Jobs & Marketplace

Senior Program Officer, Election Trust Initiative, LLC

About the Organization:
The Election Trust Initiative, LLC is a non-partisan grant-making organization providing support to nonpartisan research, resources, and organizations that help election officials strengthen election administration. Launched in 2023, the Initiative’s founding partners are the Pew Charitable Trusts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Klarman Family Foundation. Election Trust Initiative operates as a subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts, a section 501(c)(3) public charity.

Position Overview:
The senior program officer is part of a small project team that works to advance evidence-based and nonpartisan solutions that improve the accessibility, integrity, and trustworthiness of the U.S. election administration system. This position will work with the team and our partners to develop and oversee strategies to strengthen the field of election administration, identify and vet grantees, provide business planning and capacity building support to key organizations in the field, develop metrics to assess and monitor the portfolio’s progress in attaining its objectives, and coordinate strategies with allied philanthropic partners also investing in the elections sector. This work will involve building relationships with elections officials, researchers, policymakers, non-profit organizations, donors, and other key stakeholders.

The position is based in Washington, D.C. and will participate in core office days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and will have flexibility to work from home for the remainder of each week. The position has a fixed time frame that may be extended based on the success of the program, funding sources and board and decisions on continued support. The position will report to the executive director of the Election Trust Initiative.

Responsibilities :
Strategic Planning
Develop extensive assessments of long-term and emerging questions, challenges, and opportunities facing the field of election administration working closely with key stakeholders, advisors, philanthropic partners, innovators in the private sector and the broader project team.
Develop and implement targeted, effective and measurable grantmaking strategies to address specific gaps, vulnerabilities or opportunities in the election administration field.
Identify possible grantees and conduct extensive due diligence that will include among other assessments an analysis of the alignment and strength of an organization’s health, mission, priorities, strategies, role in the field, reputation, and potential for growth and impact
Develop strategies to build the organizational capacity of grantees in areas such as governance, organizational management, financial management, program management, and human resources that will be needed to achieve ambitions of scale and sustainability.
Prepare and present strategies and grant recommendations to decision-making bodies.

Grants Management
Work with potential grantees to structure grants to meet grantmaking policies and procedures and to align with initiative strategies
Working closely with colleagues on the Election Trust Initiative team, collaborate to develop grant documents.
Translate grantmaking recommendations into grant deliverables and milestones.
Assist with the development of grant budgets.
Assist with the completion of operational and reputational due diligence, upon request.
Oversee management of approved grants.
Serve as main point of contact for grants in your portfolio.
Continually assess performance against identified objectives, determine when goals are at risk of not being met, identify the causes and, when needed, take appropriate steps to fix any problems in ways that keep the initiative on course.
Effectively tie individual grantees into the broader strategic framework for building the field.
Work with the grants and operations specialist to track grant budgets and spending, and to coordinate with Pew operations units, as needed.
Process and approve changes to grant deliverables as needed.
Work with grantees to assess and prioritize their organizational development needs, and source resources to meet identified gaps as appropriate

Stakeholder Engagement
Inform and design agendas and materials for meetings of decision-making bodies overseeing strategies and grants and participate as needed.
Serve as a spokesperson for the Initiative to cultivate and engage the public and key constituencies on core issues, including representing the Initiative publicly at conferences, seminars, and official forums, and authoring articles and other communications.
Contribute to the planning of meetings and conferences of key stakeholders in the field.
Design and facilitate convenings of grantees to develop opportunities for coordination and collaboration.
Acquire and maintain a broad knowledge of trends in election administration including changes in policy and practice at the local, state and federal levels, emerging academic research, and innovations in related arenas and ensure the team is notified of key developments in these areas.
Build and maintain strong working relationships with election administrators, nonprofits, policymakers, researchers and innovators in the field, grantees, and partners.
Engage legal, operations, and communications departments within Pew to facilitate grant-making and brand management
Perform other project-related duties as necessary.

Minimum requirements:
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience with generally ten years of specialized and directly applicable experience.
A non-partisan orientation and approach to the work.
Strong interpersonal skills and a willingness to work collaboratively as a member of a team.
Excellent written and oral communication skills, including ability to synthesize and summarize complex ideas and recommendations in a clear, effective manner.

Key attributes and preferred experience:
Experience working on advocacy campaigns at the state and local level, in particular campaigns focusing on election administration policy OR experience driving adoption of best practices in state or local government, in particular best practices focused on election administration or election security.
Experience working with academic researchers to design applied research programs that are relevant to diverse audiences including advocates, non-profits, journalists, and technical assistance providers, among others.
A strong network of relevant contacts that can provide expert information, analysis, and advice to advance results. Able to leverage relationships to influence positive outcomes.
Experience collaborating effectively with representatives from the election administration, academic, policy, philanthropic, private sector and advocacy fields and with ETI and Pew colleagues.
Experience working productively with people and institutions with differing points of view and listening carefully and to integrate the insights of others into your analysis.
Persuasive, highly articulate in building support for and commitment to initiatives and ideas.
Demonstrated time- and project-management skills, including the ability to meet multiple deadlines by maintaining a high level of organization, juggling multiple priorities and adjusting to changing circumstances while maintaining attention to details.
Experience making decisions after contemplating various courses of action, justifying recommendations with evidence or clear reasoning, and being responsive, clear and resolute when appropriate.
Demonstrated ability to assess tradeoffs between grantmaking opportunities and legal and reputational risk factors that could impact grantees or the initiative.
The capacity to resolve problems creatively and logically.

Travel:
This position may involve frequent travel to meet with policymakers and external stakeholders or to attend conferences and meetings.

Salary: $156K-$174K

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