About the Role
The Executive Director will lead the strategic and operational management of Tides Foundation, ensuring alignment with Tides’ mission to achieve a just and equitable future for communities who have historically been denied power. This role demands a visionary leader capable of managing complex stakeholder relationships, enabling organizational transformation, and championing impactful initiatives developed to advance social justice.
Reporting to Janiece Evans-Page, the CEO of Tides, the Executive Director will oversee philanthropic advising; corporate, institutional, individual and family donor partnerships; operations; social change initiatives; and corporate and social impact. In doing so, the Executive Director will foster innovative approaches to advance Tides’ impact goals. Tides Foundation is focusing on its operations and structure to maximize impact, including developing and leading strategies to deploy initiatives and foster relationships to facilitate organizational growth and financial sustainability.
The Executive Director leads a staff of approximately 30 individuals, including a senior team of five direct reports:
- Senior Director, Corporate and Strategic Initiatives
- Program Officer, Civic Engagement & Democracy
- Program Officer, Climate Justice
- Program Officer, Adolescent Girls & Young Women of Color
In 2025 the team is budgeting for $11 million in fee income off of a portfolio of $413 million of charitable contributions from partners.
What you will Do
KEY OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Strategic Leadership
- Develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to enhance philanthropic advising; corporate, institutional, and individual/family donor partnerships; relationships with “doer” partners, including those who have funds with Tides Foundation; and Tides-led grantmaking initiatives, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
- Lead Tides Foundation transformation efforts, modeling justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and capacity building for partners and stakeholders.
- Strive to be a thought leader in philanthropy on behalf of Tides Foundation’s distinct capabilities, including Tides-led Initiatives, advising, donor and doer engagement, and fundraising.
- Leverage existing analysis and practices and lead the development and implementation of Tides’ C4 partnerships and strategy.
Program and Service Delivery
- Oversee the development and delivery of high-quality philanthropic advisory services, programmatic consulting work, and Tides-led Initiatives.
- Innovate and scale program offerings to meet the evolving needs of partners and communities.
- Improve operational excellence in service delivery through collaboration with matrixed teams, including finance, legal, grants management, and business operations.
Relationship Management
- Cultivate values-informed partnerships with doers, donors, advisors, and community leaders to foster collaboration and innovation.
- Foster a service delivery mindset across the team, setting the highest standards for responsiveness and judgement.
- Serve as a key Tides Foundation Ambassador, representing Tides in external forums, industry events, and public engagements.
Team Leadership
- Lead and mentor a team of five direct reports, fostering a culture of accountability, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
- Drive talent development initiatives to enhance team capabilities and leadership acumen.
- Model Tides’ values of future focus, accountability, respect, transparency, and collaboration; hold self and teams accountable for demonstrating Tides’ values in all interactions, internally and externally.
Fueling Growth
- Manage financial resources effectively to improve financial sustainability and growth.
- Maximize revenue generation efforts, including fundraising and development of donor-advised funds and other innovative charitable vehicles, with a focus on growth from established partners.
- Enhance Tides’ ability to work with philanthropic clients to measure and evaluate the impact of grantees.
- Develop and maintain broad external relations with desired clients in specific philanthropic ecosystems, values-aligned issue areas, and industry areas.
BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCIES
Strategic Development
- Inspires and engages teammates. Continuously inspires the team with a clear and compelling vision and purpose for the work. Clearly name where we will play, how we will win, and what we will not take on, and stand by decisions around organizational direction.
- Leverages data. Regularly uses data from varied sources to plan, adjust, and move the team toward achieving goals. Leverages data to make decisions around readiness and sequencing of the work.
- Allocates resources. Foresees and gathers the necessary resources, including budget, time, people, and materials to deliver on decisions and goals. Ensures team has the time and capacity to achieve goals and supports teammates in prioritization and de-prioritization of work.
Change Leadership
- Assesses readiness for change. Engages the team in identifying the barriers to sustainable outcomes and to the change process. Determines how to remove barriers and make progress.
