Head of Finance

Giving What We Can (GWWC) is seeking a Head of Finance to build the financial infrastructure and team needed to scale a multi-entity grantmaking organization from $40 million towards $3 billion in donations to high-impact charities every year.

Your work would make or break our ability to help solve some of the world's most pressing problems, such as extreme poverty, the suffering of animals in factory farms, and global catastrophic risks facing current and future generations. If you build the systems and team that allow us to grow even 1% faster YoY, you would be directly responsible for $360M in additional donations going to high-impact charities.

The opportunity

If the 1% richest in the world would donate 10% of their income we could within years end extreme poverty, end hunger and malnutrition, massively reduce factory farming and much, much more. Research-backed, scalable, but grossly underfunded ways to make progress on these problems exist.

And whilst every donation towards a high-impact organisation might be small in comparison to the entirety of the problem, every donation can make an extremely meaningful difference in the lives of the individual humans or animals that benefit from it.That’s why more than 10,000 people have pledged at least 10% of their income to the world's most effective charities by taking Giving What We Can’s 🔸10% Pledge. The entire GWWC community already gives over $80 million every year - funding malaria prevention, global poverty reduction, animal welfare, work on global catastrophic risk and more.

We're just getting started.

Our goal is 1 million pledgers giving at least $3 billion annually to high-impact organisations. And we're looking for a Head of Finance to make that possible. Someone who can build the financial systems and controls as well as the finance team needed to scale a multi-entity grantmaking organization by 100x over the next decade and a half, from $40M/year to $3B/year in donations to the highest-impact charities.

What you'll do

You will own the full financial function of a fast-growing, multi-entity (US, UK, Canada, the Netherlands) non-profit, including budgeting, forecasting, reporting, compliance filings, controls, and building systems for scale. You will get to shape the organization's financial infrastructure, processes, and team, and grow alongside the organization.

More specifically, you would be responsible for:

• Day-to-day finances. Accurate and timely reconciliations and book closing, accounts payable, cash and liquidity management, and managing our interest-bearing holdings.
• Managing, growing, and representing the finance team. Managing our finance associate and external accountants; maintaining relationships with financial advisors, US/UK auditors, and US/UK/CA treasurers and legal counsel. As we grow, building and developing a team of high performers.
• Budgeting, reporting, forecasting, and strategic financial advice. Serve as a close thought partner to the executive team and boards, delivering budgets, reports, and forecasts hand in hand with strategic advice for our key metrics and organizational strategy.
• Implement, enforce and improve our financial controls. Ultimately responsible for ensuring proper management of $30M+ in annual funds (and growing every year), with appropriate due diligence.
• Payroll across jurisdictions. Ensuring our staff and extended team members all get paid the correct amount on time every time.
• Statutory and regulatory filings. Managing multi-entity audits and all other statutory and regulatory financial filings, coordinating with internal and external stakeholders to deliver on time and implementing improvements as we go.
• Building and improving financial processes and systems. From new AP software and multi-entity reporting to investment and cash management policies — building and improving systems so we can scale radically without financial errors or lapses in oversight.
• Grant finance. Tracking restricted and designated funding accurately, preparing cash balances ahead of grant rounds, and ensuring all grant recipients receive their grants accurately and on time with appropriate information sharing and due diligence.

A day in the life of…

You log on from your home office or co-working space and quickly check if there are any urgent financial questions from internal and external stakeholders. You notice there is a donor seeking to make a large stock transfer from outside of the US and you collaborate with our auditor and payment processing providers to figure out the most effective and secure way to receive these funds while keeping our community team in the loop for donor stewardship.

You then begin preparing your bi-weekly meeting with our accountants. You review their draft management report and the monthly books in detail, flag several improvements and irregularities, and figure out the process improvements we need to prevent those from happening in the future.

Your afternoon is focused on meetings, so after your lunch break you prepare your agenda for the 1:1 with your manager and prepare a discussion of your project timeline and rollout for a comprehensive review of our payment processing providers, the contracts, and rates. You also present your proposed solution and implementation timeline for receiving UK stock donations as a charity, for which you had researched several options and made a cost-benefit analysis.

Afterwards you meet with all managers across the organization to train them in budgeting their team’s projects, providing the information needed to our accountants to track these projects, and address any questions they may have about our finances. This is a meeting in a series of financial training sessions you have developed for our internal staff to make more informed decisions.

