Manager, Impact First Investing

ImpactAlpha Inc.; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid in SF Tue-Thu in-office

Domestic & international travel

Mission-driven climate action

Collaborative cross-team environment

Shape new organizational practice

Diverse network access

Job summary

Climate Lead is seeking a Manager, Impact-First Investing to lead project management, cross-functional content integration, and practice enablement for the new IFI capability. You will bridge deal coordination, investor engagement support, and team enablement, coordinating with multiple teams to ensure readiness for donor and investor engagements.

Working closely with the VP of IFI, you will track portfolio progress, manage strategic projects, and scale tools, templates, and workflows for

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in project management, investing, operations, or knowledge management, ideally within impact investing, fundraising, and/or catalytic finance roles.
• Hands-on experience helping build or scale a climate fund, impact investing platform, or venture practice, including designing and embedding the operational frameworks, deal tools, and best practice guides for team execution.
• Demonstrated ability to streamline workflows, build scalable toolkits, and drive adoption of standardized operational tools and best practices.
• Highly skilled communicator with experience crafting tailored, high-impact documentation and proposals for varied audiences.
• Familiarity with climate deal sourcing and pipeline evaluation, with ability to translate complex deal structures into accessible investor communications.
• Familiarity with Salesforce or similar CRM (strong plus).
• Interest in climate action and belief in philanthropy and catalytic investments to drive systemic change.
• Strong subject matter fluency in climate impact investing, catalytic capital, and private financial products.

Responsibilities

• Partner directly with Global Climate Strategies to extract technical climate solution details, investment theses, and deal insights.
• Collaborate with Communications to translate technical information into investor-facing products, pitch decks, and reports.
• Co-develop, evolve, and curate the IFI team’s toolkit, frameworks, and knowledge hub.
• Ensure relationship managers know tools, deal memos, and financial product resources available and how to deploy them.
• Capture and synthesize successful impact investing strategies across donor and investor journeys, creating scalable templates and workflows.
• Identify collaboration opportunities across Advisory Team and implement streamlined tools and processes to increase efficiency.
• Support onboarding and continuous learning by training relationship managers on IFI tools and market-facing resources.
• Proactively manage internal and external relationships with the VP, Impact-First Investing.
• Develop high-impact presentations, reports, briefing materials, and donor/investor dossiers with SMEs.
• Drive workflow across the IFI Practice portfolio of key prospects, investors, ambassadors.

Skills

Project management

Climate investing

Workflow optimization

Communication

Deal sourcing

Salesforce / CRM

Asana / Google Workspace

Tools

Asana

Google Workspace

Salesforce

Job description

About Climate Lead

Climate Lead is a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to empowering philanthropic leaders to take immediate and far-reaching climate action. The organization operates as an impartial guide for new climate philanthropists, providing them with essential information and insights needed to drive transformative solutions in the climate space. Climate Lead distinguishes itself by cutting through the complexity of climate investing and philanthropy by curating customized roadmaps in partnership with a diverse network of climate and investment experts. The organization serves philanthropists and investors by helping them make bold, informed impacts on climate from day one. Climate Lead’s approach combines deep subject matter expertise with strategic advisory services to connect capital with the most impactful climate solutions. The company operates with a mission-driven focus on catalytic capital and impact-first investing strategies, working across multiple practice areas including Global Climate Strategies and impact-first investing initiatives. Climate Lead is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and maintains a hybrid work model with staff expected to work in the office Tuesday through Thursday each week. The organization is committed to building a diverse workforce and values merit, qualifications, competence, and talent in all hiring decisions.

About this Role

The Manager, Impact-First Investing (IFI) leads project management, cross-functional content integration, and practice enablement as the organization develops and builds out its impact-first investing capability. This position sits at the intersection of deal coordination, investor engagement support, and team enablement, building the internal operational infrastructure for IFI while driving high-quality engagement across key accounts externally, from deals to families to fellow funders. Working closely with the Vice President of IFI, the Manager ensures complete readiness for donor and investor engagements, tracks portfolio progress, and serves as an agile proxy to expand leadership capacity during high-priority engagements. This role acts as a vital bridge between Global Climate Strategies for deal technicals, Communications for investor-ready packaging, and the Advisory Team for toolkits, best practices, and practice enablement. The position does not have direct managerial responsibilities for team members; however, it acts in a lead capacity to serve Advisory team leadership, owns management of strategic organizational projects, and manages relationships both internally and externally. This role is mission-critical to ensure smooth and effective completion of a wide range of activities that support the new IFI practice, which is still being shaped. The Manager interacts across multiple teams including Advisory, Global Climate Strategies, Communications, and Operations.

Responsibilities

• Partner directly with Global Climate Strategies to extract technical climate solution details, investment theses, and deal insights
• Collaborate with the Communications team to translate and package technical information into polished, investor-facing products, pitch decks, and reports
• Co-develop, evolve, and curate the IFI team’s toolkit, frameworks, and knowledge hub
• Ensure relationship managers know what tools, deal memos, and financial product resources are available and how to deploy them
• Capture and synthesize successful impact investing strategies across donor and investor journeys, converting lessons learned into scalable templates, guides, and workflows
• Identify collaboration opportunities across the Advisory Team and implement streamlined tools, standardized processes, and project management structures to increase efficiency
• Support onboarding and continuous learning by training relationship managers on IFI tools and market-facing resources to drive team-wide fluency
• Proactively manage internal and external relationships with the VP, Impact-First Investing
• Develop high-impact presentations, reports, customized briefing materials, and donor/investor dossiers in collaboration with subject matter experts
• Drive the workflow across the IFI Practice portfolio of key prospects, investors, and ambassadors
• Project-manage investor deliverables, timelines, and action steps to keep complex, high-consequence deals moving forward without delay
• Draft critical follow-up communications, executive summaries, and strategic pitch materials that reflect the VP’s voice and maintain momentum post-engagement
• Act as the primary filter for the VP by vetting high volumes of internal and external requests, prioritizing immediate needs, and clearing operational roadblocks before they reach leadership
• Represent the VP in Advisory Team meetings and cross-functional forums as needed, ensuring seamless information flow
• Maintain donor and investor records in real time across Salesforce and project management systems to ensure data accuracy

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in project management, investing, operations, or knowledge management, ideally within impact investing, fundraising, and/or catalytic finance roles
• Hands‑on experience helping build or scale a climate fund, impact investing platform, or venture practice, including designing and embedding the operational frameworks, deal tools, and best practice guides for team execution
• Demonstrated ability to streamline workflows, build scalable toolkits, and drive adoption of standardized operational tools and best practices
• Highly skilled communicator with experience crafting tailored, high-impact documentation and proposals that effectively engage and inform varied and sophisticated audiences, from technical teams to executive stakeholders
• Familiarity with climate deal sourcing and pipeline evaluation, with a proven ability to translate complex deal structures into accessible investor communications
• Skilled with project management and collaboration tools such as Asana and Google Workspace
• Familiarity with Salesforce or similar CRM (strong plus)
• Interest in climate action and belief in the power of philanthropy and catalytic investments to drive systemic change
• Strong subject matter fluency in climate impact investing, catalytic capital, and private financial products, with ability to navigate technical deal structures

Benefits

• Hybrid work environment with in-office requirements Tuesday through Thursday each week in San Francisco
• Domestic and international travel opportunities
• Mission-driven work in climate action and impact investing
• Collaborative work environment across multiple teams and organizational functions
• Opportunity to shape and build out a new organizational practice
• Access to diverse network of climate and investment experts