[Hiring] Principal Director, Program Development @Clover Search Works

Role Description

Sightline Institute is hiring a Principal Director, Program Development, to build our next research program, and then the one after that. This position is new, created to identify and launch new research areas. The Principal Director scouts, vets, and recommends each new program area. Then they launch it: conducting and publishing the original research that establishes Sightline’s credibility in the field, developing the strategy, anchoring early fundraising, and helping recruit the program’s permanent director. Once that director is in place, the Principal Director begins again with the next area, in a recurring three- to five-year cycle. The handoff is by design. The goal is a new program that stands on its own, led by someone hired to carry it forward, so the Principal Director can start the next one. The Principal Director is an accomplished researcher, a skilled writer and speaker, and an experienced program builder. Because the subject changes every few years, we are less interested in deep expertise in any one field than in range. You would be joining an organization of experienced staff members, fully remote across Cascadia. New programs have always come out of our team of researchers and communicators, kicking ideas around until someone finds the angle. We are more a guild of artisans than a factory, and this role is also built to work that way: you would be working in collaboration with colleagues who know the region and its politics well. This full-time, salaried role reports to the Executive Director and works in close partnership with Sightline’s senior staff. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a respected organization with an established track record of success while ushering in expanded areas of impact and reach. This is a unique, dynamic position that will directly contribute to Sightline’s impact and to creating strong communities, a green economy and a healthy environment throughout Cascadia.

Qualifications

• Substantial experience at a senior level in policy research, advocacy, journalism, or a related field, including work you initiated rather than inherited.
• Track record of conducting and publishing original, in-depth policy research that changed minds, with demonstrated ability to become credible quickly in fields that are new to you.
• Skilled writer and public speaker, comfortable serving as a senior spokesperson with media, policymakers, and other stakeholders.
• Strong strategic thinker who divines smart ways to influence policy through research, communications, and advocacy.
• Experience contributing to fundraising, including identifying and cultivating relationships with prospective funders and writing proposals and reports.
• Experience engaging policymakers to translate research into policy influence; competence in building unusual coalitions is a plus.
• Experience leading a new initiative, program, or team from early concept through launch—setting strategy, defining goals, and building a team.
• Commitment to Sightline’s mission and values.

Requirements

• Scouts, plans, and builds new research programs for Sightline, developing and refining an institutional system for expanding into new issue areas.
• Vets potential program areas against Sightline’s program-selection criteria and leads a selection process that draws on input from across the organization, recommending a new program area for the Executive Director’s decision.
• Conducts preliminary research and produces ground-breaking articles and analyses that establish Sightline’s presence and reputation in each new issue area.
• Plans a maximally impactful strategy for each new program that draws on Sightline’s strengths in research, communications, and coalition building, and begins stitching together a coalition in support of it.
• Serves as a senior spokesperson for Sightline; writes and publishes research, speaks publicly and to the media, and meets with policymakers, allies, and other stakeholders.
• Anchors fundraising for each new program, working with the development team to identify, cultivate, and secure support from prospective funders.
• Leads recruitment and staffing for each new program, including hiring and mentoring the director who will lead it, then guides that director through a transition and hands off leadership.
• Helps build and manage each program’s budget and staffing in collaboration with the operations team, and refines Sightline’s method for program development with each cycle.

Benefits

• 95% premium coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance for the employee and partial coverage for dependents.
• 4 weeks of paid vacation.
• 12 paid holidays annually.
• 2 weeks of paid health, wellness, and care leave, plus access to a shared pool of additional leave for special circumstances.
• 12 weeks paid parental leave.
• A 3-month paid sabbatical every 7 years.
• A $200 monthly remote work stipend.
• Regular staff gatherings for in-person connection.

Company Description

Our mission is to make Cascadia, the region stretching from Alaska to northern California and the Pacific to the Rocky Mountain States, a global model of sustainability—with strong communities, a green economy, and a healthy environment. Founded in 1993, Sightline is one of the region’s most influential public policy think tanks. In 2026 alone, we helped pass six housing laws in Idaho, four in Washington, and two in Oregon, along with Missoula’s new zoning code and a major clean energy law in Washington. Several of these were US firsts. Our work on election reform has helped shape how Alaska, Portland, and Seattle run their elections.

In our programs on climate and energy, housing and cities, and democracy and elections, we identify and promote reforms that yield outsized improvements for the region’s people and places. A nonprofit, nonpartisan, and independent public policy research center, Sightline provides research, articles, and commentary; maps, graphics, and tools; and framing and messaging guidance. Sightline’s influence depends on the depth and breadth of our researchers’ expertise and their persuasiveness in presenting analysis and arguments. We aim to draw attention to and build support for data-backed solutions to specific public problems through close engagement in policy debates. We advise and inform public officials, advocates, and the media. We also help organize unusual coalitions, advocate to leaders, and lobby lawmakers, usually at the state level.

Our combination of deep expertise; trusted resources for leaders, advocates, and journalists; practical, research-based policy recommendations; powerful case making and persuasive argumentation; and strategic engagement in unusual coalitions have made Sightline extremely effective at advancing progress toward our mission.

Learn more at www.sightline.org .