About the organization
ClimateWorks Foundation is a global organization committed to our mission: to end the climate crisis by amplifying the power of philanthropy. Since our founding in 2008, we have awarded over $1 billion in grants to more than 500 organizations advancing climate solutions around the world. We helped grow the field of climate philanthropy to where it stands today, establishing infrastructure, global networks, and momentum for continued growth. Through our Global Programs and Services we equip philanthropy with global knowledge, networks, and solutions to drive climate progress.
- Scaling solutions: Our collaborative Global Programs — focused on solution areas including carbon dioxide removal, cooling, food and agriculture, industry, transportation, and more — produce results that are bending the greenhouse gas emissions curve. From the U.S. to Europe, China, Brazil, and beyond, we collaborate with a diverse community of funders, NGOs, and climate leaders to accelerate just and equitable climate solutions.
- Guiding and supporting funders: Our Global Services provide funders with comprehensive resources to assess, build, evolve, and execute high-impact climate-giving strategies. Our Global Intelligence service equips funders and the climate community with climate insights to pinpoint opportunities for impact and philanthropic insights to help identify investment priorities. We facilitate Global Collaborations that enable funders to increase individual and collective impact. Our Global Grantmaking services enable funders to invest in climate solutions around the world.
- Fostering collaboration, exploration, and growth: Our collaborative approach and commitment to learning ensures that we continuously explore innovative ideas and emerging opportunities — all with the aim of scaling philanthropy-supported initiatives to help end the climate crisis.
As experts in climate science, public policy, economic and social analysis, and strategic philanthropy, ClimateWorks’ staff understands the multi-faceted challenges and opportunities of climate change. We are researchers, strategists, collaborators, and grantmakers who care passionately about our mission. For more information, please visit www.climateworks.org.
Summary
The global food system produces 34% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Left unchecked, emissions from food are projected to increase by at least 50% by 2050. We have the power to shift this trajectory: through strategic work with grantees, partners, and philanthropic networks, we can help to scale existing and emerging climate solutions to transform our food system. From reinvesting in traditional agricultural practices to cutting-edge technologies, the food system presents a wide range of opportunities with the potential to deeply reduce emissions while boosting the availability of nutritious food and improving the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. Realizing the full potential of climate solutions in food could, by 2030, generate $5 trillion per year in inclusive new business opportunities, create over 100 million well-paying jobs, and save $6 trillion annually in health and environmental costs.
Justice and equity sit at the center of what we do and aspire to do in the Food & Agriculture program. Food systems are among the most tangible areas of work on climate issues that can play a key role in both climate mitigation and adaptation. The goal of our work is to ensure that the transition to a more sustainable food system occurs in a way that is just, equitable, and inclusive, especially of historically marginalized and frontline communities. Through our grantmaking and partnerships, we seek to empower a diverse and growing set of changemakers who advocate for the potential of improving food production and consumption as a climate solution and who actively work to ensure that food system climate objectives do not sideline priorities in global health, environmental quality, and building a more just food system.
Our grantees and partners work across the globe with particular focuses in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. The group includes NGOs, researchers, businesses, governments, and other funders. Through our grantmaking and partnerships, we scale innovative ideas and technologies; advance ambitious laws, policies, and targets; and create conditions that enable business and consumer choices that align with a safe climate. Our work currently includes three core focus areas: protein transition, sustainable fertilizer, and philanthropic cooperation.
Job summary
The ClimateWorks Foundation Director, Food and Agriculture, will focus on developing and implementing the program’s next phase of work. That includes developing its strategy, managing the team, fundraising, directing the program’s grantmaking, ensuring impactful implementation, strengthening relationships with partners, and developing new opportunities. Program Directors at ClimateWorks are responsible for the development of strategies to help the philanthropic community innovate and accelerate climate solutions that benefit people and enhance equity, driving collaboration among funders and with grantees, and targeting our own regranting to amplify impact.This is a wonderful opportunity for someone who has a global vision for mitigating the climate impacts of food and agriculture while centering people, protecting nature, and improving livelihoods. The candidate should have a hands-on, team-oriented approach, an instinct for good collaboration, and an unmistakable passion for addressing the climate and food crisis through impactful strategies that create measurable outcomes.
This position reports to the Deputy Vice President of Programs. The Director will be responsible for leading the Food and Agriculture team, including supervising and mentoring direct reports. The Director will also closely collaborate with other ClimateWorks programs and staff, and work cross-functionally within ClimateWorks to provide strategic guidance as it relates to food and agriculture.
Essential tasks
Strategy
- ClimateWorks collaborates with global partners to co-create philanthropic strategies designed to achieve large scale impact. The Director formulates, shapes, communicates and leads the vision for the program, building on existing areas of focus including coalescing action at the global level, through evaluating insights from a wide range of partners, collaborating among philanthropies, and grantmaking on fertilizer, protein transition, and other interventions. The Director translates and distills the food and agriculture strategy into realistic and actionable plans.
Funder engagement
- Be a primary resource to the funding community, to provide updated landscapes of opportunities and challenges in the food, agriculture and climate landscape, convene funders and partners, and provide credible and compelling investment recommendations to funding partners (current and prospective).
- Establish and cultivate strong relationships with a network of philanthropic funders, internal and external experts, organizational partners, policymakers, and others to explore, develop, fund, and implement strategies to scale and better target food and agriculture interventions to address climate and other impacts.
Management and program implementation
- Own and manage program risks, reporting to the Deputy Vice President, Programs as required to address and mitigate potential or emerging risks to program results and reputation.
