Third Sector New England

Associate Director of Philanthropy & Partnerships

US--Remote

Job ID: 2024-2435

Type: Fiscal Sponsorship Organizations

# of Openings: 1

Category: Education

Early Childhood Funders Collaborative

Overview

The Early Childhood Funders Collaborative (ECFC) (ecfunders.org)is dedicated to aligning and leveraging philanthropic, public, and private resources to promote federal, state, and local policies and practices that take a systemic, equity-focused approach to supporting young children, their families, and the early childhood community. The network of national, regional, and local funders supports the healthy development and learning of children prenatal to age eight and their families, particularly low income and at-risk children, in the context of their communities.

ECFC administers the Raising Childcare Fund, a fund that combines resources to re-grant to state-based grassroots organizing to advance more public investment and equity in childcare. ECFC is a fiscally sponsored program of TSNE (tsne.org).

The Raising Childcare Fund (RCCF), a project of ECFC, is a pooled fund of over a dozen national foundations which resources community organizers working alongside parents, early educators, and providers to lift voices, build power, and expand equity in childcare. We are a philanthropic partner and intermediary with the growing national childcare movement working toward a universal childcare system in which every family can find care that meets their needs, and every childcare provider earns good wages and benefits. RCCF adheres to trust-based philanthropic values and builds strong relationships with our grantee partners. We make multi-year, general operating grants to organizers in 16 states and DC and have an ambitious goal to expand our reach to all states in the next ten years. Additionally, we provide learning opportunities for national, state, and regional ECFC member funders to share what we learn in our work with grassroots leaders and with our expanding relationships with equity focused funders outside of early childhood. To date, RCCF has raised over $17 million since 2019, including a one-time grant from MacKenzie Scott.

RCCF is governed by a Managing Committee of participating funders and expert organizers. The RCCF Director oversees all RCCF operations and implementation of the 2023-2025 Strategic Plan. Additionally, our Partner Advisory is a volunteer advisory body which consists of current RCCF grantees and provides input into strategy and programming related to our grantee partners.

Responsibilities

The Associate Director of Philanthropy & Partnerships will work directly with national and local philanthropy, skilled organizers around the country, and national organizations as part of the growing movement to transform childcare. The Associate Director for Philanthropy and Partnerships will work closely with the Director of the Raising Childcare Fund project to implement and continually improve RCCF strategy, to increase community organizing capacity and foundation commitment to resourcing groups, led by those with lived experience in the childcare system. The Associate Director will organize and facilitate peer learning among foundations to build knowledge of organizing and best practices in resourcing state ecosystems and social movement building. The Associate Director will be responsible, in close consultation with national movement partners, for managing the delivery of intentional and responsive technical assistance and skill-building opportunities matched to state organizations’ self-assessed needs and capacity. As part of a pooled fund that acts as an intermediary, the Associate Director will need to be comfortable with both sides of philanthropy as a grant applicant (fundraising) and a grants manager (issuing grants).

Essential Functions

Movement Building

• Collaborate with the Director and team on strategic direction of RCCF, fundraising, and partnership building across philanthropy, community organizers, and national organizations.
• Promote RCCF and ECFC mission, values and theory of change though public speaking, written materials, and strategic communications.
• Support shift in philanthropic practice by communicating RCCF experiences of trust-based philanthropy and power sharing with grantee partners.
• Plan and facilitate funder education opportunities to raise awareness of movement building, grantees’ impacts and expertise, and foster connections among funders, donors, and grantees.
• Build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships with ECFC members, RCCF funders and donors, other national and state funder collaboratives, and other key partners.
• Actively engage in philanthropic networks to support democracy and racial, gender, and economic equity.
• Work with grantee partners to understand their current methods of measuring success, develop shared measures of progress of their power-building, and develop methods to evaluate the impact of RCCF that centers their input while drawing on emerging research and practices in the field.

Project Management and Contract Supervision

• Develop and drive a project management plan to increase support for grassroots organizations in new geographic regions beyond RCCF’s current grantee partners.
• Coordinate communication across project stakeholders, including national movement partners, consultants, potential local and state grassroots organizations, and funders.
• Manage any necessary consultants and contractors, from developing statements of work to ensuring timely product delivery.
• Plan and facilitate learning cohorts among funders to identify shared challenges and innovative approaches across diverse states.
• Integrate state funders and grassroots organizations from this project into the larger RCCF funder community and grantee network.
• Write proposals, budgets, and reports to secure funding from state foundation participants.

