Chief of Staff, Washington

Overview

Position Type: Full-time, regular

Category: Exempt

Chief of Staff

Overview

Position Type: Full-time, regular

Category: Exempt

Description

Reports to: President, Center for American Progress Action Fund Staff reporting to this position: 1 direct report Department: Advocacy Position classification: Full-time, exempt; Nonunion - Level 7 Compensation range: $92,000–$110,000 per annum Work site: On-site (Washington, D.C., office)

Summary

The Center for American Progress Action Fund is seeking a Chief of Staff to help raise the organization's public profile, strengthen its external relationships, and ensure the President is positioned as a visible and effective leader across the political, media, donor, cultural, and advocacy ecosystems. This is not a traditional administrative or policy role. It is a high-agency role for a creative, socially fluent, politically aware operator who knows how to build relationships, spot opportunities, and turn visibility into institutional value.

The Chief of Staff will help ensure CAP Action is in the right rooms, on the right stages, in the right conversations, and connected to the right validators. The successful candidate will help CAP Action move beyond its traditional policy brand and into broader spaces where political perception, cultural relevance, donor interest, and institutional influence are shaped. The ideal candidate is a connector, organizer, relationship-builder, and creative operator who can move quickly, follow through relentlessly, and represent CAP Action with sound judgment, political awareness, and strong instincts for brand, audience, and setting.

The role also includes internal coordination on behalf of the President by tracking priority projects, pushing follow-up, coordinating across teams, and ensuring external opportunities are properly staffed, briefed, messaged, and converted into real institutional value.

Responsibilities

• Build and manage a pipeline of high-value external opportunities for CAP Action and the President, including speaking engagements, convenings, salons, podcasts, panels, briefings, cultural events, and partner gatherings.
• Identify new spaces where CAP Action should show up to build relevance, visibility, and influence across politics, media, culture, donors, creators, advocacy, and civic life.
• Support the President's external profile by preparing briefing materials, tracking key relationships, coordinating follow-up, and ensuring that external engagements advance CAP Action's strategic and fundraising goals.
• Help plan and execute small, high-impact events and gatherings that strengthen CAP Action's brand, deepen relationships, and create pathways to new partners, validators, and funders.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with external stakeholders, including event organizers, advocacy partners, donor-adjacent contacts, creators, political operatives, and media-adjacent influencers.
• Track external relationships, opportunities, next steps, and follow-up so CAP Action is systematically building influence rather than relying on one-off engagements.
• Coordinate internally with the Development, Communications, Digital, policy, Legal, and Advocacy teams and departments to ensure that external opportunities are properly briefed, staffed, messaged, and followed through.
• Help the President keep priority projects moving by tracking deadlines, pushing deliverables, clarifying next steps, and ensuring that cross-team follow-up happens quickly and consistently.
• Execute special projects connected to external visibility, brand-building, partnerships, fundraising support, events, and institutional positioning.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements and qualifications

• At least five years of relevant experience in politics, campaigns, public affairs, communications, external affairs, events, partnerships, fundraising, cultural programming, media, or advocacy.
• Strong relationship-building instincts and the ability to quickly build trust with a wide range of people, including political actors, donors, partners, creators, media contacts, and organizational leaders.
• Excellent judgment, social fluency, discretion, and political awareness.
• Demonstrated ability to identify opportunities, make connections, and turn loose ideas into concrete action.
• Strong organizational skills and a proven ability to manage multiple fast-moving projects without losing details.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft invitations, briefing notes, follow-up emails, event concepts, and external-facing materials.
• Comfort operating in high-profile, high-pressure, and ambiguous environments.
• Ability to work nights and weekends as needed for events, convenings, and urgent opportunities.
• Entrepreneurial, creative, self-starting, and persistent.
• Interest in politics, culture, media, and power-building. Deep policy expertise is not required, but strong political instincts are essential.

American Progress offers a full and competitive benefits package. Candidates from diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.