Philanthropic Programs Director

To run the next rounds of our 2½-years old Grantmaking Training program, we are looking for a Philanthropic Programs Director to continue finding, training, and advising funders in setting up their grantmaking for maximum impact. In addition, you will provide strategic oversight and guidance to the funders in our five funding circles, collectively distributing $5-10 million annually.

IMPORTANT: This is a summarised version of the job advert for CharityJob's purposes. Clicking 'Apply' will take you to the complete and detailed version on our website, where you'll also be able to apply.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As Philanthropic Programs Director, you will lead and keep developing AIM's Impactful Grantmaking training program and oversee our five funding circles. Your primary responsibility will be outreach, program facilitation, and hands-on philanthropic advising for the twice-annual 9-week cohorts of funders giving over $1M annually.

This is a fairly senior position with high stakes, a lot of potential for development, and outstandingly high potential for impact, and thus best suited to an individual with at a minimum 3-5 years of experience and some deep prior expertise in the philanthropic sector.

You will work closely with the Philanthropic Programs Manager in a two-person program team. You will decide collaboratively at the start of your tenure how to divide and/or share responsibilities in the categories below, as well as how to take care of operations and ad hoc tasks and projects.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Program Facilitation (~40%)

• Deliver program content in an engaging and accessible manner

• Develop weekly lesson plans and discussion topics for a 9-week program Zoom calls

• Conduct thought-provoking and productive 1:1 coaching sessions with participants for 30 minutes weekly throughout the program.

• Prepare for and run the weekly group calls going through topics covered in our foundation handbook

Outreach and Public-Facing Work (~30%)

• Conduct regular calls with philanthropists, advisors, and other philanthropic professionals to maintain a strong presence in the sector

• Serve as the initial point of contact for new funders interested in or referred to the program, effectively communicating its value without being overly sales-oriented

• Scope and test the best ways to find new prospective participants who would benefit from our program and cause a large amount of impact

• Ensure each cohort has a minimum of 5 participants contributing an average of $1M+ each annually

• Maintain visibility of the program in philanthropic circles through activities such as article writing and regular engagement on philanthropy listservs

• Represent the AIM Grantmaking program at a minimum of two conferences annually and at local philanthropic events in your area

Community Engagement (~15%)

• Foster relationships with our community of 30+ alumni and extended network of funders

• Provide strategic oversight and guidance to funding circle co-chairs, serving as a valuable resource and goal-setter

• Organise regular alumni catch-up calls for the entire community

• Collaborate on planning the grantmaker meetup component of annual AIM network in-person gatherings

Grantmaking (~0-10%)

• For the right candidate, there could be an opportunity to be personally responsible for regranting a sizable amount of money via our five funding circles across some of their five cause areas (global health & development, meta charity, mental health, animal welfare, and AIM seed network)

Program Operations Support (~10%)

• Contribute to iterative improvement of program content, adapting based on feedback, evaluation, and tailoring for the upcoming cohort composition

• Collaborate on revising the program handbook to better serve future cohorts and benefit the broader philanthropic sector

• Ensure the Philanthropic Programs Manager receives adequate management, support, and oversight to maintain program momentum

FUTURE GROWTH TRAJECTORIES

This is a senior role within AIM, but future growth and expertise development trajectories for excelling hires could look like:

• Becoming an expert in understanding the philanthropic landscapes in different cause areas, from central funding bodies, key stakeholders and actors, to core methodologies and strategic issues in the space and its related communities

• Becoming adept at small group and individual-focused (U)HNWI teaching, coaching, and advising, acquiring experience working with a wide range of individuals with different backgrounds, interests, approaches, and cause areas

• Focusing on building out a strong philanthropic network to find program participants, being able to bridge and connect a wide range of individuals and organisations across interest areas and geographies and enabling them to strategically increase their impact

ABOUT YOU

We're seeking a versatile professional capable of delivering high-quality work across a diverse range of tasks in high-stakes contexts. The ideal candidate will bring existing expertise in some areas while demonstrating a willingness to learn and excel in less familiar domains. You should consider yourself a philanthropy generalist to some extent, with the ability to quickly adapt and improve in new areas of responsibility.

The ideal candidate is a people-oriented mid-level to senior-stage professional (3-5+ years of experience) with extensive knowledge of philanthropy and a deep alignment with AIM's vision for a thriving, collaborative, effectiveness-focused philanthropic sector.

