Senior Director, Conservation Funding and Partnerships

The National Audubon Society is a nonprofit conservation organization that protects birds and the places they need today and tomorrow. We work throughout the Americas towards a future where birds thrive because Audubon is a powerful, diverse, and ever-growing force for conservation. Audubon has more than 700 staff working across the hemisphere and more than 1.5 million active supporters.

North America has lost three billion birds since 1970, and more than 500 bird species are at risk of extinction across Latin America and the Caribbean. Birds act as early warning systems about the health of our environment, and they tell us that birds – and our planet – are in crisis. Together as one Audubon, we are working to alter the course of climate change and habitat loss, leading to healthier bird populations and reversing current trends in biodiversity loss. We do this by implementing on-the-ground conservation, partnering with local communities, influencing public and corporate policy, and building community.

Audubon is committed to a culture of workplace excellence, where our talented and diverse staff are deeply engaged with a strong sense of belonging. The birds Audubon pledges to protect differ in color, size, behavior, geographical preference, and countless other ways. By honoring and celebrating the equally remarkable diversity of the human species, Audubon brings new creativity, effectiveness, and leadership to our work throughout the hemisphere.

The Senior Director, Conservation Funding and Partnerships leads development and implementation of Audubon’s strategy to build and deepen partnerships with new, existing, and emerging state, federal, and multi-national public agencies to influence and/or implement impactful, high-priority projects across the organization’s priority geographies.

The Senior Director works across departments and at times lead cross-organizational teams to identify, develop, and drive innovative public partnerships and funding investments in Audubon’s conservation work across the Americas. Under the Senior Director’s leadership, Audubon aspires to more than double public partnerships, cooperative agreements and opportunities to implement transformational public funding through Audubon-delivered conservation projects over the next five years as part of Flight Plan, its new strategic plan.

The Senior Director will use their entrepreneurial and visionary leader capabilities to develop strong partnerships with colleagues across the organization and focus teams on the most impactful opportunities for public funding investment. They will work to leverage established relationships with government agencies and foundations distributing public funding and will secure public funding partnerships for large-scale projects that involve multiple partners and community stakeholders.

The Senior Director reports to the Deputy Chief Conservation Officer and will also receive guidance from the Development team.

Compensation:

Salary range based on geo-differentials:

$150,000-$160,000/year=National

$160,000-$170,000/year=Alaska, CA (not San Francisco), Connecticut, D.C., Chicago, Oyster Bay, NY

$170,000-$180,000/year=NYC (not Oyster Bay), San Francisco, Seattle

• Develop and drive a comprehensive, multi-year public funding partnership strategy (with annual goals) in support of Flight Plan, the organization’s strategic plan.
• Identify high-impact, priority public funding opportunities for Audubon at the state, federal, and international scales that directly support Audubon-implemented projects aligned with the organization’s goals and mission and in partnership with the Development team.
• Track new and emerging public funding opportunities and current trends at the state, national, and international levels. In coordination with the Conservation Leadership Team, develop funding source priorities for which Audubon is uniquely positioned to take advantage of while maintaining best practices for public funding partnerships.
• Lead collaborative, cross-divisional teams and processes to develop ambitious, innovative priority project concepts that facilitate project implementation funding.
• With the goal of doubling Audubon’s public funding partnership opportunities within the next five years, partner with internal leaders to identify, build, and sustain the external partnerships necessary to grow Audubon’s public funding. These partnerships will include relationships with key government agency funders, and collaborations with implementing partners – i.e., other NGOs, subcontractors, and most especially the communities – often frontline communities – in, near, and impacted by the places where Audubon works.
• Work in close collaboration across departments to prioritize the most impactful funding streams; focus teams on the highest conservation impact opportunities; and lead cross-divisional teams that drive ambitious, innovative, and competitive proposals.
• Support identifying internal capacity needs and advance streamlined processes to successfully develop strategy and proposals for large-scale projects across multiple funding streams and multiple internal teams.
• Partner with the Development, Finance, and Conservation teams to co-develop a funding strategy to secure matching resources to optimize and leverage funds, existing work, capacities and expertise that can be utilized as match from public and private sources, including individual donors and foundations.
• Imbed Audubon’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) Conservation Principles into all facets of work and periodically assess how publically-funded conservation projects are doing on EDIB, in order to strengthen this facet of Audubon’s work.
• Closely partner with the Vice President, Government Affairs and other Conservation Leaders on informing policy strategy and priorities that increase public partnerships and funding toward mission-aligned conservation efforts.
• Work in close partnership with Marketing and Communications to tell the Audubon story in bold and compelling ways and capitalize on the full range of Audubon assets to do so, involving senior management, program staff, and volunteers.
• Develop strong knowledge of Audubon’s conservation priorities at local, regional, national, and international levels to aid in the development of projects and program that align with Audubon’s mission and authorized uses of target funding sources.
• Other job-related duties as assigned.

• Bachelor’s degree required as well as at least 10+ years of successful experience in securing direct public funding such as working as a program officer within a public agency or private foundation distributing public funding. Three years of leadership experience required. An equivalent combination of education and work experience will be considered.
• Demonstrated success in identifying, applying for, obtaining and/or managing grants or other cooperative agreements from a variety of funding sources at the six-, seven- and ideally eight-figure level.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and secure funding for large, ambitious, and impactful funding proposals that stretch across programmatic or geographic boundaries.
• Deep understanding of regulatory requirements for publically-funded projects and experience implementing compliant projects and programs. Experience with leveraging private investments as match is a plus.
• Entrepreneurial self-starter with strong organizational, team leadership, and time-management skills. Highly motivated, energetic, and enthusiastic.
• Strong writer with proven ability to develop high-level, compelling proposals; ability to quickly synthesize complex ideas and align them with public funding priorities.
• Persuasive communicator with excellent presentation and listening skills who can effectively marshal support for ideas.
• A proven commitment to further efforts to create a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment and incorporating equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging considerations into proposals and work.
• Team player with natural affinity for building close, effective working relationships with a diverse group of stakeholders.
• Must have strong business acumen and experience with developing and managing project budgets.
• Outstanding stewardship, relationship development, and management skills.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications; knowledge of Salesforce is a plus.
• Interest in, understanding of, and commitment to conservation and the mission of National Audubon Society.

The National Audubon Society is a federal contractor and an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. We are committed to a policy of nondiscrimination, inclusion and equal opportunity and actively seek a diverse pool of candidates in this search.

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