You end the day with a brainstorming session with the Head of People: we are planning to hire several new people in three different European countries, and you are collaborating to figure out whether the advantages of hiring them directly outweigh the additional administrative work and compliance risk.

What we're looking for

• Deep financial management experience. 5–10 years managing finances, ideally accountable for (core parts of) an organization with a >$25M/year budget and/or several entities.
• Meticulous attention to detail. You notice the unexplained variation across months, spot the fund allocation missing in our list of thousands of donations, and every budget and calculation you deliver is squeaky clean — because you meticulously and systematically review your own work and the organization's finances.
• Strategic decision-making. While no material error finds its way past you, you also know where diving into the details is worth our time. You bring strategic cost-benefit analyses to key decisions.
• Deep accountability. Everything in your portfolios happens without prompting, on time, with excellent stakeholder communication. Nothing slips through the cracks; deprioritized responsibilities are communicated proactively.
• Building scalable systems. When you encounter a problem, error, or new request, you assess whether it requires an ongoing process — and if so, you build a scalable system.
• Fluent financial communication. You can fluently translate complex financial matters for stakeholders - including those with no financial background. You keep relevant stakeholders appropriately informed.
• You care about our work. You don't need to be an effective altruism expert on day one, but you deeply care about creating a world without extreme poverty, animal suffering, and existential risk - a world where everyone can flourish. And you want to be a part of the movement that makes this happen.
• Preferred experience (we expect you to bring some of these, not all of them):
  • Certified accountant or strong technical accounting knowledge (UK, US, or equivalent; IFRS, US/UK GAAP, SORP, etc.);
  • Risk management, especially for remote, grantmaking, multi-entity, or rapidly growing organizations;
  • People management: growing and managing high-performing teams;
  • Scaling financial operations and building the systems to enable it;
  • Familiarity with non-profit or philanthropy finance;
  • Working with financial providers of a wide variety, including payment processing providers and responsibilities such as renegotiating contracts;
  • Managing finances of multi-entity or international organizations across jurisdictions.

If you're unsure whether you meet our criteria, I'd strongly encourage you to apply or reach out to head-of-finance-hiring@givingwhatwecan.org.

Role overview

• Start Date: As soon as possible
• Hours: 1 fte (~40h/week)
• Location: Global remote, with a preference for UTC-6 to UTC+3, but flexibility for the right candidate
• Travel: 2-4 times per year for staff and leadership offsites
• Contract: Permanent contract with 3 months probation
• Reporting to: James Steijger, Chief Operations Officer
• Application deadline: April 21st, 23:59 UTC

• Salary: ~$60,000 - $160,000 USD depending on experience and location (see how we approach pay), for example:
  • $105k - $125k in Brooklyn, USA
  • £75k - £90k in London, UK
  • €60k - €75k in Barcelona, ES
  • $60k - $70k in Nairobi, KE

• Benefits:
  • Fully remote work with flexible hours (preference for UTC-6 to UTC+3)
  • 25 days paid leave + public holidays
  • $5,000/year professional development budget
  • $5,000/year mental health support budget
  • Healthcare and/or pension depending on location (directly or via additional gross salary)
  • The knowledge that your work moves millions of dollars to the world's most effective charities

About us

Giving What We Can is working towards a world without preventable suffering or existential risk, where everyone is able to flourish. We do this by making giving effectively and significantly a norm among those who can afford it.

Founded in 2009, we are best known for the 🔸10% Pledge, where over 10,000 people have committed to donating at least 10% of their lifetime income to highly effective charities. Our larger community of ~20,000 pledgers and donors currently gives ~$80M USD annually, of which GWWC processes and grants $30M+ yearly through our own donation platform.

We're a lean, remote, performance-focused team. Our impact evaluation shows a 6x multiplier: every $1 spent on our operations generates $6 in donations to highly effective charities. We’re committed to a high level of transparency. And we're growing fast.

We've set ourselves the audacious goal of reaching 1 million pledgers donating $3B USD annually to high-impact charities. The current ~17 FTE global team is mission-focused, with a strong commitment to our team and community values.

How to apply

To apply for this role, please complete this application form. Our application process for this role:

We provide compensation for all work trials.

If you're unsure whether you meet our criteria, I'd strongly encourage you to apply, or reach out to head-of-finance-hiring@givingwhatwecan.org.

Giving What We Can is committed to building a diverse team and strongly encourages applications from people of all backgrounds. We evaluate candidates based on their potential to excel in the role, not their credentials or career stage.