Head of Impact

RIVET is a nonprofit start-up that harnesses the purchasing power of young consumers to fund their generation’s leadership and innovation. We work with brands and influencers to create pop-culture moments, products, and experiences about which Gen Z is passionate, giving young people more options to support brands that share their values. When young people choose to support our brand partners, they trigger donations that fund the work of youth changemakers around the world. Co-led and co-designed by young people, RIVET represents the largest investment in youth-led social change…ever.

Over the next ten years, our conservative business model estimates that we will invest between $250MM and $500MM in youth-led social innovation in the areas that young people care most about: education, sustainability, health & wellness, and poverty & inclusion. Building on our founder’s three-decade research in youth development that grew out of the Harvard School of Education, we will:

Measure project impacts on broader communities, as well as the impact of investment on the young people themselves.
Track where funding comes and goes with full transparency.
Maintain a self-sustaining financial model, with 10% of revenue covering our operations.

Two years ago, RIVET was just an idea. Since then, we have achieved many milestones in our organizational start-up phase:

Designed a youth-focused brand and engaged potential brand and NGO partners.
Launched a sustainable business model. RIVET is structured as a nonprofit with a uniquely self-sustaining financial model driven by co-branded product sales
Assembled our staff leadership team. RIVET is being brought to market by a team of leaders at the intersection of youth-led impact, consumer power and brands.
Assembled our Advisory Council. We are fortunate to have the brilliant guidance of C-level executives from some of the world’s biggest brands.
Piloted several proofs of concept which raised over $250K, funding 1,000 projects across 66 countries.
Raised $3MM in philanthropic start-up capital

The Opportunity

The Head of Impact will translate a compelling vision into a scalable model for distributing small start-up grants to passionate young people, with a focus on youth living in “capital deserts” where they have little access to funding to bring their ideas to life. As a start-up leader, you will hold a full and ever-changing portfolio of projects ranging from the strategic to the day-to-day: designing, building and testing models in partnership with a global community of grant-distribution partners.

The role focuses on two threads:

Collaborative design. Define our theory of youth impact, test it through pilots, and refine it through learning. Build the systems to bring this theory to life, including using technology as a driver for scale.
Coalition building. Convene and lead a diverse community of impact grant-distribution partners (who we call our Impact Partners) toward a common goal by setting clear, shared expectations, creating strong relationships, leading collaborative learning, and managing any conflict & disagreements.

The Head of Impact will join a dedicated, passionate, low-ego team of founders in launching a first-of-its-kind social movement led by young people. This new role reports into the CEO, working across the organization with all team members.

You can view the full deck with more information here

Focus Areas

Youth Social Impact –

Design and test a framework for RIVET’s impact strategy, including understanding the broader landscape of young social innovators, microfinance models, safeguarding, and scaling.

Partnerships –

Define, build, and maintain partnerships with RIVET Grant distribution partners (thinking of this group as co-designers).

Data & Technology –

Define and build models for measuring impact through partners at scale that meets the capacities/needs of a diverse group of stakeholders, including youth, Impact Partners, and brands.

Organization & Culture Building –

Serve as a senior leader at RIVET, contributing to our overall vision, organizational culture, and management.

Who We’re Looking For

We recognize that no one candidate will possess every qualification and we welcome candidates from different professional backgrounds who bring many of these professional qualifications and personal attributes:

Adaptability & Prioritization. Being a startup requires constant prioritization, plus the ability to manage multiple projects in an ambiguous, evolving environment. You know how to set goals with enough flexibility to pivot as needed.
Relationship Building. Able to develop trusting, productive relationships with individuals and institutions, strong facilitation & collaboration skills, and effective at setting and upholding clear expectations, including during moments of conflict. You have experience setting up and managing networks, partnerships, learning communities and other communities of practice, preferably on the global level.
Design. Adept at building & testing hypotheses, learning and pivoting according to data. You know how to translate vision to implementation and bring key stakeholders along in the process.
Data & Technology. Able to apply data within multiple milieus. You know how to conduct right-sized research to help solve problems. While you may not be a tech expert, you know how to work with tech teams to build data tracking systems and data visualization tools.
Equity & inclusion. A clear commitment and vision for how equity and inclusion show up in organizational design. You care about who is at the table – whether during a partnership brainstorm or giving out a million dollars in youth funds – and you create systems to hold yourself and others accountable for drawing the circle wider.
Mission Aligned. Passionate about authentic youth leadership and accelerating youth-led social change. The idea of providing a first “yes” to a million young innovators makes your heart sing.
Guided by a strong moral compass. It takes forever to build a brand and only one cut corner to destroy it. You care about getting great work done. You also care about HOW it gets done.
Bonus. These aren’t requirements but areas of interest: lived experience in multiple cultural contexts; grant-making or micro-finance experience, your own story of being a young changemaker, and experience as a member or leader of a collective action network.

Compensation

USD $150,000 – $180,000 (We adjust salaries according to where team members are based, if outside of the USA.)

Location

Fully remote. Candidates can be based anywhere in the world as long as they can work at least 4 hours of overlap with Eastern Time zone (9am-5pm). We encourage candidates with lived experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, LATAM, and South Asia, since we expect these are areas where we will be investing most heavily.

RIVET is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, age, ancestry, or disability.

Know someone who is perfect for this position? Nominate them here.