Director of Growth & Giving

Elemental Impact is a nonprofit organization focused on accelerating climate innovation by investing in entrepreneurs developing technologies across energy, industry, food and agriculture, nature, water, and transportation. The organization employs a four-pronged investment approach that combines catalytic capital, project expertise, local partnership, and investor mobilization to fill critical market gaps and support the scaling of clean technology solutions. Through flexible and de-risking funding mechanisms, Elemental Impact enables entrepreneurs to attract follow-on investment and bring impactful technologies to market faster. In addition to direct funding, Elemental Impact provides tailored coaching and wraparound support to its portfolio companies, covering areas such as policy engagement, workforce development, and project capital raising. The organization also fosters connections between entrepreneurs and local partners including schools, farmers, homeowners, government agencies, and workforce providers, ensuring that climate solutions are embedded within communities. Its investor mobilization efforts link portfolio companies with investors, project funders, and customers to drive commercialization at scale. Elemental Impact launched Earthshot Ventures in 2021, a venture fund designed to deliver market-leading financial returns alongside meaningful climate impact. The organization has also initiated the Data Center Innovation Initiative in partnership with Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, focused on deploying next-generation technologies for more sustainable data infrastructure. Elemental Impact has collaborated with notable partners including Speed & Scale, McKinsey & Co., the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Energy Innovation, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures on tools such as the Climate Tech Map.

About Elemental Impact

Elemental Impact is a nonprofit investor with 17 years of experience advancing innovative technologies with deep environmental and local impact. Elemental is supported by 40 funders and its portfolio includes 160 companies that have catalyzed $11.8B in additional funding and created more than 18,100 jobs. Elemental works to address market failures for first-of-a-kind and early commercial projects by providing catalytic capital and specialized expertise—from policy engagement to workforce development. 

About the Role

Elemental is seeking a Director of Growth & Giving to join our dynamic Growth team. In this role, you will lead the creative pitch development and technical proposal writing to mobilize $30m+ annually in charitable capital via gifts, grants, recoverable grants, and Program-Related Investments (PRIs). You will also manage the cultivation of a growing pipeline of mission-aligned High Net Worth (HNW) individuals, foundations, family offices, and wealth managers, as well government funding programs. 

This is an innovative and high velocity fundraising team that is focused on expanding our community of visionary donors, diversifying our philanthropic funding sources, and driving our ambitious revenue and impact targets. If you want to be a part of a relentless group of development professionals that is driven to make Elemental Impact the most catalytic nonprofit investor in climate, this role is for you.

This position will report to the Chief Growth Officer and manage the Growth Manager on our team. The Director of Growth & Giving will bring deep technical climate expertise, familiarity with the nonprofit capital stack and a collaborative spirit, working across Elemental’s different teams of practitioners and partnership builders to create an aligned fundraising story and strategy.

Key Responsibilities Include:                         

PITCH DEVELOPMENT & PROPOSAL WRITING

• Craft sophisticated, one-of-a-kind funding pitches (both written concepts and beautiful decks) that are tailored to the unique interests of philanthropic prospects
• Write technical, data-driven proposals that incorporate the measurable impact of new climate technologies, while also capturing the imagination of donors
• Design protocols, systems and processes to efficiently solicit data, stories and programmatic updates from across different teams – and then translate that information into multi-million dollar concepts
• Develop modeling for new capital recycling programs, ie recoverable grants and PRIs, and articulate the value proposition for a blended finance approach to scale climate innovation

PIPELINE CULTIVATION & PROSPECT MANAGEMENT 

• Collaborate closely with the Chief Growth Officer and CEO to expertly manage their high volume inbound of new philanthropic, institutional, corporate and other funder prospects 
• Build a robust and segmented database of funder pipeline, own the sales cycle, and design white glove cultivation strategies for consistent engagement and donor conversion

CROSS-TEAM COLLABORATION

• Partner closely and humbly with the Communications, Events and Creative teams to integrate new donor messaging into public facing materials, ie website, Annual Report, blogs, event signage and talking points, etc. 
• Once new funding is secured, work directly with your Growth Team to ensure a seamless “handoff” for ongoing donor stewardship, compliance and grant reporting
• Collaborate with the Investment and Finance teams to build traditional grant budgets and also structure recoverable grants and PRIs that support existing catalytic capital and recycling strategies, eg D-SAFE

About You 

You could be a great addition to our Growth Team if you are an experienced fundraiser who understands both nonprofit philanthropy and blended finance. You have spent a significant portion of your career in climate, technology and impact investing and have tested unique strategies to bring philanthropy closer to innovation and market transformation. You love both the art and the science of resource mobilization – you are someone who has a pulse on catalytic capital and climate finance and also brings impeccable writing, visual creativity and fundraising mastery.  

Foundational Skills & Experience:                              

• Sales savviness – demonstrated and consistent success in pitch development and proposal writing for both small gifts and large seven- and eight- figure grants
• Technical fluidity – deep experience and knowledge of climate technology, impact investing, and/or the environment sector
• Systems wizardry – you can build deal pipelines in Hubspot, detailed budgets in Excel, and beautiful presentations in Google Slides

What will set you apart:                                                                                     

• Purpose-driven, business-minded – Experience in both nonprofit and for-profit / management consulting
• Innovative financing – Familiarity structuring recoverable grants and Program-Related Investments with foundations and DAFs
• Creative flair – If you are able to mix technical rigor and subject matter mastery with an eye for design and an innate desire to surprise and delight, we want to meet you

Compensation & Benefits

This is a full-time "at-will" position working at least 40 hours per week. You will be asked to travel for work periodically. 

The salary range for this role is $138,100 - $207,200 which is based on market data and the organization's compensation philosophy. Also, please note that while we strive to benchmark against for-profit companies and try to be as competitive as possible, we are a non-profit. Our offer will be within the range as required by certain state laws and individual salary offers will vary within the range depending on location, relevant education, knowledge, skills, and experience. We also offer comprehensive employee benefits, including a professional development stipend and three weeks paid time off.

Location

We strongly prefer candidates located near one of our headquarters: Honolulu, San Francisco, and New York, but will consider remote options for the right candidate. Elemental has a hybrid working model and if you are within a reasonable distance to one of our offices in New York, Bay Area, or Honolulu, we invite you to build community with team members in person at least once a week. 

Other Application Details

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa.

We will accept and review applications on a rolling basis. Although all applications will be considered, we may be unable to respond to all inquiries. Please note that we do read cover letters, so we advise spending time on them to share your relevant stories and experiences with us. We ask that you keep the cover letter to 1-2 pages long. 

Elemental is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. Elemental is also committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, activities, programs, and employment opportunities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other applicable laws.