Executive Director

Position description

The Hopper-Dean Family Foundation – a private family foundation dedicated to equity, climate justice, and scientific innovation – seeks a creative, self-directed, and agile leader as its first full-time Executive Director to lead its next phase of evolution. As the Foundation strategy shifts toward deeper trust-based relationships, multi-year commitments, and movement-aligned strategies, the Executive Director will play a critical role in building and fostering partnerships; overseeing and directing financial resources; and supporting a vibrant, equity-driven family board. The Executive Director will embody relational, emotionally intelligent, and passionate leadership as they lead a well-resourced and imaginative organization alongside a small team. This is an exciting opportunity to join a family foundation committed to doing things differently while joyfully supporting those working at the frontlines of change.

The Foundation

The Hopper-Dean Family Foundation aims to contribute to people and ecosystems thriving throughout the world by funding impactful change advancing social justice, education, and environmental sustainability. The Foundation – which has a four-member, two-generation Board; two core consultants; annual grantmaking of $40 million; and assets of several hundred million dollars – grants to 501(c)(3) organizations and similar international groups that align with its mission. Since its founding in 2011, the Foundation has distributed over $150 million from foundation assets and an associated DAF with early giving centered on STEM education, while strategies have evolved to include a larger focus on climate justice and internationalism.

Beginning in 2019, the Foundation launched the Hopper-Dean Foundation Collaboration, which supported a cohort of five colleges and universities to increase diversity in computer science education. The institutions met monthly, with 100% participation over a three-year period, and integrated over 55 programs based on shared learnings. As the final year of grants approached, the STEM giving strategy was reconsidered with an increased interest in supporting under-resourced students and institutions in the U.S., as well as international efforts.

As the Foundation’s commitment to fighting climate change and supporting climate justice deepened between 2019 and 2023, nearly $25 million – about 60% of total grantmaking – was directed to this work. Funding areas across the foundation and the family Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) include:

• Education – Advancing educational equity, literacy, and leadership through giving with a commitment to STEM disciplines
• Climate Justice – Supporting grassroots climate solutions that are intersectional; rooted in justice, equity, and self-determination; and ensure those on the frontlines, especially movements in the Global South, lead the transformation toward a regenerative future
• Climate Science, Technology, and Innovation – Supporting innovative climate solutions rooted in science while resourcing tech tools to enhance impact and donor organizing to scale effective change
• Social Justice – Strengthening human rights organizations and networks focused on a wide range of areas, including gender and racial justice
• Animal Welfare – Alleviating animal suffering and fostering conscious systems of care
• Emergency Response – Providing rapid support for community-led responses to movement needs, current events, war, and disasters

The Executive Director will join at a pivotal moment of learning, experimentation, influence, and impact, helping the board refine its strategic direction and grantmaking practices and build out the organizational infrastructure needed to deliver against that direction.

The Role

Reporting directly to the Board of Directors, the Executive Director will serve as the Foundation’s first full-time staff leader, guiding its strategic, relational, and operational direction. They will work closely with a long-term philanthropic strategy partner, a climate strategy lead, and other advisors to deepen impact, clarify learning goals, and build trust-based partnerships with grantees. The Executive Director will be encouraged to not only listen to and facilitate the board’s goals but to leverage their unique expertise, ideas, and passion to challenge historical approaches or traditional thinking and open the family up to new approaches that enhance their philanthropic practice.

Key responsibilities include:

Board Management & Development

• Building and maintaining trusting, open, and authentic relationships with the board, partnering effectively with family members on core aspects of collective and individual philanthropy
• Supporting the collective and individual learning goals of the board through lived and professional experience, suggested readings, guest presentations, trainings, dialogue with movements, conferences and events, and/or other interactive engagements
• Effectively facilitating board meetings and communications, including prioritized agendas and clear emails, reports, presentations, and materials to inform decision-making
• Partnering with the board in the assessment and evolution of vision, mission, goals, and priorities
• Partnering with the board in ensuring a culture of risk awareness and accountability and guiding the establishment of an organizational risk appetite and framework for managing risk while overseeing implementation of risk mitigation strategies
• Working with the board to refine its structure, composition, and working norms, as desired, including exploration of working groups, as needed, and deeper engagement of grantee partners and/or independent community members to help shape board education, development, and decision-making
• In partnership with advisors, strengthen the mission alignment of the Foundation’s investments with a deeper commitment to impact investing

