Senior Associate, Civic Innovation

Position Overview

The Rockefeller Foundation’s US Program and Policy (USPP) team is launching a new strategy focused on empowering communities to navigate and prosper in the face of economic and technological disruption. As part of that effort, USPP is building a new Civic Innovation initiative that will focus on supporting state and local governments’ efforts to improve effectiveness and efficiency as they face new challenges.

The Rockefeller Foundation is seeking a Senior Associate to join USPP’s Civic Innovation team, which is responsible for strategy development, grantmaking, and ongoing learning to increase state and local government effectiveness, including by developing and scaling AI capacity. Senior Associates at the Foundation have a mix of project management, grants/contracts management, research, team coordination, project-based work, and Foundation-wide responsibilities. The team leverages various tools (grantmaking, convening, communications, etc.) to engage, educate, and seed deeper impact across like-minded organizations, policymakers, and key stakeholders.

Reporting to the Vice President, Civic Innovation, the Senior Associate will work closely with the Civic Innovation team as well as across the USPP team to manage relationships with existing grantees; conduct research, planning, and analysis to strengthen the team’s strategy and develop new grantee relationships; and improve and manage processes for tracking budgets and impact measurement, and learnings. Successful candidates will bring strong research, project management, and communication skills, and a strong grounding and prior experience with multistakeholder engagement.

Pay Range : $105,000 – $123,700. This represents the present low and high ends of the Foundation’s pay range for this position. Actual pay will vary based on various factors, including but not limited to experience.

Work Schedule: This role is on a hybrid work schedule, and required to be in the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Principal Duties And Responsibilities

Support the development, execution, and management of the team’s portfolio of grants, contracts, and donations, including strategy research and development, regular reporting and briefing on performance, budgeting, learning and measurement, and broader impact to the team, across programs, and to the board.
Support positive and productive relationships with grantees, consultants, partners, and stakeholders.
Lead on systems and knowledge management using foundation-wide tools (including Salesforce) for proper documentation, tracking, and performance management of both grants and key relationships with partners (including outreach and engagement with government leaders).
Prepare briefing materials for engagements for use by the team, the SVP, and/or the President of the organization for key meetings, events, and outreach.
Coordinate within and across RF teams to support key convenings and events.
Navigate a high degree of complexity in scheduling, organizing, and managing meetings, and following up and tracking action items. Offer support for the VP’s travel and scheduling responsibilities, as needed.

Education, Experience, And Skills

Generally expected to have at least 5 years of relevant experience in public policy, government, or government relations, with a strong preference for expertise in AI governance and emerging technologies and state/local government processes.
Bachelor’s degree
The ability to represent The Foundation and the USPP team professionally and effectively, with strong interpersonal and relationship abilities and excellent writing skills, and strategic partnership-building skills.
Experience engaging with high-ranking actors and organizations across a variety of sectors (public, private, philanthropic, nonprofit).
Strong organizational skills and the ability to prioritize and stay organized in an often fast-changing environment. Demonstrated flexibility and willingness to shift, adjust, and learn new skills/knowledge are essential.
The ability to effectively work with and across teams (using our communications tools such as Slack, Box, and Microsoft Outlook) to connect with and collaborate to advance programmatic and institutional objectives.
Proven project management skills, with an ability to work independently, under pressure, and coordinate effectively across multiple stakeholders and projects to get things done, using key systems and software to produce and track outputs and outcomes (Salesforce expertise preferred).
Demonstrated passion for the mission of the Foundation, reflected in your professional history.

Qualifications And Competencies

Data Oriented: Consistently achieves results by approaching work informed by data.
Decision Quality: Makes good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward.
Communicates Effectively: Develops and delivers multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences.
Strategic Learning: Actively learns through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder.
Values Differences: Recognizes the value of different perspectives and commits to being self-aware, respectful, and seeks to learn from new and different voices