Program Director, Grants

Position description

The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism is hiring a Grants Program Director to lead our grantmaking initiatives, funding high-impact journalism at major outlets worldwide. You’ll start with responsibility for an annual budget of $2M+, with potential to grow that to $10M+ in the coming years if successful.

 

This is a senior role with real ownership. You’ll set the strategy, make funding decisions, and have significant input over the focus areas and specific opportunities we pursue. The best candidates will be active grantmakers who take an entrepreneurial approach – proactively identifying high-impact opportunities rather than waiting for applications to arrive.

 

You’ll identify gaps in AI coverage that matter, build relationships with newsroom leaders, and deploy much-needed funding to fill those gaps – primarily by funding newsrooms directly to build dedicated AI reporting capacity. Grantmaking could become Tarbell’s single largest program. Success here would position Tarbell as the leading funder of AI journalism globally, with you building and leading a team of 5+ within two years.

About the Tarbell Center

The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism supports journalism that helps society navigate the development and deployment of advanced AI. We provide funding and training to strengthen AI reporting at major news outlets.

 

Since 2023, we’ve raised ~$20M in funding and supported 50+ journalists through fellowships, grants, and residencies. We’re now entering a period of rapid expansion as we scale from a $4M budget in 2025 to $14M by 2027.

 

Across our programs, we’ve supported a wide range of impactful reporting:

• Accountability reporting: Our journalists have broken corporate accountability stories about OpenAI’s legal tactics against nonprofits and xAI violating its own safety policies. A recent investigation about Character.AI’s failure to protect minors on its platform contributed to the company banning under-18s within a week of publication.

• AI policy coverage: Our reporters have produced expert policy analysis, revealed exclusive information about state-level AI policy developments, and investigated AI policy lobbying.

• Impacts from AI: Coverage of the impacts from current systems, ranging from the climate impacts to mass discrimination, and the emerging risks from frontier models, such as sabotaging shutdown mechanisms or helping engineer pandemics.

• Sensemaking: We’ve supported explanatory journalism that helps the public make sense of the circular funding deals, advancements in automating AI R&D, military integration, and developments in China.

 

We believe journalism will be essential to helping society understand and respond to AI advancements in the coming years. By 2030, we aim to grow Tarbell into the leading institution supporting AI journalism globally – providing the funding and training needed to make that possible.

About the role

You’ll lead Tarbell’s grantmaking efforts, managing one direct report with significant scope to grow your team. You’ll start with responsibility for an annual budget of $2M+, with potential to grow that to $10M+ in the coming years if successful. You’ll have ownership over our funding strategy, grant evaluation, and the growth trajectory of all grantmaking programs.

 

The core of this role is institutional grantmaking. You’ll build this initiative from scratch, providing $50-500k in funding directly to newsrooms to build AI coverage capacity. Rather than funding individual stories, you’ll fund the journalists and teams who produce them – working with editors and newsroom leaders to establish new teams, spin up investigative units, and launch dedicated verticals at major outlets.

 

This might look like:

• $400k to the Washington Post for an 18-month investigation into corporate lobbying from AI companies

• $400k for Fox News to establish a dedicated vertical on the development and deployment of frontier AI models, the companies building them, and their impact on society.

• $150k for an investigative team at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism to scrutinize Frontier Safety Policies at leading AI companies

• $100k for a series of technical AI explainers at Lawfare, strengthening understanding of AI within the national security community.

 

You’ll work closely with our Partnerships Director to identify opportunities and pitch newsroom leaders. The goal here isn’t to spend down a fixed budget – it’s to fund everything that clears our bar for impact. If you find ten excellent opportunities that require $5M in total, Tarbell will work to raise additional funds in order to support all ten.

 

You’ll also oversee our AI reporting grants program. This program provides smaller awards of $1-20k for individual stories and is already running well under our current staff member. Your role will be to provide strategic oversight and management to ensure flawless execution. Reporting grants will ultimately be one arm of a larger grantmaking operation, funding stories that fall outside institutional partnerships. It largely provides support to freelancers who aren’t attached to a newsroom and newsroom teams in need of additional funding for specific projects.

