About The Solutions Project

Less than 2% of climate philanthropy supports climate justice organizations doing work on the ground. The Solutions Project (TSP) funds and amplifies Black, Indigenous, Immigrant, and other people of color or women-led organizations across the United States who are creating and scaling climate justice solutions. Through the funding of neighborhood level innovations aimed at solving multiple problems at once, from poor air quality and housing insecurity to exposure to extreme climate disasters, these organizations go well beyond reducing climate emissions to transforming the health, economic, and social outcomes of entire communities. We seek to understand and strengthen pre-existing movement networks and currently grant to over 140 organizations.

The Solutions Project is at the forefront of Solidarity Philanthropy, which builds on the foundation of trust-based Philanthropy with practices defined by grassroots organizers and racially-conscious movement work. This position reports to Gloria Walton who brings deep expertise in community organizing and movement building to her work at TSP.

Position Description

The Solutions Project is seeking a Vice President, Development to lead our organization to meet ambitious short term fundraising goals while helping us to build out our fundraising function to meet our immediate needs and scale as our organization develops and grows for the long term. Our CEO/President has charted a bold path forward for our organization to raise significant resources to distribute to organizations at the frontlines of the climate justice movement. This requires making big asks of potential and existing donors to meet the needs of the climate justice movement. Our annual operating budget is $15mm which includes $5mm for our operating budget, the majority of which goes to programming to support grantees in the field, and $10mm used to make general operating grants that allow organizations to self-determine how the funds are best used. TSP also administers ‘eco-system funds’ totaling $7M, which are innovative, and often frontline-led, grantmaking funds.

We have big ambitions to scale our grantmaking program to meet the needs of the climate justice movement, and to actualize equity and justice.

The Vice President, Development will spend the first six months building relationships with our existing donors, taking stock of and further developing our existing strategy for securing new money, and building out data and other infrastructure in support of our fundraising work. Over their first two years, the Vice President, Development will lead all fundraising efforts to ensure that we are raising our annual budget, setting a strategy, and making substantive progress towards bold growth through a diversified fundraising plan, including cultivating high net-worth living donors, and building a major giving program to connect our donors to our work. The ideal Vice President, Development is a sophisticated fundraiser who is energized to join an organization that is leading philanthropy to liberate capital for frontline communities to thrive.

What We Value

• Be bold. We are aspirational, creative, and always proactive. Those at the frontlines of pollution, extraction, and the shared urgency of climate change deserve nothing less.
• Be inclusive. We shine the light and invite everyone we can onto the path to a regenerative economy. We follow the leadership of those rooted in frontline communities who are showing the way.
• Be movement accountable. We aim to be accountable to the grassroots organizations that we fund and amplify. We leverage and strengthen the field, connecting dots and resourcing others, as needed, seeking input on what we do well, and how we can improve.
• Advance equity. We center equity-rooted strategies, community benefits, diverse leadership, and just transitions. The transition to a regenerative economy must center and directly benefit those people most impacted by pollution, extraction, and climate change.

What You’ll Help Us Do

Drive fundraising strategy:

• Work with the CEO/President to create and implement a comprehensive 3-5 year strategy to identify, cultivate and solicit individual and institutional donors with interests aligned to TSP’s mission, work, and approach to philanthropy
• Develop authentic and deep relationships with TSP staff, TSP board, and existing donors in order to invest others in and continually evolve fundraising strategies
• Set a vision for budgeting and forecasting that is grounded in a weighted pipeline and run a process to periodically review fundraising picture and strategy

Lead and manage fundraising execution:

• Independently own a portfolio of potential and existing individual donors
• Serve as lead relationship manager for the majority of institutional funders; provide support for CEO, executive leadership team, and board members who hold relationships with senior leaders of institutional funders
• Oversee project management for proposals, reporting, sponsorship requests, grant tracking, and acknowledgment to support strong funder relationships
• Envision and create a major giving program that connects institutional and individual donors with our work in values-aligned ways
• Strategize and plan a small number of fundraising events, with support from the Narrative and Communications team

Support the CEO/President in her fundraising efforts:

