Cause Prioritization Lead - GiveWell

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. We anticipate our total grantmaking is likely to approach or even exceed $1 billion this year.

GiveWell is seeking a Cause Prioritization Lead to own and improve our cause prioritization process, develop a portfolio of early-stage grants across emerging cause areas, and rapidly respond to promising new opportunities that are unusual for GiveWell.

Joining as a Senior Program Officer level, you will build a sub-team within the New Areas team and report to our New Areas team lead.

The Role

As Cause Prioritization Lead, you will be an intellectual leader of GiveWell’s work in new domains. You will be responsible for:

• Process Improvement: Improving our cause prioritization process to identify promising emerging areas for grantmaking, combining evidence, cost-effectiveness modelling, and our own judgment.
• Grant Portfolio Oversight: Overseeing a portfolio of grant investigations and grant management in high-priority emerging cause areas, and building a research agenda to learn about key uncertainties.
• External Communication & Sourcing: Communicating externally about our work and building a network of people across implementers, funders, and academia to help source new ideas.
• People Management: Managing a sub-team to execute these goals, supporting professional development, and fostering an agile culture.
• Direct Investigations: Directly investigating more complicated grantmaking opportunities yourself, including newer program types earlier in the product development cycle or government prioritization and planning.

Team Structure

Our research department is organized into eight teams, including five core grantmaking teams, a Cross-Cutting team, a Commons team, and the New Areas team (~9 people within an ~80-person research department). The New Areas team focuses on:

• Core cause areas: Maternal and newborn health, family planning, tuberculosis, HIV, and medical oxygen.
• Emerging cause areas: Building expertise, networks, and research agendas in new domains, including market shaping, health systems strengthening, and AI applications to global health.
• Incubators: Supporting other organizations to identify potentially cost-effective interventions (e.g., Clinton Health Access Initiative’s Incubator).

About You

The ideal candidate has a quantitatively-oriented advanced degree and substantial relevant experience (typically 5-10 years of post-grad work experience) using empirical tools to make rigorous, evidence-based decisions.

• Mission-Aligned: GiveWell’s mission and methods are personally energizing to you.
• Curious & Open: Unusually curious, willing to interrogate others' work, and receptive to scrutiny without defensiveness.
• Generalist & Agile: Able to get up to speed quickly on new topics, task-switch, and pivot focus as new information arises.
• Strategic Thinker: Skilled at structuring broad, undefined problems and developing a clear vision.
• People Manager: Excited by mentoring team members and providing balanced, constructive feedback.
• Entrepreneurial: Driven to fill gaps, design new programs, find implementers, and make bets under uncertainty.
• Rigorous Communicator: Careful and explicit about confidence levels and underlying value judgments.
• Relationship Builder: Balances directness with strong interpersonal skills for external communication.

Compensation & Location

We set salaries using a location-based tier system:

• NYC or San Francisco Bay Area: $308,000
• All other U.S. locations: $280,000
• International: Competitive tier equivalent