Associate Initiative Officer, Great Communities Collaborative

The monthly compensation for this position in FY23 is: 

$8520 per monthly

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW

Founded in 1948, the San Francisco Foundation is one of the nation’s largest community foundations — a grantmaking public charity dedicated to improving life within a specific local region. Our mission is to mobilize resources and act as a catalyst for change to build strong communities, foster civic leadership, and promote philanthropy in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Great Communities Collaboratives is a multi-sector network of organizations and agencies that together envision and advance a socially equitable economically prosperous, and environmentally sustainable 9 county Bay Area region. GCC network partners collaborate to address the challenges of regional land use, transportation, housing, and climate resilience toward the outcome of a region that is made up of healthy, thriving neighborhoods that are affordable to low-income communities of color and well connected to regional opportunities. GCC is an initiative of The San Francisco Foundation co-chaired by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and managed with support of a Funders Network. The GCC has raised over $14 million dollars from 17 Foundations since 2006.

POSITION SUMMARY 

Boundaries 

The Associate Initiative Officer (AIO) of Great Communities Collaborative will work closely with the GCC Senior Initiative Officer (SIO) to administer various key elements of the GCC initiative to further goals in housing, transportation, land use, and climate resilience. The AIO will lead and help co-design and manage GCC’s initiative plan focused on advocacy, regional collaboration, local innovation, and multi-sector collaborative projects across the Bay Area. The AIO will organize and mobilize nonprofit area expert partners in these areas to help identify opportunities and strategies for impact on local and regional public policy.

GCC is involved in several key campaigns and coordinated efforts around affordable housing, transit-oriented development, community ownership, among others. GCC has been leading efforts to build partnerships and increase regional collaboration, including public-nonprofit-community partnerships to promote equitable community development and sustainable policies. GCC staff member play key roles in policy advocacy, grantmaking, convening, facilitating capacity building, sharing best practices, and promoting systems change to equitable recovery for all throughout our region address the challenges of regional land use, transportation, housing and climate resilience toward the outcome of a region that is made up of healthy, thriving neighborhoods that are affordable to low-income communities of color and well connected to regional opportunities. 

This AIO position and the GCC team are part of a high-performing 14-person Division within the Community Impact Department and will be required to collaborate across diverse teams, including cross-departmental working groups.

Authority  

The Associate Initiative Officer (AIO) of Great Communities Collaborative leads GCC’s grantmaking and communications strategy and works in close collaboration with GCC Senior Initiative Officer (SIO) to develop and execute on GCC’s strategic goals. This includes co-leading with partner organizations on implementing programmatic goals, including advocacy, partnership, financing, research, and communications strategies. The AIO also provides backbone administrative support at the initiative level of GCC, including writing memos and recommendations for internal purposes and in support of fundraising. The AIO supports the SIO with programmatic, fundraising, communication, and grantmaking activities of GCC, in order to achieve GCC’s strategic goals.

This is an individual contributor role on a start-up team, and the ideal professional is open, flexible, and comfortable contributing content-expertise and knowledge as a thought partner on strategy and managing a grantee portfolio, while also managing the details of our internal grantmaking process, and their own schedule and administration.

This position is term-limited for 3 years. This position reports to the GCC Senior Initiative Officer.

Roles & Tasks

Grantmaking (30%) – Support the development of GCC’s annual grantmaking strategy with the SIO and partner organizations, including Funders Network and core partners.

• Help administer the grantmaking and grant-receiving processes, including budget management and grant reporting.

• Help develop grantmaking guidelines, processes, and timeline in partnership with Senior Initiative Officer and Initiative Associate.

• Support grant proposal review and assessment, using GCC’s goals as criteria. Provide recommendations to SIO and GCC Funder Network for grantmaking.

• Work with grantee partners to support them in receiving funding support from GCC, including face-to-face meetings, phone calls, and written support and working with internal staff at TSFF including Initiative Assistant and Grants Management staff to ensure process of grantmaking is timely, accurate, and seamless.

Program Implementation (25%) -- Support the implementation of GCC’s plan and efforts to advance equitable and sustainable development. Support a range of administration efforts including grant proposal and reporting, project monitoring, and internal reporting on multiple online platforms.

