About SFF
The Spaht Family Foundation (SFF) is dedicated to fostering substantive, long-term impact in the areas of climate, mental health, and the arts. It offers multi-year, flexible funding backed by collaboration and mutual learning for visionary leaders with defined strategies.
Learn more about SFF at https://spahtfamilyfoundation.org/.
The Opportunity
The Director of Grantmaking will be the second full-time employee and the right-hand to the Executive Director. This is a rare, entrepreneurial opportunity to help co-create a foundation's operations from the ground up.
The primary focus will be managing the lifecycle of SFF’s philanthropic partnerships—nurturing past, current, and future relationships. The Director of Grantmaking will serve as a vital partner to the Executive Director, helping to navigate, translate, and execute the Foundation and Principals’ philanthropic vision.
Key areas of responsibility include:
Portfolio Stewardship
- Relationship Management: Serve as the primary, high-touch liaison to past, current, and future nonprofit partners, institutionalizing a culture of deep respect, clear communication, and storytelling.
- Capacity-Building Strategy: Proactively identify organizational needs within SFF’s grantee portfolio and coordinate resources to support.
- Impact Tracking & Learning: Develop nimble, qualitative, and quantitative learning frameworks that capture the short and long-term impact of their investments without creating friction for partners.
Strategic Grantmaking
- Rigorous Due Diligence: Support the Executive Director in conducting research, vetting, and building relationships with prospective grantees that align with the foundation’s emerging strategic priorities across climate, mental health, and the arts.
- End-to-End Grant Lifecycle Management: Design, deploy, and manage a streamlined grants management framework to effectively track current and prospective partners.
- Executive Briefing & Synthesis: Synthesize dense nonprofit data, scientific research, and complex community landscapes into concise, institutional-grade briefing memos and dashboards for the Executive Director and Principals.
Foundation Operations
- System & Tech Ownership: Implement and maintain the foundation's core database management solutions and internal knowledge-sharing tools to ensure institutional memory is preserved.
- Governance Support: Assist in coordinating annual reporting timelines and helping navigate the evolving governance needs of a start-up family office environment.
Candidate Profile
We recognize that there is a spectrum of lived and professional experience that will set candidates up for success in this role. While no one candidate will have every experience outlined in the position description, ideal candidates will display the following professional and personal qualities, skills, and characteristics:
1. Philanthropic Operator
The Director of Grantmaking will bring deep familiarity with foundation operations, with experience conducting grantee vetting and due diligence. They will understand sector dynamics across climate, mental health, arts, or related fields. Prior experience as either a foundation strategist, family office operator, corporate social impact manager, philanthropic donor advisor, or nonprofit leader is preferred. Experience working with living donors or in founder-led environments is valuable.
2. Collaborative Relationship Builder
The Director of Grantmaking will demonstrate exceptional ability to cultivate authentic, high-trust relationships with nonprofit leaders, foundation principals, and sector stakeholders. They will bring warmth, empathy, and strong interpersonal presence to relationships, combined with sound judgment and discretion. With high EQ, the Director of Grantmaking will demonstrate a collaborative approach with low ego and high curiosity, and will be able to partner effectively with an engaged Executive Director and Principals who are deeply invested in the mission.
3. Communicator & Synthesizer
The Director of Grantmaking will demonstrate proven ability to synthesize complex information into clear, compelling briefs suited for SFF’s Principals, Executive Director, and nonprofit partners. Strong written and verbal communication skills are essential, as is comfort translating between different stakeholder languages—nonprofit operators, philanthropists, subject matter experts. The Director of Grantmaking will speak persuasively, backed by real conviction in the work.
4. Dynamic Operational Strategist
The Director of Grantmaking will be energized by developing processes from scratch, and will demonstrate comfort with shifting priorities and evolving strategy in a lean, fast-paced environment. They will function as a self-starter, identifying what needs doing, taking ownership, and proactively flagging risks and opportunities. The Director of Grantmaking will be comfortable building and maintaining databases, grants management systems, and internal tools, bringing strong project management skills and flexibility as needs and priorities shift.
Compensation and Benefits
The salary range for this role is $225,000 - $275,000.
SFF’s compensation philosophy reflects its commitment to attracting exceptional talent in the SF Bay Area. Final salary offers are determined by a candidate's depth of experience, skill set, and alignment with the role's strategic demands.
Benefits include:
- Health & Retirement: Health insurance and 401(k) retirement plan with an employer contribution/match.
- Vacation: Paid Time Off (PTO) policy, plus standard federal holidays.
- Flexible Work Environment: A hybrid work model balancing collaborative in-person days in San Francisco with the flexibility of remote work days. No weekly office requirement.
- Professional Growth: An annual dedicated professional development budget to attend philanthropic conferences, leadership workshops, or sector-specific training.
Contact
DSG | Koya has been exclusively retained for this engagement, which is being led by Alex Corvin and Maleka Pensky. Submit a resume (do not submit a cover letter) by filling out our Talent Profile by Friday, September 25th. All inquiries are strictly confidential.