Giving What We Can (GWWC) is seeking a Research Communicator to help us communicate effectively to a wide audience about our research and about effective giving more generally. This is a role for a generalist with strong writing skills, a solid understanding of basic effective giving concepts, and an ability to take a results-oriented approach to communications.
About the role
Your primary responsibility will be creating, updating and improving content and tools for our website, with the aim to inspire, guide and support donors to give more, and more effectively. This may include writing and testing introductory content on core effective giving concepts; providing guidance to help donors choose among donation options based on their values/worldviews; and presenting the results of our upcoming evaluating the evaluators project.
We’re excited about creative and compelling ways of communicating effective giving concepts and our research. Exploring visual or non-written ways of presenting our work (with support from the marketing and product teams) as well as the use of strong storytelling in our communications is encouraged.
In addition, you will flexibly take up research assistant and operations work in the research team, such as updating the data feeding into our How Rich Am I Calculator, communicating with organisations on our platform, and implementing new recommendations on our website.
You will be a part of the GWWC research team and report directly to the Director of Research, but will often work on cross-team projects with our marketing and product teams.
Ultimately your work helps ensure that highly effective charities have the resources they need so that they can focus on saving and significantly improving lives now and for generations to come.
About Giving What We Can
Giving What We Can (GWWC) is on a mission to create a world in which giving effectively and significantly is a cultural norm.
We believe that charitable donations can do an astonishing amount of good. However, because the effectiveness of different charities varies wildly, it is important that we donate to the most effective charities if we want to have a significant impact.
At its core, Giving What We Can is participating in the project of effective altruism: trying to use our resources to do the most good. Giving What We Can specifically focuses on one particular resource: money, in the context of charitable donations.
We are focused on increasing the number of donors who prioritise effectiveness, helping them to maximise their charitable impact throughout their lives, and introducing them to the broader effective altruism movement. We are best known for the Giving What We Can Pledge where over 8,000 people have pledged to give over 10% of their income to high impact charities.
Like other organisations pursuing the effective altruism project, the GWWC team is hard working, mission-focused and has a culture of open and honest feedback. We'd also like to think of ourselves as a particularly friendly and optimistic bunch, with a fairly horizontal organisational structure.
In all our work, we strive to take a positive and collaborative attitude, be transparent in our communication and decision-making, and adopt a scout mindset to guide us towards doing the most good we can do, including by evaluating our own impact and learning from the results. You can read more about our current strategy here.
About you
You are passionate about effective giving, excited by our values, and you enjoy communicating complex ideas in an accessible way. You are keen to test and iterate on various approaches, and to follow the data on what works best. You are able and willing to take on a wide variety of tasks depending on what’s needed, and to work across multiple teams.
Essential skills, traits and experience
- A passion for making the world a better place
- Ability to explain complex concepts in a clear, easy-to-understand and compelling way
- Strong grasp of key concepts in effective giving and effective altruism
- A scout mindset and a strong commitment to communicating accurately and truthfully
- Excellent written communication skills
- Willingness and ability to take a creative, data-driven and results-oriented approach to communication
- Generalist skills and flexibility and adaptability to the types of work needed at various times
Desirable skills, traits and experience
- Experience in (science) communication, e.g. writing blogs or articles, designing tools or explainers
- Experience in or knowledge of charity evaluation or other research relevant to effective giving
- Experience with marketing tools such as A/B testing, multivariate testing
- Experience with creative forms of communications such as storytelling, graphic design, video or art
Confidence can hold us back. Keep in mind there is no such thing as a perfect candidate — we also value success in the work tests more than previous experience. If you are excited about this role and think that you might be a fit, we encourage you to apply!
Salary, benefits and location
This is a full-time role with a permanent contract after a 3-month probationary period.
Location is flexible provided the candidate can attend regular meetings compatible with various time zones (most of our core team are based in Europe and Australia with partners, stakeholders and affiliates all over the world). In general, do not let your location or time zone hold you back from applying.
Salary for candidates based in Oxford, UK is £38,000 to £48,000 depending on experience, with some flexibility above this range for an exceptional candidate. Salaries for candidates who work in a different location will be decided based on location and skills.
UK benefits include health, dental, and vision insurance, flexible work hours, a £1,000 annual training budget, extended parental leave, ergonomic equipment, a 3% pension contribution, and 25 days of paid vacation. We have similar benefits in other locations.
Giving What We Can is a project of the Effective Ventures group, the umbrella term for Effective Ventures Foundation (England and Wales registered charity number 1149828, registered company number 07962181, and also a Netherlands registered tax-deductible entity ANBI 825776867) and Effective Ventures Foundation USA, Inc. (a section 501(c)(3) public charity in the USA, EIN 47-1988398). We have partner organisations in various countries where this role could be based.
Application process
Please apply here. Applications close Sunday May 28th 23:59 UTC.
Our hiring process involves five stages (applicants will be compensated for their time spent on stages 2-3):
- Application form (~20-60 minutes)
- Written work test (~2 hours)
- Work trial (~10 hours)
- Interview, online over Zoom (~1 hour)
- Reference checks
We are aiming to conduct stages 2-4 during June 1st-23rd and hope to find a candidate who can start by July 3rd, though this is not a requirement.
Please contact sjir@givingwhatwecan.org if you have questions or need special accommodations.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our organisation. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.
We are happy to make any reasonable accommodations necessary to welcome all to our workplace. Please contact us to discuss adjustments to the application process.