• Coordinate convenings of and communications with community-based organizations, project partners, local government, developers, funders, and other key stakeholders

• Coordinate and oversee requests for technical assistance

• Represent GCC in select regional discussions and community meetings

• Assess knowledge and research in the field and coordinate research sharing and reporting

• Work with SIO and evaluation consultant to assess the impact of GCC

Working Groups (20%)-- Lead the organizing and facilitation of 2-3 GCC working groups; coalitions of local and regional nonprofit organizations coordinating efforts in housing, transportation, land use, and climate resilience. 

• Work collaboratively with partner organizations to co-chair working groups, make connections across partners working in place to a shared regional agenda. 

• Organize and help facilitate regular meetings; lead the development of working group goals, objectives, processes, timelines, and meeting agendas.

• Serve as a link between working groups, and between working groups and SFF teams and Funders Network. Provide updates on working group successes, challenges, and opportunities. 

Communications (10%) Lead GCC’s communications strategy to provide a stronger and more unified regional voice for equitable and sustainable communities.

• Develop and manage GCC specific communications mechanisms for various audiences, including foundations, public agencies, decision-makers, prospective funders, and NGOs at workshops, conferences, donor forums and briefings.

• Manage GCC website, including producing material for blog and working with outside partners to co-produce stories and share research and knowledge.

• Publicize the progress, results, and lessons learned from GCC’s work.

• Coordinate messaging with TSFF Marketing and Communications team, as well as other Funder Network members, grantees, or partners.

Fundraising (5%)-- Support the SIO with fundraising and administering the day-to-day activities of grants received, including budget management across online platforms, research on potential funders, drafting and designing outreach material and presentations.

• Track funders’ required deliverables to ensure they are completed on time

• Collect content and write progress and final reports for SIO review

• Develop materials to support SIO in fundraising activities, including fundraising proposals, funder meetings, and funder events 

Event Coordination (5%) – Support periodic events such as Funders Network quarterly meetings and Learning Sessions, convenings, conferences, panel discussions, and other events. 

• Special Projects and Internal Alignment (5%) – Support efforts related to special projects and alignment with other SFF initiatives and departments.

Competencies & Qualifications 

• Minimum of three years of increasingly responsible professional experience in the non-profit, philanthropic, or public sector. Requires a successful and positive track record working in culturally and ethnically diverse communities.

• Master’s degree in city planning, public policy, public affairs, environmental studies, or equivalent preferred. Philanthropic experience desired. 

• Experience in equitable development, urban planning, climate-smart development, built environment policy, and/or public health, and social justice preferred. The ideal candidate will be familiar with local and regional planning, policies, politics, and nonprofits.

• Deep commitment to the Foundation’s mission, values, and racial equity strategy, and ability to build trust and confidence across racial, economic, and geographic difference. 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with experience turning ideas, concepts, and data into engaging and easily accessible visualizations. Ability to communicate with knowledge, diplomacy, patience, flexibility, and discretion. 

• Demonstrated ability to be well-organized, detailed oriented, self-starting, and independent with the ability to multi-task, set priorities, track projects, meet deadlines, and problem solve using analytical and reasoning skills to maintain, identify, and make recommendations to improve operational systems. 

• Demonstrated personal integrity and commitment to this work and the ability to engender trust, credibility, and confidence with a variety of constituencies.

• Proficiency in using the Microsoft environment, including Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is required. Ability to create graphic information, such as PowerPoint presentations, infographics, and reporting material. Experience in WordPress and Mailchimp preferred.

We are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align exactly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. 

Compensation:  When determining compensation at the Foundation, we consider total compensation including base wage, variable pay, discretionary and legally required medical and fringe benefits, education and development expenses, taxes and insurance. Each position offers a set pay based on external market and internal equity factors. In compliance with the California pay transparency law, salaries are listed for each position on the posting sites where positions are posted. More information about our compensation philosophy and benefits may be found on the career page of the San Francisco Foundation website.

Remote Work Policy: The Foundation has adopted a long-term hybrid in-person and remote work policy. Dedicated to its employee health and safety, The Foundation will continue to make decisions in accordance with San Francisco County and California mandates. Employees must reside or plan to relocate to California if hired.

Requesting Accommodations: The Foundation is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, The Foundation will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact hr@sff.org.

The San Francisco Foundation is an equal opportunity employer and encourages people of diverse backgrounds to apply.