 

Strong performers will have a path to an expanded grantmaking budget of $5M+ within 18-24 months and $10M+ by 2030.

Current funding priorities

Tarbell is focused on funding journalism that helps society navigate the development and deployment of advanced AI. Current funding priorities include:

• Accountability reporting on frontier AI companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, xAI, etc.): Are they meeting their safety commitments? How are decisions made internally? What happens when users are harmed?

• Investigations into lobbying and campaign financing: how AI companies and other relevant actors influence policy in key jurisdictions (DC, US states, UK, EU).

• AI policy coverage in the US: deep engagement with proposed AI policies, the potential impacts they could have on innovation and safety, and the surrounding dynamics shaping them – including coverage from across the political spectrum.

• Incident reporting: surfacing real-world harms from deployed AI systems, especially those related to catastrophic risks or major societal disruptions.

• Foundational explainers and analysis: reporting that educates and informs readers about AI development, e.g. factors driving AI progress, current capabilities, technical explainers.

• AI’s transformative potential: coverage that engages withthe chance that human-level AI could be developed in the near future and what this would mean for society. We support diverse perspectives here, including work that challenges our own assumptions.

• Developments in China: from technical advancements at frontier companies to the impacts of AI diffusion in Chinese society.

• AI and labor market impacts: reporting that generates new evidence on how AI is (or isn’t) reshaping work.

 

These priorities will likely evolve over time, and you’ll help shape that evolution.

Who we’re looking for

We’re open to two distinct candidate profiles: deep expertise in journalism OR AI grantmaking/strategy. You need one, not both.

 

• Journalism profile: 5+ years of editorial experience, ideally as a tech editor at a major outlet, or as an executive editor with broad oversight over the newsroom. You understand what makes exceptional reporting, can evaluate pitches with rigor, and have relationships across the journalism industry. You can identify what stories are missing from the AI beat and which journalists can deliver them.

• AI grantmaking/strategy profile: 5+ years of experience in grantmaking, program strategy, or a related field with deep engagement in AI policy or strategy. You understand the AI landscape—the key players, debates, and gaps in public understanding. You can easily identify high-impact coverage areas that are currently neglected.

 

Whichever profile you come from, you must demonstrate genuine interest and potential in the other domain. Journalists should show they can engage seriously with AI developments and Tarbell’s priorities; grantmakers should show they understand journalistic quality and the media landscape.

 

We also expect:

• Leadership experience. 5+ years of experience managing high-performing teams. You have good judgment about people, can have difficult conversations constructively, and know how to build and lead teams through organizational change.

• Entrepreneurial drive. You proactively identify opportunities rather than waiting for them to come to you. You’re energized by building something new.

• Strategic judgment. You can identify the most important gaps in AI coverage and develop plans to fill them. You’re focused on maximizing the impact of the grants you make, and can clearly explain your reasoning and theory of change for each grant.

• Independent execution. You take ownership of complex programs and drive them forward without constant direction, even when that means doing difficult or unusual work yourself.

• Clear communication. Your writing is concise and persuasive. You can articulate Tarbell’s funding priorities and represent us professionally in high-stakes conversations with newsroom leaders.

• Mission alignment. You believe in Tarbell’s mission to support journalism that helps society navigate the development and deployment of advanced AI.

 

We care more about evidence of these criteria than a conventional resume. If your background is unusual but you can demonstrate these capabilities, we want to hear from you.

Salary and location

We’ll offer a salary of $115,000 – $160,000+ in the US; £75,000 – £90,000+ in the UK based on experience and seniority.

 

Our benefits include:

• 33 days of annual leave in total (including national holidays)

• 16 weeks of paid parental leave, increasing to 24 weeks after 3 years of service

• $5,000 per year in professional development funding

• Up to 5% employer contribution towards a standard pension/401(k)

• For employees based in the US: Platinum health, dental, and vision plans, with 95% of premiums paid for by Tarbell

• Flexible working hours

• Productive, collaborative offices in London and San Francisco

 

We prefer candidates based in London or the San Francisco Bay Area and will require such candidates to work 2 days/week from our office space. We’re also open to New York or Washington DC, or candidates who require short periods of remote work. We are able to sponsor UK work visas for this role.

 

Application instructions

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