Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications

Kindora; United States; On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

GiveWell is seeking a Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications to translate research, grantmaking, and ideas into high‑quality messages across audiences. You will lead major initiatives, advise senior leaders, and coordinate across teams to strengthen the organization’s communications capacity.

You will build and manage a small team, own end‑to‑end communications, and drive strategic initiatives that align with GiveWell’s evolving mission and impact.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience developing institutional narratives and messaging.
• Experience advising senior leaders and communicating complex material.
• Proven leadership and cross-functional initiative experience.

Responsibilities

• Own brand positioning across teams, channels, and partnerships.
• Lead messaging that is rigorous, clear, and accessible to diverse audiences.
• Translate research and ideas into tailored messages for key audiences.
• Lead donor communications strategy in collaboration with Philanthropy.
• Drive cross‑functional campaigns and high‑priority initiatives.
• Advise senior leaders on audiences, framing, risks, and opportunities.
• Shape internal and external messaging in line with organizational goals.
• Oversee website strategy and external communications execution.
• Manage and grow a small communications team.

Skills

Strategic Communications

Leadership

Stakeholder Engagement

Narrative Development

Cross-functional Collaboration

Job description

GiveWell’s mission is to help people in need as much as we can by researching the most cost‑effective ways to save and improve lives, sharing our work openly, and directing donations to the programs we believe will do the most good.

Our work, which focuses on global health and well-being, is funded by tens of thousands of donors who rely on our research to inform their giving. We’ve grown from directing $1.5 million in 2010 to directing more than $400 million in 2025.

We anticipate our total grantmaking is likely to approach or even exceed $1 billion this year, and we are working toward a future that could be several times that scale.

Through years of deliberate groundwork, we’ve been growing our research capacity and scope in order to direct substantially more funding to the most impactful opportunities we can find.

We’re hiring a Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications to lead GiveWell’s development of messaging and narratives that explain its work across different audiences and contexts.

You will translate the organization’s increasingly diverse and complex work into clear, accurate communications and lead major initiatives that require close coordination across GiveWell.

This role reports to Steven Profaizer, our Vice President of Communications, and will lead a small and growing team.

This is one of three new communications leadership roles, alongside a Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs and a Senior Communications Officer, Editorial & Production.

About the role

Both our research and impact are expanding.

Last year, we directed more than $400 million to highly cost‑effective programs that save and improve lives. This year, we expect our grantmaking to approach, and possibly exceed, $1 billion.

To build toward the communications capacity this next stage requires, we are rapidly expanding our team.

Together with the Vice President of Communications, the three new Senior Communications Officers will form GiveWell’s communications leadership team. Each leader will own their function, but much of the work that matters most—like team strategies, major initiatives, partnership campaigns, and how we present the organization as a whole—will involve all three.

We will expect this group to set shared priorities and work closely together to achieve the team’s goals.

In this hands‑on leadership position, you’ll own how GiveWell explains its work across different audiences and contexts, with end‑to‑end responsibility for this emerging function.

You’ll set its strategy, hire and develop its people, build its systems, and personally own its hardest and most consequential work. This is an opportunity to build, not just inherit, an important function at a critical point in GiveWell’s development.

You’ll start with a small team and grow it over time.

While this role is set at the Senior Communications Officer level, we may consider hiring an exceptional candidate as a Communications Director—with greater expectations, responsibilities, and compensation.

What You'll Do

As Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications, you will be responsible for translating GiveWell’s research, grantmaking, and ideas into messages, frameworks, and products across a variety of channels and contexts.

You will also lead major communications initiatives, advise senior leaders and teams, and help GiveWell assess and respond to emerging communications opportunities and risks.

Specific duties will include:

• Own how GiveWell’s brand positioning and guidelines are applied across teams, channels, and partnership communications, and work closely with the Vice President of Communications on developing and maintaining them.
• Own the messaging and narrative that make GiveWell’s work accessible and relevant without sacrificing rigor, precision, or clarity about uncertainty.
• Translate GiveWell’s research, grantmaking, and ideas into messages and frameworks tailored to the audiences we most need to reach.
• Partner with Philanthropy on GiveWell’s donor communications strategy and lead donor-facing communications that require new or tailored messaging.
• Lead complex, cross‑functional communications initiatives, including major partnership campaigns and other high‑priority communications involving grantees and external partners.
• Serve as a strategic communications advisor to senior leaders and teams across GiveWell, bringing a clear point of view on audiences, framing, opportunities, and risks.
• Lead GiveWell’s internal assessment of emerging issues that may affect the organization and develop our position and messaging, working with relevant teams and the Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs.
• Own the strategic direction and institutional messaging for GiveWell’s website, working with communications colleagues on execution.
• Own GiveWell’s internal communications strategy and major internal communications, helping our growing organization stay informed and aligned.
• Manage and develop one or two team members initially, and help determine how the function’s team, systems, and capabilities should grow over time.

AboutYou

You are skilled at using communications to help people understand complex ideas, build trust, and take action.

You are comfortable being accountable for outcomes, making consequential decisions with limited oversight, and knowing which decisions genuinely require escalation.

You are energized by intellectually demanding work, and the challenges of creating engaging communications within a careful and precise style.

You can engage deeply with GiveWell’s research, and you are comfortable understanding and communicating about data in detail. You have a long track record of getting up to speed quickly on complex subject matter and carefully communicating to a very high standard.

You can build a compelling narrative that is entirely factual, representing what is known and unknown without overstating or hedging into vagueness—and you find the idea of working with GiveWell’s exacting communications standards exciting rather than limiting.

Your background includes significant experience leading communications in complex, high‑stakes environments.

This should include 10+ years of experience developing institutional narratives and messaging, advising senior leaders, communicating complex or technical material, and leading cross‑functional initiatives. You have deep experience owning that work end to end, not just contributing to it.

You’ve remained a hands‑on leader who enjoys the work itself, as well as the strategy and systems behind it.

You can assess a situation from multiple angles, determine what an organization should say and how it should frame the issue, and turn that judgment into messages and communications that others can use.

Experience with organizational positioning, brand strategy, donor communications, web strategy, and internal communications is desired, but we do not expect every candidate to have worked extensively in all of these areas.

In addition to demonstrated expertise in the duties listed above, you should have:

• Exceptional communications judgment, including the ability to understand audience, context, risk, timing, and the underlying substance of a message.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to quickly make complex ideas clear and compelling without sacrificing rigor or nuance.
• A track record of building and leading: you have created or substantially rebuilt a team or function—not only run ones you inherited—and you have hired, developed, and managed people.
• Recent, hands‑on excellence at your craft: you can point to work from the past few years that you personally produced or substantially shaped.
• Experience producing communications that are direct and factual while being engaging and effective with their target audiences—work that succeeds through substance and clarity rather than embellishment.
• Intellectual curiosity and the ability to engage