Policy Advisor

The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. Since its founding in 1949, the Institute has been driving change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve the most critical challenges facing communities in the United States and around the world. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Institute has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, and an international network of partners.

The Aspen Institute’s Policy Academy helps community leaders and experts across the political spectrum elevate their voices, influence key decisions, and strengthen democracy from the ground up. We believe that the people closest to problems are best positioned to come up with solutions, so we work to empower citizens to have a say in the decisions that affect them. Our innovative training programs and resources equip people across sectors – from tech to the environment, science to civic engagement – with the skills to shape critical policy efforts.

With nearly 20,000 people registering for our programs in the last 18 months, we’re building an America where everyone is engaged in our democratic process—and has the power to make a difference.

We are looking for a Policy Advisor who loves to teach, mentor students new to policy, and run policy programs. Our policy advisor should be a highly organized, strong communicator who likes switching between teaching, advising, reviewing work, and keeping programs running smoothly. This role is a particularly good fit for candidates transitioning out of policy or advocacy roles who have a strong passion for teaching, performing, and telling stories about their work based on an existing curriculum.

The Policy Advisor will
1) tailor and teach portions of our existing policy curriculum in a variety of formats, such as public webinars, virtual short courses, and our in‑person fellowship;
2) mentor trainees on policy projects, including by providing guidance on project substance and editing project products such as policy memos;
3) support program operations, such as overseeing curriculum preparation for a course, identifying and coordinating guest speakers, supporting program recruitment and selection, and evaluating program effectiveness; and
4) meet with external stakeholders such as government agencies and funders to help coordinate policy projects and partnership relationships. The Policy Advisor will also have an opportunity to work on thought leadership projects like our annual staff policy report.

Note that this role focuses largely on updating, improving, tailoring and teaching existing curriculum; developing new curriculum is not a primary responsibility of the role. Having teaching experience is strongly preferred, though a candidate with public speaking experience and an interest in teaching may also qualify.

The Policy Advisor will report to the Academy’s Associate Director of Programs, who reports to the Academy’s Director. The salary range for this role is $105,000-$115,000. Bay Area‑based candidates are preferred. Remote candidates must be willing to work mostly Pacific hours and to relocate to the Bay Area for up to a month every summer to help run our in‑person fellowship program.

• Teach policy sessions for our training programs focused on teaching community leaders and subject matter experts the policy process. Sample teaching topics include:
  Policy 101, Communicating for Policy, Scoping a Policy Problem, Stakeholder Mapping, Executive Branch Policy making, Legislative Branch Policy making, and Corporate Policy making.
• Provide a full list of our current courses (link).
• Moderate panels with policy experts as part of training programs. Past speakers for our programs have included Tom Kalil, Ann Mei Chang, and Neil Chatterjee.
• Support Academy curriculum development, including enhancing existing curriculum based on trainee feedback and adding new examples.

• Oversee the program operations for Academy courses, including managing operations staff, curriculum preparations, teaching scheduling, and program…