Job Openings

Democracy 2076, a fiscally sponsored project of NEO Philanthropy, Inc. is seeking a Program Director.

Democracy 2076 was founded in 2023 and is working long-term to change our Constitution, political culture, and political parties. 

Americans are losing faith in democracy, and authoritarianism is stepping into the gap. There has been a 25-year decline in public trust in institutions and optimism about the next generation’s future. Without long-term thinking in the U.S. democracy field, we are ill-prepared for the changes that will impact America in the coming decades; we must build our democracy proactively, in anticipation of ever-evolving circumstances – everything from the aging of the U.S. population to climate change. 

Democracy 2076 seeks to imagine and develop democracy that is effective, responsive and representative for the future generations.

Organizational Values

• Co–creation: We develop both the what and the how of our strategy alongside our partners. We see our role as holding the space to co-create strategy, not setting it in isolation from other stakeholders.

• Pro-democracy and non-partisan: We believe that democracy, or governance by the will of the people, is the best form of governance for efficacy, responsiveness, and resilience. We believe that the spectrum from democracy to authoritarianism is different from the spectrum from politically left to politically right. Democracy is non-partisan.

• Valuing different types of expertise: There are no experts in the future. Democracy 2076 values experience and expertise of all kinds and understands they are critical to shaping the future. 

• Long-term vision: We believe our unique value-add to the democracy field is holding the space for long-term thinking so that others in the field doing more short-term and urgent work can plug in and use us as a resource to coordinate their efforts and strategies.

The Political Coalitions for 2076 Program

Democracy 2076 is shaping future realignments of political coalitions through the use of a participatory strategic foresight process to help build a future where all US political parties are pro-democracy. In January 2025, we launched our work to detect signals regarding the future of political realignments. We hosted stakeholder briefings and have recruited 14 membership-based organizations, organizers working to prevent authoritarianism, and violent extremism trackers to participate in the process to ensure our findings are informed by and accessible to those best situated to utilize them. Our Political Coalitions work includes participants across the ideological divide, for example from Asian American Futures to Leaving MAGA in our strategic foresight cohort and insights from founder of the Working Families Party Dan Cantor and center-right think tank R Street informing the work. We cannot assume authoritarianism will come from one party and must prepare for lines of political differences to shift. 

Together, we are refining possible future scenarios and assessing what party-dividing issues may emerge, which values and demographics may unite voters who are likely to align to each party, and what ideologies will underlie the parties including whether they will be pro-democracy or not. Through coordinated cross-sector strategic foresight to identify opportunities and engage our community of practice to pinpoint and iterate interventions, we can shape the next political realignment to ensure pro-democracy tenets are central to all viable political parties. 

We seek a program director to shift this work from a project describing and understanding future realignments to shaping them.

Job responsibilities

• Develop a strategy for dissemination of the findings of our strategic foresight process. This may include creating workshops or variations on our materials to make them fit for purpose for different audiences and use cases.

• Develop an advocacy strategy to ensure pro-democracy coalitions in 2076. This will include partnering with other peacebuilding and pluralism organizations to identify best practices; working with communities we have identified to be at risk of authoritarian slide; and catalyzing action based on best practices to avoid that slide. 

• Manage ongoing tracking of political realignment. We are currently imagining an ongoing horizon scanning process, but we may also want to do some quantitative data tracking. Depending on the skillset and capacity of the person in this role, they may lead that process and sensemaking directly or manage a contractor to it.

• Documentation of our assessment of realignment on an ongoing basis. As the advocacy strategy develops, we will know what type of information is most useful for our partners. Currently, we imagine that this would look like an annual trend report on bright spots and areas of concern for democracy based on ongoing horizon scanning. We will also want to update the baseline materials we are creating now based on this information – the scenarios, 18 spectra of realignment, and pathways to change.

• Serve across those doing community-based grassroots organizing to prevent authoritarian decline, peacebuilding and pluralism organizations, and the national democracy field to ensure sectors are learning from one another.

• Collaborate with the Executive Director, Deputy Director, and other Democracy 2076 Program Directors to ensure a cohesive strategy toward achieving our organizational mission and leveraging opportunities across the organization.

Qualifications

• Understanding of and experience working in the democracy field. The Program Director will have deep knowledge of the forces that contribute to democratic decline and familiarity with existing analysis and research.

• Ability to look across the peacebuilding and pluralism fields and understand 1) what best practices should be replicated, and 2) how to support new leaders in learning from existing work that has already taken place, and 3) how to catalyze organizations with deep community ties who are at risk of authoritarian slide to begin to take on this work.

• Entrepreneurial spirit and follow through. The Program Director will be developing and implementing the full program strategy from inception. 

• Flexible and comfortable working in a fully remote, early stage startup organization

• Commitment to proactively building democracy, learning about democracy and the forces working to build and undermine it, and understanding how attitudes about democracy can be changed.

• Interest and desire to learn about strategic foresight. While a background or experience in strategic foresight is not needed, the ideal candidate will be excited to learn more about futures thinking and how to apply it to this program

• Ability to form deep and trusting relationships – as the Political Coalition for 2076 program expands, it may move into areas where the Program Director does not have existing relationships.

Salary

$120-160k commensurate with experience. Through NEO Philanthropy, this position is offered a full benefits package, including 100% medical coverage for the employee and 90% medical coverage for dependents; 100% coverage for vision, dental, life/AD&D, long-term disability. NEO also offers a 401K retirement savings plan, Healthcare Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), Medical FSA, Dependent Care FSA, commuter benefits, Employee Assistance Program, other supplemental benefits and paid time off.

Location

This is a remote position.

Vaccination Requirement 

All Democracy 2076 staff at NEO are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19.  Requests for medical and/or religious exemptions from the vaccination requirement will be considered on an individual basis, to the extent required by law.

To Apply:

Upload your resume and answers to the following questions here. 

1) Please share how your work has intersected with prevention of violence or authoritarian backsliding. What is your understanding of the causes of authoritarianism? How have you used that understanding to organize to prevent it?

2) Please share about a time you helped build a program within an organization. How did you develop the program? How did you decide on the goal? How did you decide on the strategies you developed to achieve that goal?

3) Please share about a set of work you did that brought people together across ideologies, partisan lines, geographies, and class divides. If you haven’t done this, please share how you could imagine work you’ve done reaching across differences as part of its strategy.