Strong and even ideal candidates will meet many (but not necessarily all) of the criteria below. We encourage you to apply even if you do not meet all of the listed characteristics. In the past, we've offered positions to applicants who demonstrated strong overall potential, providing training to address skill gaps. We prioritise high general ability, a strong work ethic, and alignment with our values, methods, and approach to maximising global impact over specific prior work experience or backgrounds. We sketch a picture of potential ideal candidates to give a more concrete sense of what particularly strong candidates might look like, not to discourage interested applicants.

A strong candidate is:

• A natural people person: Thrives on interpersonal interactions, both in-person and via digital platforms like Zoom. Naturally engages and excites conversation partners and knows when to speak and when to listen.

  • Ideal - prior experience in people-facing roles like advising, consulting, or management

• A passionate philanthropic change-maker: Prior experience with the philanthropic sector, dedicated to improving its impact, and finding fulfilment in helping funders achieve their desired goals. Keen to learn the specific features of multiple cause areas of grantmaking.

  • Ideal - prior experience in a relevant profession, such as (U)HNW advising, grantmaking, or research; prior experience with grantmaking in the evidence-based philanthropic landscape, such as in international development, the farmed animal welfare movement, and/or in the effective altruism community.

• A quick and flexible multi-context thinker: Capable of quick, agile thinking when faced with challenging questions, responding confidently and persuasively to inspire participant action. Able to consider multiple perspectives and navigate different worldviews. 

  • Ideal - prior experience interacting with key decision-makers in high-stakes contexts, either as a peer or in an advisory capacity. For example, this could be in a consulting, fundraising, or grantmaking capacity with HNWIs or C-level executives

• A skilled facilitator: Able to create and communicate content in engaging and effective ways. Notices when a participant is less engaged and bring them into the conversation, while able to smoothly direct conversations towards topics that are the most productive for the group and is confident interrupting people when needed.

  • Ideal - someone with experience in teaching, facilitation, or educating, particularly in semi-formal settings

• An altruistic team player: Enjoys collaborative project work and is adept at both giving and receiving constructive feedback. AIM and our programs and funding circles are all cooperative environments that place impartial impact above individual success.

  • Ideal - proven motivation to work in philanthropic, non-profit, or social domains, i.e., prior work or engagement with spaces aimed at improving the world

• Willingness to work in person from London (visa sponsorship and moving costs support provided)

WHAT WE OFFER

• A job with a large, tangible impact on the world - your work will attract and select the founders of new field-leading charities and for-profit companies, as well as high-impact researchers and AIM staff

• High levels of intellectual challenge, autonomy, variety, and learning on the job

• An informal, fun, warm, and supportive work environment with high talent density. Our office in East London houses about 50% of our staff, dozens of charity founders and staff, and hosts a range of co-working opportunities and social events for the wider impactful entrepreneurship London community

• Become a part of our international network of ambitious, driven entrepreneurs and highly talented philanthropic professionals

• A true start-up culture, including low bureaucracy, a quick and collaborative work spirit, and high levels of talent density

• Significant opportunities to attend events and conferences to represent AIM, including international travel

BENEFITS

• A flexible working schedule, 30 paid days off per year, and unlimited sick leave

• UK visa sponsorship, if needed, as well as support with moving costs if relocating to London

• An annual costs-covered retreat to bring our whole team together to celebrate our achievements

• A workspace in our vibrant central London office, which is a hub for our program alumni and high-impact organisations/professionals 

• Parental, dependents, and compassionate leave schemes

• A range of other benefits, including a payroll giving scheme, staff tenure donation scheme, contributions towards professional development and IT costs, and a workplace pension

• We are open to discussing specific personalised perks or benefits that may enhance your work experience

APPLICATION PROCESS

Our application processes aim to be highly predictive, time-effective, and informative for you. Our process consists only of stages that our best evidence suggests are predictive of success on the job (such as test tasks) rather than more common but less predictive stages (such as cover letters). We only invite candidates to the next stage if we think they have a good chance of passing it, and take care to choose tasks and interview questions that will also give you a good sense of the role and our culture.

Applicants will be asked to complete the following stages:

1. Submitting our general application form (30 minutes to 1 hour),

2. A general test task (2-3 hours) with the top 10 to 30 candidates,

3. An initial interview (15 minutes) with the top 10-20 candidates,

4. A test task simulating the work you would do in your role (2-3 hours) with the top 5-15 candidates,

5. A final, more in-depth interview (~60 minutes) with the final 2-5 candidates.

We will also conduct a reference check before making an offer. Each stage typically takes 1-2 weeks from the end of the application deadline, and we hope to make an offer within ~8 weeks of the application deadline. Ideally, the candidate will begin onboarding as soon as possible after an offer is made. We strongly prefer candidates to join the team by January 2025, but we would consider a different date for an ideal candidate.