Director, Pathways to Capital

ImpactAlpha Inc.; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental &amp

Retirement Plan – 403b with 5% match

Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary &

Job summary

Milken Institute seeks a Director for the 10,000 Communities program to expand CIC’s network of community developers, funders, and planners. You will advance infrastructure projects by building relationships, coordinating multi-stakeholder efforts, and guiding technology-enabled tracking across pipelines.

You’ll work with planners and funders to scale equitable capital deployment, foster forums, and support field-based engagements in priority markets.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree is required.
• Minimum 8 years of experience in a relevant field.
• Experience as a planner with generalist infrastructure knowledge.
• Ability to navigate community development, planning, or place-based real estate development.

Responsibilities

• Build and expand CIC’s network and partnerships.
• Manage case tracking systems at CIC.
• Collaborate with tech team to refine tools for tracking projects in the pipeline.
• Develop and manage CIC’s collaborative forums and working groups.
• Support place-based engagements by representing CIC at events.
• Translate field learnings into inputs for technology and tools.

Skills

Relationship building

Project management

Stakeholder engagement

Analytical thinking

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

About Milken Institute

The Milken Institute is a globally minded, publicly supported, non-partisan nonprofit think tank headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Established over three decades ago, the organization has grown to maintain offices in Washington, DC, New York, London, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. The Institute operates as a catalyst for practical, scalable solutions to global challenges by strategically connecting human, financial, and educational resources to those who need them most. The organization’s foundational philosophy is grounded in the belief that the best ideas, when under-resourced, cannot succeed. To address this, the Milken Institute conducts rigorous research and analysis while convening top experts, innovators, and influencers from diverse backgrounds and competing viewpoints. This expertise and insight are leveraged to construct comprehensive programs and policy initiatives designed to help individuals build meaningful lives characterized by health and well-being, effective education, gainful employment, and access to resources that create expanding opportunities for themselves and their broader communities. The Institute’s events and programmatic activities facilitate the exchange of ideas with leaders from around the world. The organization hosts more than 200 events annually, with its flagship event, the Global Conference, bringing together over 4,500 participants from around the world. This signature event features more than 900 speakers across 200+ sessions, serving as a premier forum for global dialogue and knowledge sharing on critical economic and social issues.

About this Role

This position reports to the Director of 10,000 Communities and will provide comprehensive support for community-building and the cultivation of projects seeking assistance through the 10,000 Communities’ Community Infrastructure Center (CIC). The Director will play a pivotal role in advancing the CIC’s mission to scale equitable capital deployment and accelerate infrastructure projects in historically undercapitalized and underserved communities. The successful candidate will demonstrate passion for addressing America’s infrastructure gap while maintaining knowledge across diverse infrastructure asset classes and activities, including renewable energy, battery storage, building decarbonization, broadband, commercial corridors, and water infrastructure. The role requires a sophisticated understanding of how to deliver community-scale infrastructure projects and build complex capital stacks that support sustainable development. The Director will thrive in collaborative settings with diverse stakeholders including planners, city staff, community leaders, and funders, building and maintaining relationships both through digital and in-person engagement. This position carries accountability for supporting communities and projects while ensuring that CIC’s forums and convenings generate not only meaningful discussion but also tangible project pipelines, productive partnerships, and research that advances the field. The Director will also collaborate with the broader Pathways to Capital team and have opportunities to support the advancement of priorities across the entire Pathways to Capital portfolio of programs.

Responsibilities

• Bring and build relationships across community development and infrastructure development markets to expand CIC’s network and impact; identify and triage potential projects, capital providers, and technical assistance providers; and identify opportunities for warm handoffs and connections between communities, funders, and partner organizations
• Build, improve, and manage case management tracking systems at CIC
• Work in collaboration with the existing tech team to refine and build out existing technology and artificial intelligence tools to efficiently track projects in the pipeline, tracking pipeline progress against CIC’s targets and flagging where projects are stalling so the team can intervene and provide assistance
• Develop and manage CIC’s collaborative forums
• Grow and manage the working groups and forums that CIC has cultivated, including place-based regional efforts as well as thematic efforts (such as “community solar and storage” and “commercial corridors”); keep forums active and productive by preparing materials for periodic meetings, hosting and facilitating biweekly and monthly calls, and sharing and posting relevant information, tools, and updates for forums that have an online web channel component; actively grow forum membership by sharing opportunities to join with project owners in the pipeline and other stakeholders in the markets CIC touches
• Support place-based engagements by serving as CIC’s on-the-ground presence at events in priority markets and representing the organization in local and regional conversations, spending significant time in the field building and sustaining relationships in the communities CIC serves
• Inform tool development and community-informed tech innovation by helping translate field learning into inputs for the technology and tools the team is building so those tools reflect what communities need
• Support market development through convening by representing CIC at national convenings, positioning the organization as a collaborative partner and connector rather than a competitor to existing players
• Cement CIC as a “big tent” network that connects disparate actors to advance community projects
• Perform duties as assigned

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required
• Minimum 8 years of experience in a relevant field
• Experience as a former or current “planner” with a generalist’s knowledge of infrastructure, including energy, housing, broadband, water, and related asset classes
• Comfortable navigating community development, planning, or place-based real estate development in urban, suburban, and rural communities
• Capable of bringing valuable national relationships from community lending, national banking, infrastructure development, or community development sectors
• Organized and process-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple relationships and pipeline stages simultaneously
• Familiarity with project management and customer relationship management tools (such as Salesforce)
• Personable and relationship-driven, with boots-on-the-ground experience working in communities that require technical assistance to deliver complex infrastructure projects
• Analytical, creative, and rigorous thinking abilities; detail-oriented and flexible problem-solving skills with the capacity to synthesize diverse streams of information and switch comfortably between academic and real-world thinking
• Roll-up-your-sleeves execution orientation and adaptive thinking; comfortable engaging in ambitious projects with refinement and adaptation along the way to reach key metrics
• Team player mentality; ability to collaborate well with multidisciplinary teams across the Institute, comfortably taking leadership when necessary as well as following directions
• Authorized to work in the United States (visa sponsorship is not available)

Benefits

• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan – 403b with 5% match
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Personal, Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity & Paternity)
• Fertility Support
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
• Flexible Spending Account (FSAs)
• Pet Insurance Discount
• LinkedIn Learning access with over 15,000 self-guided classes
• Annual Mentor Program
• Employee Assistance Program
• CALM app membership
• Training & Development opportunities