- Transparently lays the path. Understands that change is a process and defines the steps needed to accomplish the change. Communicates a vision and sequencing in a way that diverse stakeholder groups can understand and invest in. Offers timely updates, including challenges and roadblocks that arise throughout the process.
- Delivers results. Ensures that there is necessary funding, time, people, tools, clear plans, agreement, and motivation to enable success. Builds trust through daily actions to achieve results.
Growth Mindset
- Celebrates success. Makes space to lift and unpack key wins, aligned to the team’s goals and priorities, with the team.
- Follows through on commitments. Holds the team and themselves accountable for engaging in high-quality work, collaborating, and meeting milestones that contribute to change efforts and goals. Cultivates an understanding of shared ownership for expectations and goals.
- Monitors progress. Commits to continuous improvement by monitoring, reviewing, and acting upon relevant data to ensure the team’s work is yielding the desired outcomes.
What you will Bring
The successful candidate must demonstrate, through ideas, words, and actions, a strong commitment to the goals of Tides: moving toward justice and equity in everything, creating partnerships for transformative change, centering community power and agency, and building trust through accountability and service.
The ideal candidate will possess many of the following qualifications and characteristics:
- 15+ years of progressive senior/executive leadership experience in nonprofit management, philanthropy, fiscal sponsorship, or related fields.
- Passion for Tides’ mission and a demonstrated commitment to advancing social justice.
- Extensive experience in managing philanthropic initiatives, advising high net work donors, and designing social impact strategies.
- Demonstrated expertise in donor and partner management, with a strong understanding of nonprofit best practices, standard and complex fiscal sponsorship models, corporate and social impact, and power building.
- Strong understanding of grassroots organizing, movement building, government funding, and C3/C4 affiliated relationships.
- Proven track record of building and managing diverse, high-performing teams in a fast-paced, complex environment.
- Ability to thrive and lead in a matrixed structure, fostering seamless cross-functional communication and collaboration.
- Exceptional relationship-building and communication skills, with the ability to connect with diverse stakeholders.
- Strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with a focus on achieving measurable results.
- Commitment to Tides’ justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion beliefs and core values of future focus, accountability, respect, transparency, and collaboration.
Compensation
Tides is committed to providing a competitive compensation package. We value pay equity and account for factors such as your location within the U.S., your skills and your relevant experience, and we will not ask for your salary history.
Your starting salary will fall into one of three ranges:
● $191,000 – $238,800 (Most of the United States)
● $208,400 – $260,500 (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. metro areas)
● $229,100 – $286,400 (New York City & San Francisco metro areas)
Starting salary will be based on geographic location, depth and breadth of relevant experience, and ensuring pay equity within the organization.
Tides offers a generous benefits package including: comprehensive medical, dental and vision insurance, paid time off, life and disability insurances, retirement plan, educational assistance, confidential counseling and life balance resources designed to support the passion, commitment and energy that is vital to Tides team members.
Application Instructions
Screening of complete applications will begin immediately and continue until the completion of the search process. Inquiries, nominations, referrals, and applications (resume with cover letter) should apply via the link above ‘Learn More and Apply’. For best consideration, please apply by May 2, 2025. Electronic submission of materials is required.
Life at Tides
Tides is headquartered in San Francisco, CA with a hybrid work model that supports remote work from anywhere in the United States. The Executive Director of Tides Foundation must have the ability to travel as required, including but not limited to: Tides’ offices in San Francisco, CA and New York, NY; industry convenings; and partner meetings.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Tides is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from women, people of color, and bilingual and bicultural individuals, as well as members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Applicants shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status, or medical condition including acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related conditions. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we encourage and will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Where required by state law, we utilize E-Verify as a part of our employment authorization process.
Applicants with Disabilities
Reasonable accommodations will be made so that all who are interested may participate in our interview process. If you are in need of an accommodation, please advise the search team in writing at the time you apply.