Strategic Initiatives Director

tippingpointcommunity; San Francisco (CA); In loco; USD 120.000 - 180.000; Tempo pieno

Descrizione del lavoro

Tipping Point is seeking a Strategic Initiatives Director to build and guide funding strategies in education, employment, and housing across the Bay Area. The role leads strategy and external partnerships, driving investment area coherence and impact without direct reports.

The position reports to the Senior Director of Grantmaking + Capacity Building and collaborates with grantmaking, impact, and operations teams to fund aligned projects and measure outcomes.

Competenze

• Strong strategic thinking and ability to translate theory into action.
• Experience with grantmaking, due diligence, and project scoping.
• Proven ability to drive cross‑functional collaboration and influence without direct reports.

Mansioni

• Translates investment theory into executable plans with timelines, milestones, budget, and decision rights.
• Builds systems and drives day‑to‑day execution for each investment area with budgets, consultants, and partners.
• Identifies aligned projects, performs due diligence, and proposes investments to the Board.
• Assesses new investment areas and drafts first‑phase plans with learning questions and evidence needs.
• Leads The Critical Decade and Sector‑Focused Pathways, aligning workstreams across teams.
• Convenes working groups, sets agendas, and ensures decisions are carried through.

Conoscenze

Strategic planning

Stakeholder engagement

Grantmaking

Budget management

Cross-functional leadership

Descrizione del lavoro

About Tipping Point

Tipping Point finds, funds, and strengthens the most promising poverty-fighting solutions so one day everyone in the Bay Area can prosper. Since 2005, Tipping Point has invested $510 million in the community to support organizations, advance policies, and develop new ideas to increase economic opportunity. Last year, our investments funded life-changing services in housing, early childhood, education, and employment for more than 100,000 of our neighbors across the Bay Area. Visit www.tippingpoint.org to learn more.

Values

• We cultivate community because we know we are more powerful together.
• We practice gratitude.
• We hold ourselves accountable to achieving impact for and with the communities we serve.
• We relentlessly pursue equity because one's background and identities should not predetermine one's opportunities.

Position Overview

The Strategic Initiatives Director builds Tipping Point's newest funding strategies from the ground up, recommending what to fund, getting outside partners to work together, and reporting on what's working. A high-level individual contributor, the Strategic Initiatives Director leads through influence rather than direct reports, driving the strategy and external partnerships that determine each investment area's success.

The two investment areas mark a significant expansion of Tipping Point's approach to economic mobility, and this role holds the strategy and external partnerships both depend on:

• The Critical Decade is an intersectional strategy spanning education, employment, and housing. It coordinates career-connected education, workplace training and experience, and housing stability for low-income young people ages 15-24 in order for them to secure durable economic futures.
• Sector‑Focused Pathways connects to Tipping Point's Employment portfolio. It establishes a regional, sector-based career pathway strategy that connects low-income workers to quality jobs in high‑growth Bay Area industries through employer‑aligned training, work‑based learning, and advancement supports.

This position is accountable for the coherence and performance of each investment area including its strategy, evidence base, and external relationships with employers, public systems, funders, and conveners that drive its impact. They own ecosystem‑level investments, including the direct deployment of grant funding. In addition, they work in collaboration with the Policy Director and Senior Program Officers to source, scope, and fund aligned projects.

The position reports to the Senior Director of Grantmaking + Capacity Building and works across the grantmaking, capacity building, impact, and operations teams.

Responsibilities

Strategy Development + Implementation

• Translates each investment area's theory of investment into an executable plan with timelines, milestones, budget, and decision rights, and revisits the plan as evidence comes in.
• Builds the systems and drives day‑to‑day execution for each investment area, including managing budgets, consultants, and research partners, in partnership with Program Operations, Senior Program Officers, and the Policy Director.
• In collaboration with Senior Program Officers and the Policy Director, identifies aligned projects and organizations, performs due diligence, and proposes new investments to the Board.
• Assesses potential new investment areas in collaboration with the Senior Director of Grantmaking and Capacity Building and turns approved concepts into a first‑phase plan outlining early partners, key learning questions, and the evidence needed to justify continued investment.

Project Leadership + Internal Coordination

• Serves as project lead for The Critical Decade and Sector‑Focused Pathways investment areas, building alignment and driving workstreams, dependencies, and decision points across internal teams.
• Convenes and leads a working group for each investment area, setting the agenda and rhythm, surfacing the decisions that need making, and ensuring decisions once made are carried through.
• Prepares the analysis and materials required for Chief Program Officer review, program committee engagement, and Board approval, and maintains the documentation that keeps strategy and learning accessible over time.

External Partnership + Engagement

• Serves as the primary internal and external point person for each investment area, using creative problem solving and consensus building to move partners with differing incentives toward shared action, and create partnerships and shared accountability.
• Builds and sustains the external relationships each strategy depends on by establishing credibility with public systems (e.g. Workforce Development Boards, community colleges, K-12 districts and county offices of education, city and county governments, and state agencies) and with employers and industry associations