About Omidyar Network (ON):
Omidyar Network (ON) is a philanthropic organization whose mission is to bend the arc of the digital revolution toward shared power, prosperity, and possibility. Digital technology is a powerful and ubiquitous force that, harnessed wisely, makes wondrous things happen. We believe in working together to guide tech’s trajectory intentionally. Our vision is for our shared humanity to steer our digital future.
So far, we have committed more than $1.94 billion to initiatives that share our vision. We engage, partner with, and fund some of the world’s brightest thinkers and innovators to guide our digital future toward the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
About the Programs and Policy team:
Our Programs and Policy team focuses on the key drivers of our shared digital future: the culture, the governance, and the business of digital tech. Through grantmaking, advocacy, and funder partnership, we aim to shape more intentional societal governance and amplify our shared agency. We work with a broad range of stakeholders, including investors, tech firms, policymakers, consumers, and workers, to guide tech’s trajectory and build coalitions and counterweights to concentrated power in civil society. Our team members come from policy, advocacy, nonprofits, community organizing, technology, consulting, philanthropy, education, and the arts.
About the Role:
ON seeks a Principal on our Programs and Policy team to steward our coalitions portfolio through a mix of catalytic grantmaking, strategic advising, network weaving, and funder partnership. Our coalitions portfolio takes a big tent approach that sees broad-based collective action as an essential part of ensuring that digital technology is designed, deployed, and governed in the public interest.
From social media to artificial intelligence, we know that it takes parents and young people, college students, older adults, workers organized across occupations and industries, faith communities, artists, and storytellers, engaging alongside builders, researchers, and policy experts to put technology in service of humanity rather than the reverse. “The kind of society that emerges from the [technological] revolution,” the economists Chris Freeman and Francisco Louçã write, “depends on the strength and programmes of contending social groups and political forces far more than on the technologies.” ( As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution )
You will own most of the day to day grantmaking in Omidyar Network’s second largest portfolio, working in tandem with the Senior Director and in close collaboration with our Policy team.
This role is built for someone who believes that everyone should have a say over the trajectory of artificial intelligence. You grasp its far-reaching implications and what it takes to bring different communities off the sidelines. You are a strategist and connector. You build relationships with and among coalition leaders, link efforts that don’t yet know they share a cause, and spot early openings others may overlook.
This role reports to the Senior Director, Programs and Policy, who is based remotely in Los Angeles, CA.
How You’ll Contribute to our Impact:
Manage a grant portfolio. Contribute to strategic planning, diligence, grantmaking, and ongoing relationship management for the Coalitions portfolio. Deploy programmatic budget on time, in close collaboration with our grant operations teams, and work with colleagues across ON on strategy, learning, and evaluation to understand the impact of our grants.
Support the success of grantees. Meet regularly with grantee organizations as a strategic collaborator and trusted thought partner. Help them gain traction by facilitating connections, problem-solving, and sharing funding opportunities.
Build and convene coalitions. Bring coalition leaders together across issues and constituencies, help new and emerging coalitions form and mature, and design…