Director of Development Strategy & Operations

Growth For Impact; Toronto; On-site; CAD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

Paid time off

Paid holidays

Insurance benefits

Competitive compensation

Remote work

Job summary

Growth For Impact is seeking a senior fundraising strategist to shape and drive our global development agenda. You will guide priority setting across programs and geographies, align proposals with funder interests, and manage a distributed team of development professionals.

This role requires strong collaboration with country leads, fundraisers, and program directors to maximize impact. You will oversee the fundraising pipeline, coordinate multi-country proposals, and produce modular decks for

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in fundraising, development operations, or a closely related strategy/operations function.
• Ability to translate frontline input into strategy and prioritization.
• Experience managing or coordinating a distributed team, including non-direct-report relationships.
• Strong track record with CRM/pipeline systems and turning data into decisions.
• Familiarity with climate/energy/entrepreneurship sectors is a plus.
• Structured, analytical thinker who synthesizes qualitative input into clear recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Help develop a living, prioritized development strategy based on outcomes, funder conversations, and market signals.
• Identify focus areas across programs and geographies based on funder appetite and pipeline strength.
• Maintain a clear funding pipeline view by funder, program, chapter, and stage; flag risks early.
• Translate strategy into concrete guidance on prioritization and revisiting proposals.
• Lead and develop the global platform-level development team; recruitment, onboarding, and coaching.
• Translate strategy into a rolling work plan with defined ownership and timelines.
• Build collaboration across global development to maximize impact across markets.
• Run the fundraising rhythm: pipeline reviews, proposal coordination, and prioritization checks.
• Coordinate multi-country proposals and craft cohesive narratives and budgets.
• Build and own a central library of fundraising collateral for quick assembly.
• Draft core funder and conference decks; align collateral with messaging and brand.
• Provide tools and support to country leads and fundraisers for effective fundraising.
• Create feedback loops to improve strategy from field learnings.
• Own CRM and pipeline-tracking systems; ensure data quality and reporting.
• Produce regular dashboards on pipeline health and funder trends.

Skills

Fundraising strategy

CRM / pipeline management

Team leadership

Data-driven decision making

Project management

Stakeholder management

Written communication

Cross-cultural collaboration

Strategic thinking

Tools

CRM software

Job description

ROLE

• Help develop a living, prioritized development strategy based on proposal outcomes, funder conversations, and market signals gleaned from team conversations and learnings from fundraisers, country directors, and program leads
• Identify where NEX should be focusing time and effort across programs and geographies, based on funder appetite, pipeline strength, and organizational priorities
• Maintain a clear view of the funding pipeline across the network — by funder, program, chapter, and stage — and flag risks, gaps, or unrestricted-vs-restricted balance issues early
• Translate strategy into concrete guidance: which opportunities to prioritize, which proposals need repositioning, where the team is over- or under-invested
• Serve as a thought partner to the CEO and program leads on funding strategy, drawing on patterns across markets rather than any single relationship
• Lead and develop the global platform-level development team including recruiting, hiring, onboarding, coaching, and managing performance, and ensure team members’ skills are effectively leveraged against NEX’s development priorities
• Translate the development strategy into a clear rolling work plan for the team, aligning ownership, resources, and timelines
• Build strong collaboration across the global development function, bringing together the expertise and fundraising capabilities of platform-level staff, country leaders, fundraisers, and program leads to maximize collective impact
• Run the operating rhythm of the fundraising team: pipeline reviews, proposal coordination across programs/chapters/finance/communications, and prioritization check-ins
• Coordinate multi-country and multi-program proposals, including combining country and program inputs into a cohesive narrative and budget that aligns with broader NEX operational and growth priorities
• Build and own a central library of fundraising collateral – pitch decks, one-pagers, case studies, program summaries, impact data – so materials for funder meetings and conference talks can be assembled quickly rather than built from scratch each time
• Draft and maintain core funder and conference decks, adapting a standard set of modular slides/content to each audience so our fundraisers can focus their time on external relationship-building and speaking rather than deck production
• Partner with the Chief Communications Officer to keep collateral aligned with current messaging, program updates, and brand standards
• Provide country leads and fundraisers with the tools, templates, frameworks, and support to raise funds effectively and report consistently
• Build feedback loops so that what is learned through funder and country-level engagement consistently makes its way back into strategy, priorities, and team planning
• Accountable for the fundraising CRM and pipeline-tracking systems, ensuring data quality, consistent use across chapters, and useful reporting
• Produce regular and ad hoc reporting and dashboards for NEX leadership on pipeline health, funder trends, and progress against platform fundraising goals
• Standardize proposal, reporting, and stewardship templates and processes across the global platform-level team
• Track outcomes against the fundraising strategy and refine it as new data comes in
• Ensure fundraising protocols and internal as well as external reporting are completed on time and to consistent quality standards

REQUIREMENTS

• 8+ years of experience in fundraising, development operations, or a closely related strategy/operations function
• Demonstrated experience turning frontline or field-level input into strategy and prioritization
• Experience managing or closely coordinating a distributed team, including non-direct-report relationships
• Strong track record with CRM/pipeline systems and translating data into decisions, not just dashboards
• Familiarity with the climate, clean energy, or entrepreneurship support landscape is a strong plus
• Structured, analytical thinker who is comfortable synthesizing messy, qualitative field input into clear recommendations
• High level of adaptability in an environment with evolving team structures and workflows
• High emotional intelligence — able to lead and support a development team well, build trust with country leads across diverse cultural contexts
• Exceptional written communication skills — able to distill complex, multi-market fundraising intelligence into concise strategy and proposals
• Strong project management skills; able to run a coordination function across concurrent proposals, deadlines, and stakeholders
• Comfortable being an internal partner and “connective tissue” role rather than the primary external face of fundraising
• Ability to work with a global team across time zones, with periodic travel for internal team meetings and relevant conferences/convenings
• Proficiency in database/CRM management, Google Workspace, and Slack
• Foundational knowledge of global clean energy and climate change solutions and ecosystems and willingness to engage in in-depth self-learning on any gaps
• Experience building or adding structure to a development operations function from an earlier, more informal stage

BENEFITS

• Medical benefits
• Dental benefits
• Vision benefits
• Paid time off
• Paid holidays
• Insurance benefits
• Competitive compensation for the market the candidate is based in
• Full-time remote position