Strategy Development & Implementation

• Partnering with the board and team of consultants and advisors on strategy-making recommendations that help elucidate and strengthen direction, processes, infrastructure, and tactics
• Leading a collaborative process to refine and guide implementation of the Foundation’s strategic approach
• Recommending portfolio strategies, grantees, and funding models that advance the mission and are responsive to stakeholder needs
• Providing insight into emerging trends, movement support and collaboration opportunities, funding landscapes, and innovative philanthropic practices
• Facilitating education around and exploration of paths to deepen impact, such as more responsive and inclusive grantmaking, more regranting/trusted intermediary support, more aligned impact investing, increasing grantmaking through a spend out over a set time period, and/or other alternative philanthropic models

Field & Grantee Partner Engagement

• Serving as a primary spokesperson and ambassador for the Foundation and its mission, amplifying the work of and advocating on behalf of grantee partners in communication and relationship with key constituencies across philanthropic, nonprofit/NGO, academic, business, government, and thought leader communities in a way that broadens the Foundation’s influence and impact
• Being a thought leader and funder organizer in support of transforming philanthropic practices to be more grantee-centric and responsive
• Fostering and maintaining deep, trust-based relationships with grantee partners, especially community-led and movement-aligned organizations, through open communications, transparency, responsiveness, and mutual learning
• Representing the Foundation to funder collaboratives, philanthropic partners, and the broader field
• Cultivating movement and community grantee partner relationships, including identifying new partners, discernment (due diligence), internal review/discussion, and recommendation, with and to the board
• Helping family members connect meaningfully with the work and core partners
• Collaborating with funder organizing efforts in groups such as Solidaire Network and Resource Generation to enhance the Foundation’s learning and impact

Grantmaking Operations

• Ensuring grantee-focused grantmaking processes and solutions
• Developing and managing grant cycles, due diligence, reporting, and compliance for over $40 million in annual grantmaking
• Maintaining clear documentation and systems to support transparency and learning
• Supporting a transition toward fewer, deeper grants, including multi-year support
• Ensuring greater alignment across parts of the grantmaking portfolio, reflecting the intersectionality of issues and the Foundation’s overall strategic approach

Organizational Management & Development

• Shaping the Foundation’s internal culture, staffing, policies, and processes as the organization evolves
• Infusing the work with joy, rigor, and a commitment to continuous reflection and accountability
• Directing, coaching, and connecting the team of consultants and advisors, ensuring the scopes of work are clear, aligned, and implemented at a high level
• Assessing current capacity and then building out the team necessary to advance the foundation’s mission, vision, and strategy which may include current consultants, additional consultants, and/or new staff positions
• Leading the contracting and hiring processes for any new consultant or staff positions, ensuring that the Foundation’s team represents a range of backgrounds, experiences, and skills
• Managing grantmaking and operating budgets effectively with strong internal controls, systems, policies, and risk management practices, with the ability to respond quickly to trends and crises
• Ensuring the annual audit is prepared accurately and in a timely manner, with no significant management findings

The Ideal Executive Director

We recognize that no one person will embody every quality, but the ideal candidate will bring many of the following experiences and attributes, along with other relevant lived and professional experiences and skills:

• Demonstrated commitment to equity, justice, and movement-building with background in and/or excitement to explore climate justice and innovations in science, STEM, or technology-related fields a plus
• 10+ years of experience and increasing levels of responsibility within U.S.-based social justice philanthropy, grantmaking, grantseeking, nonprofit leadership, and/or other related experiences
• Deeply connected to social movements with trusted relationships with grassroots frontline organizations and disproportionately impacted communities, with knowledge about, willingness to partner with, and/or existing relationships in the Global South
• Ability to lead with joy, passion, collaboration, imagination, and self-direction
• Emotionally intelligent communicator, bridge-builder, and strategist able to challenge assumptions, raise hard questions, and facilitate learning and alignment with care
• Skilled relationship builder across a diverse set of constituencies, including philanthropy, academia, government, etc.
• The ability and willingness to support the learning, management, and development of the Board and team of consultants and advisors, with experience engaging or advising philanthropic families or boards a plus
• The ability to learn quickly, having comfort in ambiguity, adaptability, and an openness to pivot as family interests and community needs evolve
• Data-driven with the ability to analyze quantitative and qualitative data and make high-impact decisions while maximizing the use of grants management systems, like GivingData, as well as stories of impact from grantee and community partners.
• Comfort serving as a key representative of and ambassador for the Foundation’s mission and initiatives, with strong oral and written communication skills
• Experience with and/or aptitude for funder learning and organizing being in collaboration with funder allies and social movement leaders
• Strengths-based manager with experience supervising, coaching, and collaborating with consultants and/or small staff teams
• Financially savvy, ideally with experience effectively managing a multi-million-dollar budget and exposure to mission-related investing

Application instructions

Please be sure to indicate you saw this position on geopolist.com