about the job
The School for Moral Ambition attracts and mobilizes exceptional talent to address the world's most pressing challenges. We need our brightest minds to make pandemics history, end factory farming, fight the tobacco industry, safeguard our democracies, and these are just a few examples. Please read our founding principles for a better insight into our mission and guiding values.
The School’s university fellowship program scaled from a single-campus pilot at Harvard to four-plus campuses in one year. This role owns that whole portfolio: the fellowship program end-to-end, across every campus, for every fellow.
about the role
The single biggest shift from the pilot year: this is no longer one person doing everything by hand. You'll supervise a team of seasonal campus recruiters and be the person who turns what worked at one campus into a program that works — reliably, and without you personally touching every applicant — at four campuses.
The core mandate is program enhancement and formalization. Selection rubrics, training curricula, host-org onboarding, and recruiter management all need to move from "how the predecessor did it at Harvard" to documented, repeatable systems that a growing team can run consistently.
You'll partner closely with Laura Clancy (US Director), so that chapters, faculty relationships, and external partnerships reinforce fellowship recruiting and placement rather than running as a disconnected track. The School operates under Holacracy (internally, "Moral Fabric") — a self-managing structure where authority is distributed across clearly defined roles. You'll be expected to raise and resolve tensions directly, and to hold this role's full authority over fellowship operations rather than deferring decisions upward by default.
Key responsibilities
What you'll own:
- Full portfolio ownership — recruitment, selection, training, host-organization placement, and fellow support across all campuses, for the full 48-fellow cohort.
- Recruiter management — hire, train, and supervise four part-time seasonal campus recruiters (or two full-time equivalents) who own day-to-day campus relations: student outreach, info sessions, and the local relationships that drive applications.
- Systematization — convert the Harvard-pilot playbook into documented, transferable systems: standardized scoring rubrics, a shared training curriculum, a host-org onboarding process, and a recruiter operations manual, so quality is institutionalized.
- Quality control at scale — own the composite scoring model (essays, multiple-choice, psychometrics) and interview calibration across a 4x larger applicant pool, ensuring selection rigor doesn't slip as volume grows.
- Host organization relationships — manage and grow the network of host nonprofits and policy organizations placing fellows, ensuring every fellow has a strong 10-week placement.
- Funder reporting — own the operational data and milestones that feed funder reporting (Coefficient Giving and others), in partnership with Laura.
- Cross-functional coordination — partner with Laura so chapters, faculty relationships, and external partnerships reinforce fellowship recruiting and placement.
What success looks like by the end of Year 1:
- 4 campuses running recruitment, selection, and placement on schedule, with no campus missing its cohort target.
- 48 fellows recruited, selected, and successfully placed at host organizations for 10-week paid fellowships.
- 4 part-time seasonal campus recruiters hired, trained, and actively managing campus relations independently by mid-cycle.
- A written playbook covering selection rubrics, training curriculum, host-org onboarding, and recruiter operations.
- Composite scoring and interview calibration consistently applied across all campuses; applicant-quality benchmarks held at or above the Harvard pilot's standard.
- Program-side milestones for Coefficient Giving and other funder reporting delivered on schedule, with clean data supporting each report.
What We’re looking for
You might be a fit if you:
- Have run a program that had to scale fast — from one site to many — and know the difference between what worked because you personally held it together versus what will actually hold at scale.
- Have managed a team of part-time, seasonal, or contract staff and know how to get them productive quickly without extensive ramp time.
- Are genuinely energized by building systems and documentation — turning tacit knowledge into a rubric, a template, a training deck — not just by doing the work yourself.
- Have experience with structured selection processes (rubric-based review, competency interviews, or similar) and can hold a quality bar under volume pressure.
- Are comfortable owning outcomes tied to funder deliverables and reporting.
- Are comfortable saying no to potential host organizations that aren't a fit — whether because of a not-yet-proven evidence base or because the targeted issues aren't in line with the triple-S framework.
A bonus, not a requirement: an affiliation with one of the universities we currently work with (Harvard, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and/or Princeton).
NB: You should already have the right to work in the United States, as we're not able to sponsor visas for this role.
What we offer
- A competitive salary of $180,000 per year.
- Health insurance support through monthly reimbursement for self-purchased coverage.
- 21 vacation days per year, plus 56 hours of safe/sick time and paid federal holidays.
- A fully remote setup within the US, with travel reimbursement for monthly trips to NYC and to campuses.
- A self-managing environment with clear roles, autonomy, and structure, and the chance to scale one of our flagship US programs from a pilot into a multi-campus institution.
- Access to a growing network of morally ambitious professionals, and a place in a small, ambitious, and genuinely fun team.
We value talent and a can-do attitude above traditional credentials. Even if you don't meet every requirement, and especially if you think we might overlook an aspect that makes you a good fit, we welcome you to challenge us and apply. The School for Moral Ambition is an equal opportunity employer.
Application process
Apply here. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
