Ballinger | Leafblad is honored to partner with the Bush Foundation to find its next grantmaking officer (South Dakota focus). This role will strengthen Bush’s connections with communities in South Dakota, ensuring that high-potential ideas and initiatives receive investment and support. The grantmaking officer will engage with community members, source and review grant proposals and guide grantees through the funding process. This leader will foster strong relationships, bridging differences in perspective and background with the goal of advancing transformative investments that serve communities across South Dakota and the Native nations that share the same geography.

This position is primarily remote, requiring the candidate to live in South Dakota and regularly travel (up to 40%) throughout the state and to the Foundation’s main office in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Bush Foundation

The Bush Foundation invests in great ideas and the people who power them. This has been the case since Bush was founded in 1953. Archibald (Archie) and Edyth Bush set up the Foundation with few restrictions, ensuring that board and staff members through the years would have the flexibility needed to meet the challenges of the day. This ultimately sets the stage for some of Bush’s highest impact work.

Located in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bush operates with a staff of 36, stewards an endowment that has grown to $1.4 billion and has a combined operating and philanthropic budget for 2025 of $79.6 million.

Purpose

The Bush Foundation works to inspire and support creative problem solving—within and across sectors— to make the region better for everyone. Everything they do is to advance this purpose. It is what ties all their work together. To do this, they invest in great ideas and the people who power them in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and the 23 Native nations that share this geography. This is both their tagline and their strategy to advance their purpose.

POSITION PROFILE | GRANTMAKING OFFICER (SOUTH DAKOTA FOCUS)

The grantmaking officer advances the goals of the Bush Foundation by ensuring that Bush is finding and considering the highest potential ideas from communities throughout the region.

The team of five grantmaking officers work collaboratively across the region to support all of Bush’s grant programs. This role has a specific focus on strengthening the ties between Bush and the communities and people in South Dakota and the Native nations that share the same geography, while also supporting regional work and broader Bush initiatives as assigned.

To be considered for this role, candidates must reside in South Dakota and have a broad understanding of the issues facing the people and communities across the state, credibility and trust with a range of communities and people across the state and experience bridging different perspectives and priorities. Bush’s grantmaking approach is to seek the input of community members to help identify the most critical needs affecting the people in the region.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIP

This role is an individual contributor and reports to the grantmaking director (currently open)*

*Temporarily reports to Anita Patel, VP of grantmaking.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Building Relationships

1. Proactively cultivate and maintain relationships with communities, organizations and individuals across the region—with a particular focus on South Dakota—through multiple strategies including the contact hub, office hours and program-specific outreach.
2. Plan and conduct ongoing engagement strategies, to include frequently traveling throughout South Dakota to host and facilitate in-person activities, in alignment with the Bush Foundation’s community engagement strategy.
3. Coordinating with the lead staff on Native nations to ensure the South Dakota strategy and the Native nations strategy are thoughtfully integrated.
4. Intentionally connect with people and organizations in priority communities to advance the Foundation’s goals of sourcing new, innovative ideas. Participate in community-led activities to grow awareness of Bush’s offerings and raise its visibility in the region.

Responding to Inquiries

1. Communicate thoughtfully and professionally with individuals and organizations seeking information about Bush’s grant programs.
2. Provide clear, constructive feedback on ideas and applications, including guidance when proposals are unlikely to be competitive. Where appropriate, recommend alternative funding sources or connections better suited to their objectives.

Documenting and Sharing Activities

1. Enter and maintain information about engagement activities in the Salesforce database to ensure transparency, track progress and facilitate knowledge sharing across the organization.

Evaluating and Assessing Proposals

1. Conduct comprehensive evaluations of proposals and applications.
2. Apply program criteria using independent judgment and collaborate with team members to test assumptions and refine analyses.
3. Conduct extensive due diligence, preparing detailed analysis and recommendations for advancing proposals for funding consideration.
4. Communicate decisions to applicants and provide detailed, constructive feedback to explain the rationale behind the outcome and, when appropriate, prepare them for potential next steps.

Identifying Transformative Opportunities

1. Actively source and cultivate new ideas, organizations and individuals with the potential to drive transformative change in community problem-solving efforts.
2. Design and implement targeted outreach efforts to identify high-potential candidates for programs such as Community Innovation, Bush Fellowship, Ecosystem or other Bush initiatives and partnerships.
3. Develop a comprehensive understanding of key issues affecting communities across the region.
4. Share insights and learnings with colleagues to inform strategic decisions and enhance collective knowledge.
5. Serve as a trusted resource and partner within the broader field, sharing Bush’s insights and lessons learned on collaborative problem-solving and community engagement — both internally and externally.

Supporting and Guiding Grantees

1. Manage a portfolio of grantees, providing ongoing guidance, support and encouragement throughout the duration of their grants or fellowships.

Contributing to Cross-Foundation Initiatives

1. Actively participate in organization-wide initiatives, including strategic projects, community engagement activities, learning opportunities, equity efforts, work groups, events and internal committees.

Upholding Organizational Values

1. Embrace and demonstrate Bush’s operating values consistently in all work and external engagement efforts.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

1. Broad knowledge of, and experience working with, community-serving entities in South Dakota. Significant experience building and maintaining effective partnerships in the region served by Bush.
2. Experience reviewing grant applications and proposals is required, with the demonstrated ability to apply research-informed, analytical thinking to a criteria-based grant selection process.
3. Demonstrated cultural competency, emotional intelligence and the ability to connect with people from all backgrounds.
4. Effective written and verbal communication skills, adaptable to varying audiences and purposes. Ability to distill large amounts of information into salient, compelling narratives that illustrate the potential impact of an investment.
5. Ability to transition between highly relational work and in-depth analytical tasks.
6. Skills to successfully work remotely in a high-performing, relational organization. Self-motivated, accountable and consistently intentional about communicating and building connections and rapport within the organization, as well ensuring their own work and expertise is visible to other staff.
7. Ability to manage multiple projects and tasks that require self-direction, attention to detail, effective time-management and problem-solving skills.
8. Strong due diligence and assessment skills, including:
   1. Understanding social change, identifying it in emerging ideas and coaching others to recognize and navigate it.
   2. Identifying credible sources of information and expertise, gathering information and independently conducting in-depth research.
   3. Synthesizing complex ideas and contextualizing them within larger frameworks.
   4. Applying critical thinking, discernment, balanced judgment and equity considerations to the analysis and development of grant proposals.
9. Ability to embrace a collaborative decision-making approach that prioritizes collective goals over individual interests.
10. Ability to respectfully engage in challenging conversations, consider divergent viewpoints, accept and offer critical feedback and challenge assumptions and personal biases.
11. Ability to deliver difficult news and constructive feedback verbally, in a direct and supportive manner, maintaining professionalism and healthy personal boundaries. Rejection of grant proposals is a regular part of the job.
12. Proficiency working with Microsoft Office products. Comfortable using Microsoft Teams, Zoom, etc.
13. Experience with Salesforce or other CRMs/databases is a plus. Willing to learn and utilize any new software or technology as required for the work.
14. Enthusiasm for Bush’s operating values and a willingness to reflect, learn and act in ways that align with them.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The salary for this position is $124,013 annually. Bush offers excellent benefits, including health, dental, life and disability insurance; generous retirement contributions; professional development and vacation, sick and holiday leave.

Deadline to Apply is April 18th, 2025. To learn more, click here.