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 Imagining 2076 Program

The key mandate of Imagining 2076 is simple: how can the stories we tell about democracy and the future empower Americans to reimagine democracy for the next generation? 

This project is in its early days. Our initial pilot of this project involved us working in partnership with Harmony Labs, a non-profit media research organization, with whom we have developed methodologies to code and quantify various depictions of government (from authoritarian to democratic) and depictions of the future (from protopian to dystopian), and to test their impact on audiences’ understanding about problems in our government, sense of agency to shape our democracy, and vision for the future of democracy.

Democracy 2076’s role in the ecosystem is to provide research support to other advocacy groups and support creatives in using their tremendous power and influence responsibly. Over the next year, this project is all about putting our research and methodology to work helping creators understand the impact of their content. In the long-term, we are open to exploring research on different types of content and advocacy to shape it. We are seeking a Program Director to build and implement the strategy.

Job responsibilities

• Recruit and facilitate creatives in developing a set of recommendations based on initial research that launched in January 2025.

• Develop a strategy for dissemination of the findings based on the research and an advocacy strategy to ensure implementation of the recommendations. This will include partnering with other advocacy organizations to share our findings and recommendations with their audience of creatives. Ideally, this process will allow us to identify mid-level executives in studios and production companies and support them in building demand within their studios and production companies to make research on how audiences are impacted by content about democracy and the future part of their production process on an ongoing basis.

• Manage ongoing research partnership with Harmony Labs. As the advocacy strategy develops, we will know what type of research is most useful for our creative partners. This could look like a few different things. Options include: 1) Democracy 2076 doing annual research assessing the impact of that years’ film and television on audience attitudes about democracy; 2) providing consulting services to studios and production companies in partnership with Harmony Labs; or 3) helping studios and production companies to develop their research capacities in-house. It may be different for different studios and production companies. 

• Support Harmony Labs documentation of the research for creatives, other media advocacy organizations, and the democracy field more broadly.

• Serve as a liaison between the entertainment industry and the democracy field to ensure both sectors are learning from one another.

• Expand both the research and the advocacy to reach Americans where they are and influence the media they consume. Build a strategy based on our learnings about what Americans who actively avoid political news are consuming and how it influences them. We could imagine this research expanding into video games or other types of content.

• 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 media and entertainment. The Program Director will be a skilled communicator who understands the business incentives of the entertainment industry. 

• Ability to look across the media ecosystem and understand 1) what is needed to shape how content is made as the media environment evolves, and 2) how to support creatives who hold the power to shape Americans’ understanding of democracy. 

• 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 Imagining 2076 program expands, it will move into areas of content and media where the  Program Director may not have existing relationships.

Salary

$120-180k 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

We have a preference for someone based in the Los Angeles area.

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 utilized art and culture as part of a strategy to create change. What is your understanding of the incentives of studios and production companies? How have you used that understanding to create change?  

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.