Senior Program Manager, US University Fellowships

The School for Moral Ambition

Location: Remote, though ideally geographically close to one of our anchor campuses (Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt.) Monthly travel expected to New York City — 26 Broadway plus travel to campuses (Harvard, Princeton, and others if needed).

Employment: Full-time (40 hrs/week)

Compensation: $180,000

Language: English

Work authorization: Candidates must have current, unrestricted authorization to work in the United States. SMA is unable to sponsor visas.

Start date: As soon as possible

How to apply: Email recruitment@moralambition.org with a résumé and a brief note on fit

About the role

SMA's university fellowship program scaled from a single-campus pilot at Harvard to four+ in one year. This role owns that whole portfolio: the fellowship program end-to-end, across every campus, for every fellow.

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.

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 rather than running as a disconnected track.

What success looks like

Success by the end of Year 1 looks like:

Campuses fully operational. 4 campuses running recruitment, selection, and placement on schedule, with no campus missing its cohort target.

Fellows placed. 48 fellows recruited, selected, and successfully placed at host organizations for 10-week paid fellowships.

Recruiter team. 4 part-time seasonal campus recruiters hired, trained, and actively managing campus relations independently by mid-cycle.

Documented systems. A written playbook covering selection rubrics, training curriculum, host-org onboarding, and recruiter operations.

Selection quality maintained. Composite scoring and interview calibration consistently applied across all campuses; acceptance rate and applicant quality benchmarks held at or above the Harvard pilot's standard.

Funder milestones met. Program-side milestones for Coefficient Giving and other funders reporting delivered on schedule, with clean data supporting each report.

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 with saying no to potential host organizations who are not a fit (potentially because of a not-yet-proven evidence base or because the targeted issues aren't in line with the 3S framework.)
• Bonus: you have an affiliation with one of the universities we are currently working with (Harvard, Stanford, Vanderbilt and/or Princeton.)

How we work: self-management

SMA 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.

The School for Moral Ambition is an equal opportunity employer.