Job  Board

A Washington, D.C. area-based family invites nominations and applications for a Director of Philanthropy & Service and Foundation Executive Director (Director) role. Founded in the 1990s, the foundation’s philanthropic and community service activities include long-standing commitments to youth pathways, college access and success, college scholarship programs, community housing, and integrative cancer care. As the family evolves its grantmaking and service activity and begins to engage the third generation in that work, they are seeking a seasoned philanthropic strategist and advisor to join the foundation and family office teams as their new Director. The Director will identify and apply best practices, processes, and structures to the family’s philanthropic work and advance the craft of the family’s giving through effective management and co-leadership of their social enterprise and foundation team. The Director will engage in strategic planning and will translate family impact goals and ways of working into clear and effective workplans and practices that build efficiencies and clear lines of communication. The Director will represent the family and the Foundation externally with integrity, humility, and grace, nurturing existing relationships and building new ones as their work expands. Qualified candidates will bring 10+ years leadership experience in philanthropy with demonstrated capacity for keen strategic leadership and organizational design and development, as well as an ability to oversee and manage diverse programmatic and/or philanthropic initiatives as they grow. The successful candidate will bring exceptional organizational and financial management skills and will lead with strong values, personal humility, deep curiosity, effective communication, and cultural competency in their work.

ABOUT THE FAMILY and THE FOUNDATION

Family Values

The family enterprise is grounded in a shared family mission and set of values that are infused through all of their activities and inform ways of being and working in the world, including service and philanthropy. The family mission recognizes and respects family member differences and valuable contributions to an ever-diversifying, multigenerational legacy. The family values include:

1. Love of Family – Spending time together and enjoying the family’s company is a family priority. The family comes together in good times and especially in hard times.
2. Strong Work Ethic – A commitment to hard work is present in both the way the family engages in service work alongside communities and in what the family funds through commitments to youth and others who demonstrate strong work ethic and passion for learning.
3. Humility & Privacy – The foundation and the family’s individual philanthropy is low-profile, preferring to highlight grantee successes and invest in relationship building.
4. Integrity – The family maintains high ethical standards. This carries over into long-term, trust-filled relationships with grantee partners and the expectations for sharing and learning together.
5. Philanthropy – The family gives back to the community and makes a difference in people’s lives through both their time and the contributions they can make.

The Foundation and the Family’s Giving

With a corpus of $33 million year-to-year, the Foundation awards approximately $1.25 million in grants annually. The organization is led by descendants of the founder who work in partnership with a small but committed staff to maintain and expand the foundation’s impact.

The Foundation also provides each family branch a discretionary grant allocation so that each family member and generations to come could engage in their own areas of service interest. Several family leaders wish to expand their giving and service and there are opportunities to further engage the next generation. These efforts can foster deeper connections to the family's values and create a foundation for future generations to carry forward the legacy of family service and shared purpose.

Individual giving and investing is run out of the family office and managed by a dedicated and skilled team of professionals who help coordinate the affairs and investments of the family. The next Director will be an important partner to the family office in identifying ways that the family can further their individual and collective impact in all that they do.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The incoming Director will have an extraordinary opportunity to join the family at a time of reflection and learning about strengths and successes in their past decades of philanthropic and service work and commitment to growth and more integrated strategy and structure across platforms and investments in the next era of their social enterprise. Specifically, the new Director will:

Work in partnership with the family to bring values, vision, strategy, and effectiveness to philanthropic and service activity across both foundation and family offices.

The family has developed a legacy of service and impact through their work in the foundation and in their individual volunteer activities and giving. The Director has the opportunity to support next level vision, integrated strategy, and new tools for impact across both the foundation and family office platforms. The Director will identify opportunities for the family to learn together and build connection and relationship both with communities they serve and to each other as they further evolve their social impact work both individually and collectively. The Director will be knowledgeable about the field practices and resources for bringing next generation family members into the joy of social impact work while honoring their own pathways and needs at each stage of life.

Clarify practices that support management and co-leadership across a team of professionals at both the foundation and the family office to ensure efficient and effective grantmaking and service activity.

Both the foundation and the family office support a team of professionals who ensure exceptional assessment, service, and distribution of grants to grantee partners. The new Director will bring craft skill and deep knowledge of grantmaking to the team’s operations to coordinate roles and communication across platforms. The Director will support a team culture grounded in the family’s values and characterized by personal connection, effective communication, learning, collaboration, and joy.

Represent the Family and the Foundation with sector colleagues, grantees, and partners.

The new Director will establish authentic and consistent partnerships with grantee partners and foster a culture of relationship and connectivity between the family and communities served. The humble, personal connection and deep relationship established in the foundation’s early program areas continues to be an important way of working for the family in all of their endeavors and the new Director will model grace and values on the family’s behalf.

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE IDEAL CANDIDATE

While no one candidate will embody all the qualifications enumerated below, the most aligned candidates will possess many of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes and experiences:

1. Demonstrated capacity to lead organizations or people and programs through change to new ways of working that deepen, broaden, or shift impact. Appreciation of the importance of listening and understanding and honoring history in transformation work and balancing “what is” and “what has been” with “what could be.”
2. Experience in grantmaking and philanthropic settings (strongly preferred), in particular those committed to bridge building and willing to explore creative philanthropic opportunities and strategies together with communities.
3. Strong organizational management skills combined with the ability to bring intellectual rigor, clarity, and data to decision-making processes; demonstrated financial acumen and ability to manage budgets, track and forecast effectively.
4. Experience managing, leading, and collaborating with people in a high-performing and diverse team environment; commitment to fostering team culture that is values-centered and the ability to bring a spirit of joy and good humor to work.
5. Strong convening skills and an authentic interest in listening to and learning from others; ability to establish and maintain trust with a diverse set of internal and external stakeholders.
6. Exceptional relational and communication skills and ability to engage in strategic diplomacy.
7. Compelling personal presence and ability to connect across diverse settings and communities.
8. Humility and the highest personal integrity.
9. Strong work ethic combined with grace.