Program Specialist, Reporting Grants

Tarbell Center; Greater London; Remote; GBP 66,000 - 74,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days of annual leave

20 weeks parental leave

Professional development funding $2,0

Employer contribution towards pension/

US health plan for US-based employees

Flexible working hours

Job summary

Tarbell Center for AI Journalism seeks a Program Specialist, Reporting Grants to own and run our grantmaking for AI journalism. You will source pitches, manage the end-to-end grant process, and coordinate with our external review panel to fund impactful stories from freelancers to small outlets.

You will oversee a $400k–$800k annual grantmaking budget, help plan future expansion, and collaborate with Tarbell’s institutional grantmakers.

Qualifications

• Experience in journalism, including commissioning or editing
• Ability to redesign processes and drive improvements
• Proven track record in funding and grants decisions
• Strong writing and pitching skills
• Comfort working with multiple stakeholders across teams

Responsibilities

• Own and run the reporting grants program end-to-end
• Identify important AI journalism stories and source pitches
• Define the role of Tarbell's external judging panel and manage relationships
• Coordinate with institutional grantmakers to align grantmaking
• Grow and lead a small team when needed
• Track outcomes and report on impact to inform funding decisions
• Be flexible and contribute to broader Tarbell initiatives

Skills

Journalism experience

Grantmaking

Budget management

Commissioning/editing

Deadline driven

Job description

• London, San Francisco, New York or Washington DC preferred; US & UK remote possible
• Salary (UK): £66,000 - £82,000
• Salary (US): $110,000 - $139,000
• Apply by Sunday, November 15

Own and run the grants program that funds original reporting about AI, from freelancers or staff reporters.

The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism supports journalism that helps society navigate the development and deployment of advanced AI. We provide funding and training to strengthen AI reporting at major news outlets.

Since 2023, we’ve raised >$30M in funding and supported 75+ journalists through fellowships, grants, and residencies. We’re now entering a period of rapid expansion as we scale from a $4M budget in 2025 to $14M+ in 2027.

Across our programs, we’ve supported a wide range of impactful reporting:

We believe journalism will be essential to helping society understand and respond to AI advancements in the coming years. By 2030, we aim to grow Tarbell into the leading institution supporting AI journalism globally.

The opportunity

We’re hiring a Program Specialist, Reporting Grants because our grantmaking is growing fast and this program needs an owner. Reporting Grants funds original reporting by individual journalists, mostly freelancers, independent writers and small newsroom teams. Today that means awards of $1,000 to $20,000 for specific stories, and we’re expanding into larger grants that fund a reporter’s time on a beat for six months to a year.

Most funders of AI reporting are either specialists in AI who fund journalism occasionally, or specialists in journalism who fund AI coverage occasionally. We want to be the funder that knows both, and the people making our grants are what make that possible.

In this role, you’ll run the reporting program end to end, with a grantmaking budget of $400,000 – $800,000 a year, helping Tarbell distribute more than $10M by the end of 2027 in broader grantmaking. You’ll report to the Program Director, Grants, and have real ownership not only over what journalism the program funds, but over the design of the program itself, from how you source funding opportunities to the types of grants you make.

What you’ll do

• Own and run the reporting grants program. You’ll own and run our reporting grants program end-to-end, reporting to the Program Director, Grants. This means you’ll design and run the process for how to source and fund original reporting about AI from freelancers or staff reporters.
• Active grantmaking. You’ll identify the most important AI journalism stories that need to exist, and make them happen. You’ll decide how to source pitches, likely using a combination of open calls, rounds focused on a single priority area, closed calls to select editors and outlets, and proactive outreach to editors and reporters.
• Tarbell’s external judging panel. You will decide what role Tarbell’s external review panel will play in deciding what stories we fund, and own and manage the relationship with members of the panel.
• Complementing our institutional grantmaking. The reporting grants program you own will be one arm of a larger grantmaking operation, funding stories that fall outside Tarbell’s institutional partnerships. Your program will largely provide support to freelancers and independent journalists who aren’t attached to a newsroom and newsroom teams in need of additional funding for specific projects, and you will work closely with Tarbell’s institutional grantmakers to ensure efforts are joined up and complementary.
• Grow the team. Depending on how the portfolio develops, you could build and lead a growing team. This includes hiring, coaching, and developing your team members. “Hire the best, then invest” is a core operating value at Tarbell – you’ll help your people develop into increasingly senior roles with greater responsibility.
• Track and report on outcomes, including what gets published, where, and what difference it made, and use that to improve how we fund. You’ll take part in regular reviews of Tarbell’s priority areas, using what you see in the pitch pipeline to propose what we should add, change or drop.
• Help build Tarbell. As a small team, we all step in where we’re needed. You’ll occasionally take on work outside this description, and we’ll make sure it helps you grow.

In your first 6 months, success looks like:

• You’ve run two full application rounds, from call for pitches through to decisions and grant agreements.
• You’ve made at least two grants via proactive outreach. For example, by working with an editor to fund stories that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
• You’ve scoped at least one grant that falls outside of Tarbell’s usual grant design and either piloted it or brought a proposal to the Program Director for decision. For example, this could be a 6-month grant to a freelancer to report on AI, not tied to a particular story.

Who we’re looking for

You’ll be a great fit if you:

• Have experience working in journalism, ideally including in commissioning or editing. You’ve killed pitches that sounded good and backed ones that didn’t, and you can explain why.
• Are energized by redesigning a process rather than administering one, and have evidence of having done it.
• Can run rounds to deadline while protecting time for program design work and strategic thinking that has no deadline.
• Write clearly: you’ll draft funding recommendations, decline notes to good journalists, and public calls for pitches.
• Have a keen sense of which journalism is impactful versus pieces that are just nice-to-have.
• Care about Tarbell’s mission to support journalism that helps society navigate the development and deployment of advanced AI.

It’s a bonus if you:

• Have covered AI, or can show you follow the field closely enough to judge whether a pitch is new.
• Are comfortable using AI tools to automate the chasing, screening and prep work that would otherwise eat your week.
• Have experience or an interest in managing people
• Have experience administering grants or managing a budget.

Compensation and benefits

• Starting salary per location, with your offer based on your experience:
  • US remote $110,000-$123,000
  • Washington DC $115,000-$128,000
  • New York City $119,000-$133,000
  • San Francisco $124,000-$139,000
  • UK remote £66,000-£74,000
  • London £74,000-£82,000
• 33 days of annual leave in total
• 20 weeks of paid parental leave
• $2,000 per year in professional development funding
• Up to 5% employer contribution towards a standard pension/401(k)
• For employees based in the US: Gold health, dental, and vision plans, with 95% of employee premiums paid for by Tarbell
• Flexible working hours; productive, collaborative offices in London

For the right candidate, we’re flexible on location, as long as you can overlap with some of our team’s working hours. We do give preference to applicants based in the following locations in the UK and US: London, Washington D.C. New York, or the San Francisco Bay Area. London-based candidates will be expected to work from our office two days a week. As we open offices in other locations, the same expectation will apply there.

We acknowledge every application and aim to get back to candidates within 10 business days of the application deadline. Our ideal start date is February 2027.

Tarbell is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate against qualified employees or applicants based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, sexual preference, marital status, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law or local ordinance.