Who We Are
LeaderSpring Center (LSC) is an evolving organization with a compelling past, present, and future. Since 1997 LSC has been impacting leaders in the Bay Area social sector by creating community, connection, and transformation. Alumnae Sonia Mañjon and Safi Jiroh stepped into LSC’s leadership in 2017 and have focused the organization’s work on racial equity, including the launch of our Women of Color LeadStrong Fellowship and expanding our Impact Consulting services to new sectors with targeted services. LSC is poised to scale over the next 5 years (2022-2027), and this is an exciting time to join a growing organization that is innovating both inside and out while centering the experiences of people of color. Visit
www.leaderspring.org to learn more about our work.
How We Work—Our Values in Action
As we support our leaders in combatting and dismantling systems of oppression, we seek to create and model a new way of being and doing as an organization. This requires experimentation, iteration, self-reflection (individually and collectively), and adaptability.
- Liberation: We strive to actively dismantle white supremacist culture and systems of oppression within ourselves, our organizational culture and practices (ex: time-scarcity, urgency), the sector, and society at large.
- Alignment: Within our team we emphasize alignment of values, goals, priorities, and trust each other to do the work from there. We take time to create relationships at the speed of trust and continually check-in and course-correct to ensure alignment.
- Leadership:
- Each of us is pro-active, self-driven, and able to make a judgement call about how/when to pull in other teammates in order to keep the work moving forward.
- We ask our program participants to be brave and vulnerable and expect that of ourselves.
- We are both passionate about the work and committed to taking care of ourselves to avoid burnout.
- Learning through Reflection: We are a team that is self-reflective and wants to learn and continually grow as an organization/organism. We make mistakes, take responsibility, and learn.
- Collective Well-Being: We make work fit our lives. Schedules are flexible and we trust each other to get the work done when it needs to get done. We ask each other for help and cover for each other when life happens.
- Fluidity: We treat LSC as a fluid organism that is constantly changing and evolving. Needs, responsibilities, relationships, and expectations change.
- Deep Relationships: Within our cohorts and our team we strive to cultivate relationships that go beyond transactions or simply liking another person. Deep relationships are forged out of struggle and require trust, respect, commitment to one another (and one’s self), and compassion.
What You’ll Do
The Development and Communications Director will be responsible for:
- Revenue strategy: work with the co-EDs to create and execute annual fundraising goals and strategy with the intention to grow the organization from $1M to $4M annual budget in 5 years, building off a $15M campaign currently being raised in partnership with The San Francisco Foundation and creating a vision for long term sustainability.
- Fundraising: initial focus will be on maintaining and growing institutional relationships (foundation and corporate grants). Building out more robust individual giving through major donor, alumni, and annual campaigns within three years.
- Communications: creating and executing strategy for engaging various audiences and creating a synthesized voice for the organization.
- Hire, build, and manage a development and communications team over the next two years.
If you were here right now you would be:
- Maintaining current grant portfolio by stewarding relationships and cultivating larger asks.
- Prospecting and securing new donors/funding.
- Beginning to develop an individual giving/major gifts by analyzing history and opportunities.
- Analyzing our current ad hoc communications efforts and channels and drafting short term strategy for more intentional campaigns that support our immediate goals. Oversee execution.
- Hiring and building a team (3-4 FTE) to support fundraising and communication efforts.
Who You Are and Keys to Success
You are a self-motivated fundraiser who loves engaging people and crafting written stories. You are passionate about social justice and adept at challenging funder-partners while cultivating deep relationship.
- Successful Fundraiser: You have long term (5+ years) success in institutional fundraising with superb relationship building skills. Ideally you also have experience with working in capacity building organizations, individual giving programs, and/or event sponsorship campaigns.
- Compelling Communicator: You have demonstrated success with developing communications strategy through multiple channels and excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Passion for Our Approach: You want to really challenge non-profit(ism) and translate our values into how we fundraise and self-govern. You are eager to challenge philanthropy while maintaining deep relationships with funder partners and are skilled at having sticky/difficult/nuanced conversations.
- Demonstrated Commitment to Social Justice and Racial Equity: You have experience with DEIB and anti-black racism work as participant or leader.
- Comfort with Fluidity and Ambiguity: things change, and you should be able to adapt quickly. You are open to possibility and comfortable with ongoing calibration.
- A Continuous Learner: You are self-aware, and practice self-reflection. You take responsibility for your own learning and have the drive and motivation for self-improvement. This is part of our culture, and also important for the type of work that we do.
- Competent Administrator: You have experience supervising teams of 3 or more people for more than 12 months. You are able to ‘hit the ground running’, which means you are a quick learner, able to make decisions, and pro-active. You are at minimum familiar with Salesforce and CRM platforms.
What Else You Should Know
This position is full-time, exempt. The salary for this position ranges from $105,000-$120,000. We offer excellent benefits including 100% paid health insurance for full-time employees, dental and vision coverage, employer contributions to a 403(b) retirement plan, and holiday, sick, and vacation paid time off.
Our team works remotely and has deep connections to the San Francisco Bay Area. You will need to attend in person events in the San Francisco Bay Area including fundraising events, funder meetings, and monthly staff meetings.
You should be able to work on a computer for up to 8 hours a day and communicate clearly in English both verbally and in written form. Event set up occasionally requires the need to lift objects weighing up to 15 pounds.
How to Apply
To apply, please email a cover letter and a resume to
rachel@leaderspring.org with the subject line “Development Director–[Your name].” We particularly want to learn about why you are interested in working at LSC and what makes you a good candidate for joining our team. We regret that we are not able to respond to all inquiries.
LeaderSpring, a project of Tides Center, is an “at-will” and equal opportunity employer. Applicants and employees shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender (including pregnancy and gender expression) identity, color, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law or ordinance. Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. Please advise in writing of special needs at the time of application.