Overview
About Tipping Point
Tipping Point’s mission is to break the cycle of poverty for people in the Bay Area who don’t have the resources to meet their basic needs. Since 2005, Tipping Point has invested nearly $350 million for housing, early childhood, education, and employment solutions in the region. Our board covers 100% of our operating costs, so every dollar donated goes where it’s needed most. Last year, 500,000 people in the Bay Area connected with our grantees. Visit www.tippingpoint.org to learn more.
Values
Tipping Point’s core values are at the heart of everything we do and we look for individuals who share our commitments:
- We cultivate community because we know we are more powerful together.
- We practice gratitude.
- We hold ourselves accountable to achieving impact for and with the communities we serve.
- We relentlessly pursue equity because one’s background and identities should not predetermine one’s opportunities.
Position Overview
The Senior Program Officer will oversee the strategy for a grantmaking issue area, which is rooted in grantmaking to nonprofit providers, but may also include other types of investments and policy or systems-change initiatives. They have knowledge of the specific issue area research and interventions, strong understanding of nonprofit organizations, experience designing and/or evaluating programs, and expertise building relationships in diverse organizations and communities. The Senior Program Officer manages relationships with current grantees, screens and performs due diligence on prospective issue area investments, and recommends new investments and collaborations. The Senior Program Officer works collaboratively with the grantmaking team to share learnings, helps refine Tipping Point’s grantmaking approach, and assesses to what extent our efforts are reducing poverty in the Bay Area.
This position reports directly to the Senior Director of Grantmaking and Capacity Building
What will you do?
Strategy + Content/Issue Area Knowledge
- Develop and implement an actionable strategy for a grantmaking portfolio, including a policy agenda and specific and quantifiable impact targets.
- Through research and connections with experts in the field, inform strategy and help team to stay current on the issue area and innovative solutions.
Grantee Relationship Management + Support
- Serve as primary contact, relationship manager and thought partner for grantees.
- Work with grantees to set annual performance goals in order to increase impact.
- Monitor and support progress toward grant goal achievement.
- Identify support and resources that grantees need; work with team and partners to deliver management assistance.
- Perform annual renewal process and recommend support based on impact made and progress on grant goals.
- Identify, communicate, and address grantee misalignment and/or underperformance.
Pipeline Management + New Grantee Diligence
- Maintain knowledge of prospective issue area grantees and partners; perform due diligence as appropriate, and propose new investments to Tipping Point’s Board via the portfolio board committee.
- Gain understanding of comparable organizations and promising practices to assess the relative strengths and challenges of potential grantees.
Evaluation, Impact + Continuous Learning
- Capture grantee activities and data in Salesforce.
- Monitor outcomes and establish targets for grantees.
- Meet regularly with grantees to understand and diagnose key organizational and programmatic successes and challenges, including progress on outcomes targets.
- Recommend concrete actions to strengthen grantees’ capture and use of data, and improve efficacy.
- Seek opportunities to learn from and share new grant-making and evaluation approaches.
- Participate in sharing successes and failures to inform the team’s learning and improvement.
- Develop a research agenda to inform portfolio strategy, including core investments, policy opportunities, and potential future initiatives.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Build and maintain peer funder and other community relationships.
- Create opportunities to collaborate and network among all Tipping Point grantees.
- Highlight grantees’ and Tipping Point’s work and impact with Tipping Point’s External Affairs team, Leadership Team (LT), and other key stakeholders.
- Attend select Tipping Point Board meetings and events as ambassadors of grantees and Tipping Point.
- Serve as primary liaison for portfolio board committee, presenting proposals for approval on a quarterly basis, and keeping committee members informed of key programmatic and field-specific developments.
All other duties as assigned.
What qualifications are we looking for?
In addition to our core values, Tipping Point staff exhibit four core competencies: flexibility, exceptional communication skills, ability to work well on a team, and the ability to continuously problem solve in the face of challenges.
Additionally, the Senior Program Officer must have:
- Robust professional experience, including leadership experience at a direct service organization and a proven track record of grant-making, program development, capacity building and/or consulting in the nonprofit sector.
- Demonstrated experience in and/or knowledge of issue area.
- Strategic thinker with ability to manage a portfolio of investments; experience developing and implementing strategy or complex initiatives a plus.
- Strong interpersonal skills and ability to build relationships with diverse individuals, organizations and communities.
- Customer-service orientation to supporting grantees and fellow staff in achieving their goals and results.
- Evidence of strong commitment to creating more diverse, equitable and inclusive programs and organizations.
- Excellent communication (oral + written) and ability to inspire and motivate others through compelling messaging.
- Strong team player who also works well independently
- Commitment to Tipping Point’s mission and values and ability to operate with the highest degree of integrity in representing the organization
- Ability to handle sensitive information in a confidential manner