About the Water Foundation

The Water Foundation is a nonprofit philanthropy working to support lasting water solutions for communities, economies, and the environment. The Foundation complements strategic grantmaking with creative field building and engagement with high-level decision makers and community leaders and helps funders identify and act on opportunities to better manage water.

The Water Foundation works in states and basins across the country, as well as on federal policy, recognizing that water crosses political boundaries and natural places face similar challenges across the country. As a singularly focused water funder, the Water Foundation serves the entire water field, deploying staff expertise to move resources to the groups that can most effectively improve water systems that affect people and nature. The Water Foundation’s partners span a broad spectrum: conservation organizations, environmental justice groups, agricultural associations, water providers, business groups, and local, tribal, state, and federal agencies.

The Foundation prioritizes securing safe, equitable, clean, and accessible water for people, restoring and sustaining freshwater ecosystems, and building climate resilient communities and watersheds. These three goals are critical to the future of water. In pursuing these goals, the Foundation supports the field in tackling immediate water problems, including polluted drinking water and collapsing ecosystems, in ways that alter system drivers, such as social inequality and outmoded infrastructure. We also work to mobilize new resources for water by convening the philanthropic community.

More information about the Water Foundation can be found at www.waterfdn.org.

In 2025, the Water Foundation launched an affiliated 501(c)(4), Water Action Fund, with a mission to ensure access to essential water resources for people and nature by supporting the advancement of local, state, and federal policies that promote public well-being and help U.S. communities prepare for various crises, including natural disasters and other emergencies. More information about Water Action Fund can be found at www.wateractionfund.org.

The Opportunity

The Water Foundation recently launched its Clean Water program and seeks a self-directed and motivated Senior Program Officer to play a key role in its continued development and implementation.

The Senior Program Officer will have an important opportunity to advance collaboration, impact, and equity in the water space by supporting the program's goals of strengthening shared commitment to water issues and supporting bipartisan policy efforts in ways that are responsive to the priorities and leadership of communities across multiple states.

Reporting to the Program Director, this role will help advance the program’s dual objectives across priority states by contributing to strategy execution, drawing on the expertise of Foundation staff and partners, and maintaining strong communication with the senior Foundation team. The Senior Program Officer will spend time in priority states building relationships, listening to and learning from community members, and working alongside in-state partners and prospective grantees. They will support local leaders and organizations, exercising thoughtful judgment in aligning advocacy, communications, and organizing efforts in ways that reflect community priorities and contribute to long-term capacity and resilience.

The breadth and diversity of the Foundation’s partners and grantees offer the SPO an opportunity to help elevate a wide range of perspectives and experiences within the water field.

This role is employed by the Water Foundation and will work in close coordination with the affiliated Water Action Fund.  

Key Responsibilities

Program Strategy and Execution

1. In partnership with the Program Director, identify desired strategic water policy outcomes in priority states and execute a responsive grantmaking strategy to deploy resources
2. Identify and oversee in-state consultants and grantees, driving implementation toward positive water policy outcomes.
3. Support capacity needs, building power with key audiences and new partners, and promoting innovative advocacy and policy strategies where relevant.
4. Conduct site visits to in-state partners and consultants, understanding and respecting the important differences of each state and deferring to local expertise and experience, while offering sharing insights, learning, and outside perspective as appropriate
5. Represent the Water Foundation before external audiences, including governmental decisionmakers, community leaders, and regional funders in coordination with the Program Director and Chief Program and Strategy Officer.

Program Evaluation and Organizational Learning

1. Identify and track outcomes across priority states and compile and share findings across states, as well as with Water Foundation colleagues and other key partners, including donors.
2. Support coordination, collaboration, and learning across states, within the Water Foundation, and among other field partners.
3. Identify and devise opportunities to experiment with strategies, tactics, and messaging to improve the Foundation’s understanding about what works best to build power and advance policy goals.

Grantmaking and Fundraising

1. Work with the Program Director to develop and manage a portfolio of grants and contracts to achieve strategic outcomes.
2. Invite, review, analyze, and summarize grant proposals and reports, shepherding them through the Foundation review processes.
3. Serve as a resource to other funders, supporting and advising their investments in state movement-building and policy campaigns.
4. Support fundraising as needed for the clean water program, in collaboration with Water Table, the Water Foundation development team, and leadership.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will demonstrate a commitment to the Water Foundation’s mission to support lasting water solutions through equitable systems change. The Foundation seeks a Senior Program Officer who brings expertise in policy change and advocacy environments, including experience working in or alongside legislative, regulatory, and/or ballot initiative efforts at the state level. The successful candidate will bring a depth of understanding of the policy, regulatory, and structural contexts that may impact progress. Direct experience in water, natural resources, or public health fields is desirable.

With a significant portion of this portfolio organized to support coalitions and their partners, the Senior Program Officer must also bring a deep and nuanced understanding of working with diverse groups of stakeholders. We seek candidates with an entrepreneurial spirit, who have demonstrated success building new partnerships in unfamiliar settings or regions. The intuition and emotional intelligence to navigate complex relationships and new contexts with comfort and confidence is critical.

As an intermediary funder, the Water Foundation staff must understand the delicate balance of when to operate as a funder and when to step in as a convener or strategic advisor. As such, the ideal candidate will lead with humility and the desire to learn and ask questions before acting.

While prior work in philanthropy is not required, candidates must have experience developing programmatic strategy and direction, as well as experience executing against that strategy in tangible ways such as prioritization and allocation of resources in alignment with goals and budget. The Water Foundation places high value on bringing in talent that diversifies their ways of operating and thinking.

Experience

1. Approximately 10 years of progressively responsible roles working on state-level policy, legislative, and/or regulatory advocacy.
2. Experience in more than one state, particularly across different regions and political contexts, are strongly preferred.
3. Experience working with a range of 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations including single- and multi-issue advocacy groups and other constituency groups and policy groups.

Qualifications

1. Effective collaborator, who has worked in coalition with both close allies and big tent partners.