- Submit reports and make presentations and grant proposal requests to the ClimateWorks Board of Directors and funders as required.
- Lead the Food and Agriculture team, managing direct reports (an Associate Director and Senior Program Associate) and collaborating effectively with extended team members.
- Attend meetings of and provide input to the ClimateWorks Programs Team in support of ClimateWorks’ overall mission and objectives.
- Oversee the food and agriculture team’s identification, development, review, and recommendation of grant proposals and all aspects of grantmaking implementation.
- Oversee food and agriculture program financial expenditure flows and reporting; approve grant proposals and programmatic contracts, in consultation with program team.
- Oversee monitoring and evaluation for the food and agriculture program.
Fundraising
- Conduct ongoing fundraising for the program with philanthropic, individual, and bilateral government donors and build relationships with interested donors.
- Collaborate with our development and funder collaboration teams to ensure excellent relationships with all funders.
- Develop and submit initiative-specific reporting, the annual report and budget, the business plan and operations budget, and any updates on strategy to the funders. Serve as the ‘accountability officer’ for all governance obligations.
Stakeholder management and engagement
- Articulate the vision and goals of the program to key internal and external audiences, in line with ClimateWorks communications strategy, including managing interactions with external entities such as the media, donors, and partners.
- Engage as appropriate with grantees, supporting the team’s grantmaking as needed; this includes directly managing grantees, as well as managing program staff with their own grant portfolios.
- Liaise with experts and leaders in the field, including policy makers and UN officials.
- Facilitate strategy, grantmaking, and other relevant knowledge sharing with partner organizations; oversee the commissioning, development, and sharing of knowledge products.
- Maintain and strengthen collaboration with the Climate and Land Use Alliance.
Position requirements
Knowledge and experience
- Demonstrable impact on climate mitigation and related economic and social issues in a global context, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
- Twelve years of relevant professional experience and an advanced degree in a relevant field or demonstrated experience applying technical skills and knowledge in the field.
- Experience leading high-impact teams implementing campaigns and/or programs in an international context, including working with frontline communities.
Setting strategy
- Ability to translate the vision and mission of ClimateWorks and the Food and Agriculture Program into a strategy that attracts buy-in from constituencies with varying interests and objectives.
Executing for results
- Ability to develop and execute actionable plans that attract funding.
- Diplomatic skills to use relationship networks strategically and integrate differing perspectives in order to achieve big-picture goals.
- Effective delegation skills and an inclusive approach to leadership.
Building relationships and using influence
- Skill in building and sustaining strong, productive relationships across different constituencies.
- A sense of humility; open to listening to and learning from others, applying constructive feedback to their work.
Personal competencies / motivation
- Commitment to the mission, vision, and values of ClimateWorks.
- Strong and compelling communicator and storyteller. Able to convey ideas clearly, credibly, and with energy to motivate others to pursue a common objective.
- Ability to adapt views and solutions in the face of new information and/or practical realities.
- A global outlook and the sensibility to empathize and collaborate with different cultures.
Organization and program management
- Experience and comfort working in a highly collaborative and deadline-driven professional environment.
- Ability to build and lead a team in a diverse, inclusive, and equitable work environment.
Travel
- Must have the capacity to travel internationally, occasionally on short notice.
Compensation
ClimateWorks offers an excellent benefits package and a competitive salary that is commensurate with experience. The salary range for this position is $180,000 to $220,000 (geographic differential applied based on location).
Location
ClimateWorks Foundation is based in the San Francisco Financial District with a team that includes staff who work remotely across the globe. We are open to candidates based in global locations that are advantageous to advance the work of this position and that enable time zone overlap with our San Francisco base and colleagues and partners in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.
Commitment to racial and social justice
At ClimateWorks Foundation, we are driven by our vision of creating a thriving planet for all living beings for generations to come. We aim to foster an inclusive workplace that values diverse lived experiences and emphasizes the voices of marginalized people — especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color — who are most vulnerable to climate impacts, and whose voices, ideas, and leadership are crucial to winning the climate fight.
To ensure that we are making meaningful progress, we have made a set of diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments across all dimensions of our work to further our mission and realize our vision. For more information, please visit: Fostering Racial and Social Justice in Pursuit of our Mission
Equal Employment Opportunity
Equal employment opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at ClimateWorks Foundation and as such we are committed to creating a diverse and multi-cultural work environment. We strongly encourage and seek applications from women, people of color, and bilingual and bicultural individuals, as well as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race (including traits historically associated with race), ethnicity, religion, color, sex (including childbirth, breast feeding, and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, uniform service member and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, age, protected medical condition, genetic information, disability, or any other protected status in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws.
ClimateWorks Foundation is committed to complying with all laws protecting qualified individuals with disabilities, as well as employees’ religious beliefs and practices. This policy extends to all aspects of our employment practices including, but not limited to, recruiting, hiring, discipline, termination, promotions, transfers, compensation, benefits, training, leaves of absence, and other terms and conditions of employment. ClimateWorks Foundation will provide a reasonable accommodation for any known physical or mental disability of a qualified individual and/or employees’ religious beliefs and practices, as required by law.
If you require an accommodation, please notify Human Resources. Once ClimateWorks Foundation is aware of the need for an accommodation, it will engage in an interactive process to identify possible accommodations.
Application Process
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. To be considered for this position, interested candidates must submit a resume and cover letter. While this position will remain open until filled, we will conduct our initial review of applications on August 21st. Applications are encouraged before that time.
Employment at the ClimateWorks Foundation is at-will.