Senior Climate Researcher & Grantmaker

Founders Pledge; United States; Hybrid; USD 158,000 - 193,000; Full time

Job summary

Founders Pledge seeks a Senior Climate Researcher & Grantmaker to identify, analyze, and model strategies that maximize climate grant impact globally. You will guide grantmaking with rigorous research and collaborate across research and grantmaking teams. Senior, highly collaborative role with development pathways.

Reporting to the Climate Lead, you’ll work on strategic funding direction, engaging with donors and climate experts to drive high-impact outcomes.

Qualifications

• Proven track record in climate policy or climate economics.
• Strong numeracy and ability to model impacts with messy data.
• Experience leading complex, senior-level research projects.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for donors and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Identify, analyze, and model strategies to maximize climate grants impact.
• Lead and collaborate on research and grantmaking execution with the climate team.
• Engage with funders, policymakers, and climate organizations at high-level events.

Skills

Climate policy

Quantitative analysis

Grantmaking

Communication

Education

Advanced degree in social sciences with quantitative focus

Job description

At Founders Pledge, our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to do immense good with their charitable giving. Since launching in 2015, our community of over 2,300 members has pledged nearly $13.6B and donated $1.9B+ to the charitable sector in 45+ countries.

We provide end-to-end giving infrastructure, pioneering research, and access to a global network of experts. In other words, we help tech leaders become strategic philanthropists. Our members include founders and leaders behind companies such as Airbnb, UiPath, Dropbox, Skype, Spotify, and Uber.

We focus on deploying capital where it can achieve the greatest impact, guided by evidence, careful analysis, and long-term thinking.

Salary:

Up to £130k / $175k / €155k, depending on location and experience

About the Role

We’re hiring a Senior Climate Researcher & Grantmaker to join our Climate Research Team. You’ll be responsible for identifying, analyzing, and modeling strategies to maximize the impact of climate-related grants, helping us direct tens of millions of dollars toward the most effective climate interventions globally. As a core part of the climate team, you’ll be critical to driving the growth of our Climate Fund.

You’ll report to our Climate Lead, Johannes Ackva, acting as a key thought-partner in guiding our strategy, while working closely with Founders Pledge’s broader research and grantmaking teams. This is a senior, highly collaborative role: you’ll be deeply involved in both rigorous research and grantmaking execution. We encourage applications from a broad spectrum of senior professionals - from academic social scientists to seasoned climate policy experts and experienced grantmakers.

This role is perfect for someone with a broad contextualist understanding of the climate landscape, who is eager to make a massive real-world difference, and is energized by smart, curious teammates. Depending on your career goals, this role offers tailored development pathways - whether you want to lean into building managerial capabilities or further sharpening your expertise at the frontier of research methodology.

Since 2017, our rigorous evaluations of climate change interventions have garnered attention from major outlets such as the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Heatmap News, Volts,Vox, and 80,000 Hours. You can watch a recent podcast discussing our work here, and you can read more about our research here and the grantmaking direction you would contribute to here.

What You’ll Do

• Analyze global climate intervention strategies to evaluate their effectiveness, aligning findings with our high-impact funding priorities.
• Represent the views of FP’s climate team in the media and at high-level gatherings of philanthropists, policymakers, and other climate organizations.
• Develop relationships with potential grantees, other funders, and experts across the climate and energy ecosystem.
• Assess complex funding opportunities for strategic alignment and impact, delivering clear, evidence-based recommendations.
• Work with quantitative decision-support tools to model uncertainties and impacts.
• Conduct focused, short-term investigations (typically under one week) on topics such as policy dynamics, emissions trends, and climate damage assessments.

Examples of projects you may engage in during your first months:

• Evaluate and compare competing theories of change (e.g. innovation advocacy vs. carbon lock-in avoidance) using literature reviews, expert consultation, and quantitative modeling.
• Attend international climate summits to network with other grantmakers and potential grantees on behalf of the team.
• Model the impact and cost-effectiveness of diverse interventions, like clean energy ecosystem development in emerging markets or alternative protein promotion via risk reduction strategies.
• Conduct detailed evaluations of specific funding opportunities to estimate their net impact on global climate outcomes.
• Identify gaps in climate philanthropy by analyzing global decarbonization efforts and highlighting severely underfunded areas.

What We’re Looking For

To be successful in this role, you need to have a broad, contextualist understanding of the climate landscape, meaning you understand how different technologies, policies, and global strategies interact rather than being specialized in just one narrow niche. You’ll also be energized by the idea of pushing the methodological frontier. At Founders Pledge, we don’t just apply existing frameworks; we build our own. You’ll be excited to adopt, rigorously test, and actively co‑develop our unique grantmaking methodology as part of an intellectually integrated team.

More specifically, we’re looking for:

• A proven professional track record within climate policy, climate economics, or closely related fields, demonstrating a mature, established understanding of the ecosystem.
• A high degree of numeracy and a willingness to apply these abilities to model impacts, even in situations where data is messy, uncertain, or hard to come by.
• Proven ability to independently lead complex, senior-level research projects from conception to delivery.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex, technical climate concepts into clear insights for donors and stakeholders.
• A strong desire to work within a highly integrated team. This means actively adopting and co‑developing our shared frameworks, helping colleagues solve bottleneck problems, and pulling together toward comparative choices across highly diverse opportunities.
• Comfort and willingness to represent Founders Pledge at major conferences, summits, and donor events.
• To be ideologically flexible and open to a wide range of solutions to climate change, rather than being wedded to a specific approach or dogmatic framework.

Nice to have:

• An advanced degree in the social sciences with a quantitative focus (e.g., quantitative political science, economics, quantitative sociology, public policy, or climate policy/economics).
• Specific expertise in innovation policy in OECD economies, or a deep knowledge of China’s climate and energy sectors.
• Direct professional experience with complex energy systems or structured grantmaking processes.

Location and Travel Requirements

UK, USA (preferably East Coast), or Germany. We are open to remote or hybrid candidates.

We have offices in London, New York and San Francisco and our team are either office based, hybrid or fully remote.

We have in-person Research team offsites plus one global annual retreat for the entire global team.

Why Work With Us?

You’ll work with a small, focused team of people who care deeply about what we do and how we do it, and you’ll have a real impact on the productivity of our Research team and great exposure to high-impact giving, from day one.

You can find more about the benefits we offer here, but what makes Founders Pledge genuinely special is the combination of mission and people. We're a diverse team, from both charitable and commercial backgrounds, who believe remarkable things happen when people tackle hard problems together. We offer a flat structure, real ownership, and a chance to help shape the future of strategic philanthropy.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Founders Pledge. We seek people with different strengths, experiences, and backgrounds who share our drive to understand and solve complex social challenges. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Finding solutions to the world's most pressing problems requires different perspectives and unique ways of thinking, and we are committed to building a workplace where everyone can do their best work.

Please note:

• All applications are screened for AI-generated content; submissions suspected of using AI-generated answers will be disqualified.
• Candidates will undergo a rigorous selection process including a technical assessment to evaluate quantitative and analytical skills.