Grantee Partner Cultivation and Support

• Cultivate relationships with current and new grantee partners based on trust and mutual respect, and co-lead grant management and support (annual and periodic check-ins with grantee partners and facilitating peer to peer learning among grantee partners).
• Work with grantee partners to understand self-assessed learning and growth goals and develop strategies to appropriately support them, including linkages to national childcare movement partners and movement building expertise.
• Write and/or edit case studies and annual reports on grantee partners (with their approval).
• Serve as a resource on fundraising strategy to grantee partners.
• Elevate grantee perspectives to national audiences, including philanthropic, grass tops, and policy audiences, by working with grantees to submit proposals to speak at meetings and conferences, as well as to ECFC members.

Qualifications

We will consider exceptional candidates who demonstrate a strong combination of the specific qualifications and skills described below.

• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field with at least five years of experience in working with philanthropic culture, grantmaking, or fundraising, such as development of philanthropic grants and relationships with foundations, proposal writing and grant reporting. Experience working for social change as an organizer preferred.
• Commitment to ECFC’s and RCCF’s goals, mission, and values, especially the commitment to racial equity and trust-based philanthropy.
• Knowledge of public services and systems that serve children and families.
• Strong analytical thinking, critical decision making, and process improvement skills.
• Proficiency in project management, including the utilization of project management tools and donor databases and/or CRMs.
• The ability to thrive in a collaborative team environment, while also excelling as an individual contributor who takes initiative to prioritize and manage workload.
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively and persuasively via online meetings, phone and email with a range of stakeholders.
• Comfort working across cultures and differences, including facilitation skills working with a range of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, experiences, and perspectives.

Physical Demands/Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those for this position. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. Work is performed in an office environment and in close proximity to other workers.

While performing the duties of this position, the employee is required to:

• Handle, or feel objects, tools or controls;
• Reach; traverse; sit (usually for longer periods of time); occasionally ascend/descend; and position self (to) move;
• Occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds;
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate;
• Job is not subject to significant occupational or environmental hazards;
• Likelihood of personal injury would be relatively slight;
• Environmental and work hazards are not present to a measurable degree.

Compensation and Benefits

Location: Work will be primarily performed remote, with a preference for candidates in the DC metro area, for ease of participating in national policy meetings. Travel is required 10-12 times a year.

Schedule:The schedule is full-time with most of the hours between 9 am – 5 pm East Coast times, with some flexibility. In particular, the schedule will include noon – 5 pm ET most days, to accommodate meetings that include participants in all U.S. time zones.

Compensation: The salary range for this position is $125,000 - $145,000/yr. and is commensurate with experience.

Benefits: This position is eligible for a full benefits package including:

• Generous Paid-Time-Off (PTO): twelve paid holidays, three weeks of vacation, one week of personal holiday, and ability to accrue up to 487.5 hours of health leave time for benefited staff.
• 80% Employer-paid, offering some $0 deductible Health Insurance through Harvard Pilgrim along with several low-deductible plans;
• Low-cost Guardian Dental and Vision.
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for Health and Dependent Care.
• Employer-paid Life, Long- and Short-Term Disability Insurance.
• Employer-paid Pension and Employee-paid 403b plan through TIAA.
• ...and more!

TSNE/ECFC strives to achieve excellence through a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment that embraces all of our individual and collective differences. Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Middle Eastern and North African, Bilingual and/or Bicultural candidates, and LGBTQ2SIA+ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. We value and honor the unique talents, learning styles, and lived experiences of each individual that enrich and strengthen our workplace culture, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

All employment conditions are based on an individual’s performance and job qualifications. TSNE/ECFC prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, creed, color, religion, native language, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, physical or mental disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, parental status, pregnancy, race-based hairstyles, or any other protected characteristic stated by federal and state law. Regardless of any class’ protection under the law or lack thereof, TSNE/ECFC celebrates diversity and values the strengths that come with having a diverse team of employees. It is represented in our workplace culture, and it is who we are.

TSNE/ECFC's EEO statement extends to volunteers, interns, contractors, vendors, and clients.