COPYEDITOR & WRITER
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Deadline: February 15, 2022
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Expected hours: Full-time
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Location: London or remote
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Fill out this form to apply
At Charity Entrepreneurship (CE), we constantly interact with the public, the Effective Altruism (EA) community, and our key stakeholders. Much of this communication is through the written word. Crafting and setting the tone of these important interactions is critical to our organization's continued growth, success, and ultimately, impact. We need to be consistently clear and compelling, which is where the Copyeditor and Writer role comes in. The successful candidate will work flexibly across the team, focusing on everything from outreach communications to our research reports, funding proposals, and more.
Context
Charity Entrepreneurship is growing rapidly and looking to improve our outreach. Part of this process is improving our written content. We recently released a public handbook (recommended by professor Peter Singer), but year-to-year we produce a large number of research reports, blog posts, handbook chapters, and written program content. Although we have a number of content experts, our team's written skills are more limited. The CE Copyeditor and Writer would be the lead on all written work, taking content from draft ideas to convincing and entertaining output.
ABOUT CHARITY ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Charity Entrepreneurship (CE) is a research and training program that launches multiple high-impact charities annually in a number of rotating cause areas. These include animal advocacy, mental health, global health and development, effective altruism, and policy.
A large portion of our charity founders learned about CE from our written outreach. We aim for this pool to continue to grow. See our last year's participants to get a sense of what draws people to the program.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Our Copyeditor and Writer would work with the rest of the outreach team to grow the pool of talented founders who apply. This role would be cross cutting, involving anything from large independent tasks (e.g., reading the handbook and writing a new section) to highly connected team projects (e.g., the entire outreach team working on a piece of content). The specialist would be the final set of eyes on all written work that CE produces, making it ready for publishing from both a technical and readability standpoint. We expect that about 70% of this role will involve improving and editing existing written content, and 30% will be in creation or co-creation roles.
Responsibilities include:
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Synthesizing complex topics in various domains of expertise into a clear and catchy written form
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Proofreading and editing – noticing written details such as grammar and spelling mistakes but also style inconsistencies, repetitions, overcomplexity, logical errors, etc.
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Improving the editing process
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Creating staff style guidelines
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Writing non-fiction at a solid pace to produce a large amount of written work
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Independently creating written outreach projects that draw possible co-founders into reading more about CE
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Coordinating publishing process (e.g., publishing on Amazon)
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Writing newsletters, social media posts, blog posts, and handling other types of marketing communication
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Writing grant and funding proposals, formal letters, reports, and other types of official messaging
This role is a good fit for people who love writing and reading but also want a job that directly connects to impact.
Our culture
CE is a welcoming and scientific working environment. We believe that friendliness, a focus on evidence base, critical thinking, and kindness are key workplace values. We offer a lot of team socials, both in-person (in London) and online, and have a connected community.
CE has a start-up culture. This means creativity, casual attire, hard work, flexibility, and task diversity. You will be expected to have a strong work ethic, but we offer a flexible working schedule. 10% of your time can be devoted to personal development and learning, including fairly extensive internal and external training.
Our employees tend to learn a lot and wear many hats. Our team is obsessed with spreadsheets, often has long psychological chats at lunch, and is highly EA-aligned. We have managed to maintain an entrepreneurial spirit despite our growing team size (10 → ~15). We have office space in London and Berlin, but also consider talented remote applicants.
What we offer
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A job that has a big positive impact on the world
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A time-effective and cross-applicably useful job application process (even if you are not hired)
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The chance to shape the direction, goals, and achievement of the organization
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Opportunity for learning and growth and a heavy focus on training in cross-applicable communication skills
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Creating high-impact written work
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Flexible working schedule and days off
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Experience working at an early-stage nonprofit start-up
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Community of talented, dedicated, and like-minded EAs
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High levels of intellectual challenges
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For the right employee, more perks and benefits could be included
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Salary and moving costs are flexible depending on employee needs
ABOUT YOU
Excellent candidates will meet many (but not all) of the criteria below. We encourage you to apply even if you do not meet all of the listed characteristics. In the past, we have offered positions to applicants who did not meet all the criteria and trained them up in the needed skills. We have also seen great applicants nearly rule themselves out before applying. We are looking for baseline abilities and mindset more so than specific backgrounds.
What we need
We’re looking for someone who is:
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Passionate about quickly learning new skills
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Familiar with effective altruism and its core terminology
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Excited and willing to work across the cause areas our program focuses on (animal welfare, global health, effective altruism, mental health, and family planning)
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Able to move to and work in London (exceptions may be made for excellent applicants who do not meet this criterion but can work during London work hours)
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Able to work flexibly in a small team and have a positive influence on the teams they work in and around
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Excited about improving written work and has an eye for great communication
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Well-versed in American English, highly focused on proofreading, and able to catch even the smallest spelling and grammar mistakes
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Experienced in editing both science-based and marketing content
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Able to quickly find inconsistencies and logical errors as well as modify styles depending on the audience
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Highly impact-driven with a very strong work ethic as well as able to work in an efficient and changing environment
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Comfortable with numerical quantification and simple spreadsheet calculations
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Proficient in technical written skills and able to clearly describe complex topics
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Excited about the role and feels as though it is a great fit (enjoys proofreading, editing, and writing tasks)
Bonus points for:
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Experience working in effective altruism (volunteering, independent projects, internships, and jobs all count)
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Experience founding nonprofits or for-profits
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Familiarity with Adobe InDesign and preparing materials for printing
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Background in fast moving and/or quantitative workplaces (e.g., tech startups, consulting, finance)
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Background with a GiveWell-recommended or CE-incubated charity
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Extensive written, editing, copyediting, or blogging experience
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Experience with hiring processes
APPLICATION PROCESS
We aim to make our application process time effective and beneficial to the applicant in thinking through career options. We are able to give feedback to candidates who get relatively far in the process.
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The application deadline is February 15, 2022
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Expected hours: Full-time
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Location: London or remote
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Fill out this form to apply
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The top candidates will be contacted for the first-stage interview
The application process will involve 4 stages: submitting application form, initial interview, test task, final interview, and sometimes a reference check. We hope to have the application process completed by mid March. Ideally, candidates will begin onboarding as soon afterwards as possible. If you are interested in multiple roles within CE, please use the application form for your first choice. You will later have the option to indicate interest in other roles.
Commitment to diversity and equal employment opportunities
We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from women and people of color who are excited about contributing to our mission. Charity Entrepreneurship is an equal opportunity employer. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other related questions about applying, please contact joey@charityentrepreneurship.com