihoods. In time, we envision you becoming a leader among peers in this space.

  • Expand GiveWell's portfolio of livelihoods grants. This will include:

    • Identifying investment areas which are (or have the potential to be) highly cost effective and can absorb substantial funding

    • Carrying out evidence review and building cost-effectiveness models for these areas 

    • Investigating and recommending grant opportunities, including piloting new programs and conducting impact evaluations where appropriate

    • Developing methodologies for evaluating our grants' effectiveness both before and after a grant is made

    • Establishing high standards for the quality and rigor of our grant investigations and learning agendas across the portfolio

• Lead GiveWell’s external engagement and build relationships in the livelihoods space:

  • Build a strong network of expert advisors in the global development and livelihoods space

  • Represent GiveWell at conferences and external events

  • Communicate effectively with select donors about our livelihoods work

  • Develop strong relationships with implementing partners and grantees

  • Proactively engage with other funders in the space to (a) better understand how we can fill gaps and (b) share our research to support others’ decision making

• Contribute to GiveWell's broader research and organizational goals:

  • Uphold GiveWell’s core values: maximizing global well-being, truth-seeking, transparency, and considerateness 

  • Provide input on team structure, capacity needs, and research priorities

  • Participate in recruiting and hiring efforts

  • Identify improvements to research methodologies and grantmaking processes

  • Invest in the professional development of junior members of our research team

• Potentially establish and manage a small team conducting world-class research:

  • Make a recommendation as to whether and how GiveWell should further staff the livelihoods team

  • If we decide to create a small team, strategically prioritize team capacity to drive the highest-impact grantmaking opportunities

About You

The strongest candidates will have 10+ years of professional experience, a significant portion of which was used in similar or closely-related roles. In addition to relevant experience with the responsibilities listed above, we’ll be looking for someone with a strong track record of:

• Rigorous analysis and critical thinking 

• Creating and using quantitative analysis and cost-effectiveness modeling 

• Strategic thinking and track record of self-directed execution (You'll be developing our portfolio strategy from scratch, so we need someone who takes ownership and drives results without close supervision.)

• Getting things done in environments with competing priorities and multiple workstreams

• Building relationships with diverse stakeholders 

• Excellent written and verbal communication, with an emphasis on directness and clarity

Preferentially but not by requirement, we’d like to find someone with experience:

• Engaging with livelihoods-focused programs and global development work

• Reviewing randomized controlled trials and impact evaluations, particularly those measuring consumption in low-income countries

• Engaging with development economics literature and current debates in the field

• Overseeing large budgets and/or grant portfolios

We also expect that people with the soft qualities below will be the most successful on our team. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but we hope it conveys the gist of our team’s professional personality:

• GiveWell’s mission and methods are personally motivating and energizing.

• You’re curious and a team player—you ask lots of questions, and you’re willing to interrogate your own and others’ work.  You provide feedback in a considerate and constructive way, and are open to changing your mind as a result of others' input.

• You routinely think about and surface the assumptions that underpin your conclusions. You understand the potential effects of mistaken mental models, so you strive to improve yours.

• You especially appreciate it when people explicitly and clearly communicate about their confidence levels, and when their level of confidence is commensurate with the strength of the available evidence.

• You love a gnarly problem. You figure out the most important questions to answer, go deep on the details where they matter (and move on where they don’t), and reassess your starting points based on what you’ve learned.