Strategic Initiatives Director

Tipping Point Community; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 174,000 - 212,000; Full time

Job summary

Tipping Point Community is seeking a Strategic Initiatives Director to shape two new investment areas, coordinate external partnerships, and drive impact across housing, education, and employment. The role emphasizes strategy, evidence-based decision making, and collaboration with senior leadership to advance economic mobility for Bay Area communities.

The position is a high-impact, individual-contributor role reporting to the Senior Director of Grantmaking + Capacity Building, with

Qualifications

• Experience building initiatives from concept through execution, with testing before scaling.
• Knowledge of Bay Area nonprofits, public systems, and systems change is preferred.
• Experience building and managing employer or industry partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Translate investment areas into executable plans with timelines, milestones, budgets, and decision rights.
• Build day-to-day systems for each investment area, managing budgets, consultants, and research partners.
• Identify aligned projects, perform due diligence, and propose investments to the Board.
• Lead cross-functional workstreams and convene internal working groups to drive decisions.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Project management

Communication skills

Analytical thinking

Job description

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

Tipping Point’s core values are at the heart of everything we do and we look for individuals who share our commitments:

• We cultivate community because we know we are more powerful together.
• 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

• 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.
• Assess 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, either directly or through a convener.
• Manages relationships with peers and co‑funders, and identifies opportunities for aligned investment.

Learning + Impact

• Collaborates with the Research + Innovation Director to ensure grantmaking is producing answers and outcomes rather than activity.
• In collaboration with the Research + Innovation Director, maintains processes that use early‑stage indicators to inform decisions to increase, redirect, or discontinue investments, distinct from the longitudinal outcomes framework used for external reporting.
• Commissions field assessments and analysis, converts findings into technical assistance and investment decisions with the Capacity Building team, and makes honest recommendations — including that Tipping Point stop what is not working.

External Relations + Communications

• Communicates strategy, progress, and impact to Tipping Point leadership, the Board, key supporters, and external audiences through updates, presentations, and written materials, collaborating with the Communications team and keeping the story of the work clear and consistent.
• Serves as the program team's point person for funder relationships connected to each new investment area, including complex or multi‑party funding engagements, and keeps the Development team supplied with current, accurate information.
• In collaboration with the Policy Director, structures investments to leverage public and employer funding and pursue the long‑term sustainability strategy each investment area requires.

All other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

In addition to our core values, Tipping Point staff exhibit four core competencies: flexibility, exceptional communication skills, ability to work well on a team, and the ability to continuously problem solve in the face of challenges.

Additionally, the Strategic Initiatives Director must have:

• Significant relevant work experience and a proven track record of building initiatives from concept through execution, including designing new approaches when existing models do not fit and testing them before scaling.
• Knowledge of or experience in Bay Area nonprofits, public systems, and systems change, with a strong preference for knowledge of or experience in Santa Clara County.
• Expertise in workforce development, education, or housing; experience working at the intersection of two or more is strongly preferred.
• Exceptional project management skills, including experience driving complex, multi‑workstream strategies with many contributors and external partners, and the ability to self‑direct and prioritize among competing goals.
• Demonstrated success leading cross‑functional or cross‑organizational strategies by building trust and alignment, moving colleagues and partners toward a shared timeline without a reporting line.
• Experience building and managing employer or industry partnerships, or a demonstrated ability to establish credibility with private‑sector partners.
• Comfort with ambiguity paired with strong analytical skills, including ability to act on incomplete evidence, absorb new domains quickly, work fluently with labor market and outcomes data, and adjust course as new information emerges.
• Strategic communication skills, with the ability to translate complex, cross‑cutting work for varied audiences, including employers, public officials, grantees, and funders, and to build alignment among them.
• Commitment to Tipping Point's mission and values and the ability to operate with the highest degree of integrity in representing the organization.

Regular travel within the Bay Area, with a concentration in Santa Clara County. Occasional travel to Sacramento and to national convenings.

Salary + Classification

Tipping Point is committed to paying competitive wages. In an effort to increase equity, because we know that salary negotiations tend to have an unfair bias, we do not participate in a salary negotiation process for any candidate. We will make our best offer, and it will be the same regardless of the candidate. The annual starting salary for the Strategic Initiatives Director role is $193,000. This position meets the exemption requirements as defined by state and federal law. Exempt employees are paid on a salaried basis, and their salary is intended to constitute their entire regular compensation, regardless of the number of hours they work; therefore, exempt employees are not eligible for overtime pay.

At Tipping Point, we believe that in‑person connection is essential to fostering strong collaboration, creativity, and community. To support this, staff are expected to be in the office Tuesday through Thursday. Some roles may require community meetings, which can be scheduled during these in‑person days. On Mondays and Fridays, staff may choose to work remotely or from the office, depending on their preference. Our office remains open five days a week to encourage face‑to‑face collaboration and to provide a welcoming space for those who thrive working onsite. We also extend the use of our office to our grantee partners as a shared space for meetings and connection. Tipping Point will periodically assess this hybrid work model and may adjust it as needed to best serve our mission and team.

We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Tipping Point will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Tipping Point accepts applications on a rolling basis; if the position is still posted on our website, we are still accepting and giving equal consideration to applications.

DEI Demographic Questions

On an annual basis we have asked the Board, Leadership Council, Staff, and Grantees about their demographics to help us understand the composition of our team. Knowing about the diversity of the Tipping Point community and potential staff strengthens our ability to advance equity and inclusion issues, something we are strongly committed to. Additionally, a s a poverty‑fighting organization we think it's important to understand the extent of our team's first‑hand, lived experience with economic hardship.

You may choose not to answer any question. YOUR RESPONSES ARE COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS, NOT TIED TO YOUR APPLICATION, AND IN NO WAY AVAILABLE TO HIRING MANAGERS OR ANY STAFF AT TIPPING POINT. The answers you provide do not influence your candidacy and are only viewed in aggregate for organizational learning purposes.

Which of the following best describes your gender identity? * Select...

Which of these best describes you? * Select...

Which of the following describes your sexual orientation? * Select...

At any point in your life did you or your family not eat or buy food because you did not have enough money? * Select...

At any point in your life did you or your family not pay the full amount of rent or mortgage because you did not have enough money? * Select...

At any point in your life did you or your family not pay the full amount of bills (e.g. gas, oil, electricity, phone, etc.) because you did not have enough money? * Select...

Do you identify as transgender? * Select...

Do you identify as someone with a disability? * Select...