Civic Dialogues, Director of Operations / Program Director (Local)

Civic Dialogues, Director of Operations / Program Director (Local)

Change.org is searching for a Civic Dialogues, Director of Operations / Program Director to lead and scale the operations engine behind our local civic dialogues, civicdialogues.org. You will report to our GM of Civic Dialogues and partner closely with our Civic Dialogues, Director of Policy. As the leader of our program manager team, you will own the delivery of dialogues across cities, develop the team that runs them, and keep improving how the whole program works, so we can run high-quality, non-partisan civic dialogues with more cities, faster.

Change.org is the world’s largest platform for democracy.

At a time when dissatisfaction with democracy globally is at an all-time high, we’re investing heavily in using AI to build an operating system for modern democracy. This includes our platform for giving people greater voice, a personalized voter guide for elections, and a new product which aims to bring people across the political spectrum together to identify shared solutions.

To realize this vision, we're building a team at the intersection of technology and civic engagement — bringing together top talent focused on giving citizens a direct voice, strengthening accountability, and building stronger, more resilient democracies.

Key Outcomes:

• Own end-to-end delivery of civic dialogues, holding a biweekly launch cadence at high quality across all active cities, from recruitment through facilitation to post-dialogue reporting.

• Lead and grow the program manager team, hiring and onboarding PMs as the program scales and developing them into confident, independent operators.

• Redesign and document the 12-week dialogue playbook into a repeatable system with AI-powered workflows (participant matching, synthesis, insight extraction) that scale across cities.

• Build trusted relationships with city offices (mayors, staffers) across the political spectrum, working comfortably with both Republican and Democratic leaders and protecting our non-partisan credibility.

• Act as a strategic partner to the GM and policy directors on the growth and direction of the Civic Dialogues program.

The most important core competencies for the role are:

• People and team leadership: Leading, hiring, and developing a distributed team of experienced program managers, often in ambiguous, early-stage conditions.

• Operations and program management: Running multiple complex programs concurrently (staggered 12-week cycles) at a reliable cadence and consistent quality.

• Systems thinking and AI fluency: Turning one-off work into repeatable, documented processes that improve over time, with AI woven throughout.

• Strategic program design: Partnering with leadership to set the direction of the program as it scales, not just executing how it runs today.

• Civic dialogue and deliberation: Understanding what makes structured, cross-partisan dialogue genuinely productive rather than performative, and building programs around those principles.

• Cross-partisan stakeholder management: Building trusted relationships with city officials and partners across the political spectrum, with a genuinely non-partisan, bridge-building orientation.

• Policy development: Developing effective, implementable policy at the city government level.

Target experience:

• 8+ years in operations or program leadership, ideally including a Chief of Staff or senior ops role in a government office or civic/political organization.

• Proven people manager, with experience developing senior or expert-level individual contributors.

• Direct experience in or with city governments, working alongside officials and staff.

• A track record of building from scratch, scaling a program or process from an early stage.

• Experience running structured dialogue, whether civic dialogues, deliberative processes, or community engagement programs.

• Cross-partisan experience, working with both conservative- and liberal-leaning stakeholders.

Interested? Great! Here's what you should know:

This is a full time remote role based in the United States.

Our compensation philosophy is based on pay equity. All of our salaries are determined before we launch a role – they are based on a predetermined salary scale, the level on that scale and the cost of labor for that location. The annual salary of a Civic Dialogues, Director of Operations is $241,500 in SF/NYC, $229,500 in Austin/Boston/LA/Seattle/DC/Chicago and $205,500 in all other cities.

Benefits and perks also vary based on location.

Our evaluation process is as follows:

• Recruiter Screen (40 min)

• Hiring Manager Screen (30 min)

• Take-Home Task

• Follow-Up Discussion (30 min)

• Team Interviews (2 hrs)

• References

We recognize that people assess their qualifications differently, and you may not meet every requirement listed. If you believe you could be successful in this role, we encourage you to apply.

Change.org is an open platform designed to serve people across the full range of viewpoints. We expect all candidates to have thought about whether it’s a fit for you to work at a genuinely open platform like this, in which you will regularly be exposed to opinions and campaigns which are in sharp contrast to your own values and/or beliefs.

We are an equal opportunity employer and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity [or expression], national origin, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other status protected by law.

We're committed to protecting your data. To learn more, please review our Change.org Job Applicant Privacy Policy.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout our recruitment process. If you need assistance or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know.

Change.org voluntarily collects limited demographic information for government reporting and to support our diversity and inclusion efforts. Providing this information is entirely optional and anonymous, and is not used in hiring decisions.

The categories in this survey are standardized and may not reflect how everyone describes themselves.

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