• Conduct research and create differentiated strategies for donor cultivation and stewardship
• Create supports to help CEO/President become more efficient and effective in building networks of potential donors
• Provide coaching and support around cultivation and stewardship strategies
• Build infrastructure and systems to reduce data entry and other operational responsibilities

Manage internal and external resources:

• Partner with internal Narrative and Communications team on TSP collateral, annual impact report, impact videos, testimonials, presentations, and other key outputs
• Identify and hire key external vendors to supplement capacity (e.g. grant writers)
• If applicable, hire, supervise, and mentor a development associate to own development operations

Build development systems:

• Work with Operations team to back-end build of Salesforce to ensure our system is tight and simple while creating transparent and accurate pictures of income projections, cash flow analysis, relationship ownership, moves management, proposal tracking, and report tracking
• Organize individual, foundation, and corporate funders into clear pipelines in Salesforce
• Partner with executive management team to create and implement a manageable moves management system
• Work with program and finance staff to ensure compliance with all grant restrictions and reporting requirements, and to gather information necessary for grant reports
• Analyze and report out on grantmaking outcomes and trends

Key Experience, Qualifications, and Skills

What you’ve accomplished (required):

• 10+ years of professional experience
• Substantive fundraising experience including leading and/or fully supporting work to secure multiple 6- and 7- figure gifts from individual and/or institutional donors

Other things you might have accomplished or would be excited to learn here:

• Ability to learn and communicate about climate justice and the work our grantee network undertakes
• Familiarity with financial information, including the ability to evaluate grant budgets
• Experience working at an early stage organization with the entrepreneurial mindset required for success
• Experience successfully and independently working in a remote team setting
• Experience supervising others to strong job performance and job satisfaction outcomes

Skills you have developed and knowledge you have acquired:

• An adept operator who is capable of complex project management in a fundraising funnel context and is highly effective at managing others through solid and dotted line relationships to outcomes
• A highly relationship-focused fundraising professional with the capacity to build strong, trusting relationships across The Solutions Project and the gravitas to build relationships with existing and potential donors that leads to funding outcomes
• A strategist who approaches work through an analytical lens in service of thoughtful prioritization, disciplined and purposeful pivots, and contingency planning to ensure outcomes are met
• An experienced fundraising professional with the content knowledge necessary to find success in this role at a young organization with ambitious fundraising growth goals

How you work and what you value:

• Passion and commitment to the work of The Solutions Project - funding and amplifying the leadership and solutions sets of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander, and other people of color-led climate justice organizations
• Personal commitment to being a part of an inclusive and just workplace, including commitment to further develop or further hone personal, and inter-personal core competencies related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI)
• Enjoys iterative work, eagerly receives feedback, and carries learnings forward seamlessly
• Self-starter and entrepreneurial; energized by building and shaping
• Enjoys working on a team and operates in a way that will build trust with teammates (e.g. integrity, consideration, etc.)
• Enjoys fundraising and is driven by results
• Enjoys managing a small team

Compensation and Benefits:

• The salary range for this position is $170,000 - 185,000
• TriNet medical, dental, and vision insurance plans are fully covered for employees, spouses, and dependents
• Full time employees receive 13 paid holidays, 120 hours of flexible PTO, and 10 days of paid sick leave annually with increasing PTO allowance for tenured employees
• Employees are eligible for 8 weeks of paid parental leave, with up to six months leave total
• Full time employees are eligible for a fully paid, 2-month sabbatical after 5 years of continuous, full time employment
• After nine months of employment, employees have access to a $5,000 annual life-long learning fund that can be used for on-the-job skilling up, career development and leadership activities, and non-work related lifelong learning activities

To Apply:

The Solutions Project is partnering with RCG Talent Solutions to find our next Vice President, Development. Please follow this link to submit your application and direct all questions to openroles@rcgtalent.com.

The Solutions Project is an Equal Opportunity Employer and strongly encourages leaders of color, women, and those who identify as LGBTQI to apply. We comply with federal, state and/or local laws that prohibit discrimination in employment based on race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, citizen or intending citizen status, disability, and veteran status. Information provided during the application or employment process will not be used to discriminate against any individual in any manner. The Company complies with ADA regulations as applicable.