The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The vision of the foundation’s U.S. Program (USP) is to ensure that everyone in the US has access to life-changing opportunities so that race, ethnicity, and income are no longer predictors of educational and economic outcomes. In education, our primary focus is ensuring that all students – especially Black, Latinx, and low-income students – have an opportunity to earn a degree or credential that prepares them for a successful career and life. We also support efforts to increase the number of actors working together to understand and advance economic mobility. The U.S. Program works on five key drivers toward our goal:

1. Ensure early childhood learning systems provide high-quality learning experiences for young children.

2. Support schools in the K-12 system to improve student outcomes.

3. Transform colleges and universities to increase student success and eliminate attainment gaps.

4. Partner with stakeholders to ensure more people have the information and resources to tackle barriers to opportunity and to develop economic mobility strategies.

5. In our home state of Washington, improve the tools and practices of teachers, parents, and providers to ensure that all students have fair and equitable opportunities to reach their potential.

In Washington state, we work with local and regional partners and Charter schools to help students see a clear path to success in the careers they choose, with an emphasis on young people who face the highest barriers, including Black, Latino, Indigenous and rural students, and students from low-income backgrounds.

With only 50% of WA students pursuing any type of postsecondary credential, the WA Team has focused its investments squarely in education. The Washington State Initiative focuses on supporting the transitional point in a student’s education journey: enrollment after high school in a postsecondary program that will lead to meaningful employment. Our investments in Charter schools have included a variety of efforts to incubate a successful charter sector in Washington State. We also focus on national growth through investments in a small number of national partners. Both national and local investment includes growing high-quality seats, enabling conditions, and quality best practices.

The Washington team plays a unique role in the United States Program (USP), leading and grounding the foundation’s national work in place and facilitating learning and synergy between the Washington state team, community partners, and the foundation’s national strategies.

Both the US Charters and Washington State Initiative Teams work in close coordination with the USP division’s program, and functional strategies (US Charters, Early Childhood Learning, K12 education, Postsecondary education, Economic Mobility and Opportunity, Pathways, and Data). This cross-team approach aspires to drive greater collaboration, synergy, and coherence between national strategies and the foundation’s strategic investments in Washington state.

Your Role

The Senior Program Coordinator (SPC) leads and facilitates cross-team planning, collaboration, and issue resolution. They will support prioritization, tracking of in-flight work and progress towards goals, learning and reflection on investment-making effectiveness and convening of critical working sessions to advance the work of an initiative team. The SPC coordinates, develops, and handles a portfolio of investments, with an emphasis on processes and systems, initial investment due diligence, and timeline management. The SPC will support budget oversight and planning, financial analysis and reporting, and process management for the portfolio of investments, which may include grants, contracts, and program related investments. This position will also provide organizational support for officers and deputy directors in support of the effectiveness of investments. The position will report to the Deputy Director, Strategy, Planning & Management and will support the portfolio and investment processes across the Washington State and US Charters teams.

What You’ll Do

Core Responsibilities

• Shape and analyze portfolio of investments to align to goals and priorities and to balance investments across risk, time horizon, partner types, and other portfolio factors, in partnership with deputy director and team of program officers.

• Track and orchestrate partnership products and deliverables related to investments, facilitating planning and alignment for team priorities and portfolio execution progress.

• Work closely with investment makers to develop, and maintain a portfolio of investments. This may include advising on investment structure, ensuring compliance with foundation processes, initial investment due diligence, shepherding the development, management, and close out of grants and contracts, supervising invoices, and deliverables.

• Collaborate with internal business partners (Grants & Contract Services, Legal, and Financial Planning & Analysis) and external parties (grantees and vendors) through the investment lifecycle. Provide guidance and support to grantees and vendors on proposal development tools and processes, including budget templates and required documentation. Collects portfolio data, identifies trends and communicates issues to the team.

• In partnership with the Senior Officer, drive annual pipeline planning process, partnering with peers to align on timing, approach and communication. Ensure data quality for investments in foundation databases and provide support for team’s financial decision-making.

• Act as authority on tools and systems for tracking, monitoring and prioritizing investments including report generation and process improvement. Provide training and coaching to program team to ensure sustained use.

• Provide leadership on cross-team and investment learning, convening periodic learning sessions to reflect on individual investments, topic, or initiative progress overall, and collects findings on hypotheses regarding investments and their health impact outcomes.

Core Capabilities

• Able to work with flexibility, efficiency, and tact in a fast-paced, exciting environment. Open to rapid change and able to learn new things quickly. Able to distill what is needed next, even without expertise in programmatic content.

• Builds trust, influences individuals and teams without explicit authority, and cultivates collaboration and conflict resolution across colleagues, with partners and among team members.

• Proven skills and/or experience in project and process management and facility with data input.

• Recognizes complexity and assesses risks and alternatives considering opposing requirements and incomplete knowledge.

• Has experience with and has a strong understanding of investment rules, regulations, and policies, and can advise when they are applicable. Is an authority in investment-making processes and practices and can generate reports, engage partners and decision-makers, as needed.

• Demonstrates experienced knowledge of, and ability to work across multiple investment-making systems, based in Access, Excel, SharePoint, and other web-based software applications. Basic SharePoint site administration skills, including metadata tagging, document view creation, archiving, and creating and maintaining confidential files.

• Organization: Excellent organization skills, attention to detail, and ability to handle multiple demands and establish priorities.

• Communication: Excellent oral and written communication skills to interact optimally with internal and external partners.

• Standout colleague: Ability to work independently and as part of an integrated, diverse team and be comfortable with varied settings, and different work and learning styles.

• Problem-solving approach: Ability and willingness to tackle new tasks, and broaden thinking, experience, and personal development.

• Adaptability: Ability to learn quickly, particularly with regard to investment-making systems, and adapt to changes in processes and organization.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent and 4+ years of experience.

• Project/process management or related experience required.

*Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

The typical salary range for this role is $44.70 to $67.02 USD per hour. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $44.70 to $67.02 USD per hour. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.