About Global Greengrants Fund
Global Greengrants Fund is a leading funder of the world’s grassroots environmental and climate justice movements. Since 1993 we have been growing our networks of activists, experts, donors, and leaders to provide these movements with the resources they need to work toward a healthy and just future.

Global Greengrants uses a variety of participatory grantmaking models to provide funding and other forms of support to grassroots groups around the world. We work with over 200 grantmaking advisors worldwide, all of whom are experts and activists, connected with the grassroots movements, issues, and challenges in the regions where they work. These advisors make grantmaking decisions as members of our organization’s regional and thematic advisory boards, of local funds that grew organically out of advisory boards in the regions where we work, and of other organizations that share our mission and values. We strive, however, for our grantmaking to be a relationship rather than a unidirectional flow of resources. Relationships built on trust and shared learning are essential to the success of our grantmaking. Our advisors help the organizations they fund with mentoring and connections to larger movements and other institutions. By bringing back ideas and knowledge from grantees, advisors also help their colleagues and broader movements to work out new solutions to the problems that confront them. 

Application Deadline: June 08, 2025

Job Title: Vice President of External Relations

Workband: F

Location: Remote/Global

Team: Vice President of External Relations is a member of the External Relations team and is line-managed by the President and CEO, while building and working in more collaborative ways.

Relationships that Shift Power

Global Greengrants supports grassroots movements, working to energize their transformational work for environmental and climate justice. While the impacts of environmental degradation and climate change are vast and varied, ranging from drought, to pollution, to the unjust displacement of communities, they share a common source in extractive systems that dominate our global economy and concentrate power over land and resources in a limited number of actors. Environmental justice movements strive to shift power over land and natural resources back to the people who rely on those resources for their homes and livelihoods, so that communities can ensure their own long-term health and survival. When power and decision making is managed equitably, people and ecosystems thrive. Likewise, climate justice movements center those that have been most impacted by climate change as leaders in climate mitigation efforts, so that the climate solutions the world develops are equitable, inclusive, and meet the localized challenges faced by all communities. Grassroots environmental and climate justice movements are the forces that bring people together and build their collective power to do this work.

Vice President of External Relations

The Vice President of External Relations has a deep understanding of and commitment to climate, environmental, and social justice grassroots movements and can drive a values-aligned approach to co-create, build, and sustain relationships with and communicate to the organizations various stakeholder, including donors and partners.

Main responsibilities

●  Provide leadership and expertise for the operationalization of GGF’s strategic plan to ensure achieving organizational outcomes; ensure that the external relations work substantively and effectively advances strategic goals, is highly relevant and responsive to the context of environmental and social justice movements globally and is aligned with organizational priorities and values.

●      Oversee strategy development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation for GGF’s external relations work ensuring that the organization develop and grow sustained fundraising pipelines and donor engagement, lead the strategic fieldbuilding and steward existing global partnerships to deepen reciprocal, shared work and ensure alignment with our values and strategy.

●      Ensure strategic alignment, synergy and cross-team integration among the external relations team as well as across the programs and other GGF teams as well as GGF’s global network of coordinators and advisors in their efforts to make impact.

●      Actively participate in the leadership of the organization, including participating as an active member of the Oversight Team, providing valued and solution-oriented input on critical problems, working with others to address programmatic, human resource, financial, legislative issues as they arise to ensure that GGF is effective in achieving its desired outcomes as well as undertaking itself as a strong and values aligned organization.

●      Provide both strategic and operational advice to the CEO on GGF’s work in areas under oversight.

●      Represent the CEO and GGF in key donor and philanthropic spaces, by participating in relevant meetings, conferences, and special events as necessary and prepare and deliver public presentations, articles and/or other media products as required to convey organizational highlights and positioning, in line with the strategic objectives for external audiences.

●      Support GGF staff in enhancing their capacities for planning, monitoring and evaluation, collaboration and distributed leadership and other general competencies critical for GGF’s strong functioning.

●      Drive a robust, meaningful learning agenda that facilitates continuous improvement in GGF’s work and effectively contributes to environmental and social justice movement-support.

More specifically:

1.     Provide leadership and expertise for the operationalization of GGF’s strategic plan to ensure achieving organizational outcomes by ensuring that the external relations work substantively and effectively advances strategic goals, is highly relevant and responsive to the context of environmental and social justice movements globally and is aligned with organizational priorities and values.

●      Actively participate in the leadership of the organization, including participating as an active member of the Oversight Team, providing valued and solution-oriented input on critical problems, working with others to address programmatic, human resource, financial, legislative issues as they arise to ensure that GGF is effective in achieving its desired outcomes as well as undertaking itself as a strong and values aligned organization. Participate in Board meetings as required.

●      Hold an overarching view of all external-facing strategies and systems (fundraising, field building, and communications) and assess organizational needs to ensure that GGF systems are enabling the organization to deliver on its work and meet its accountabilities while integrating political and strategic clarity across external strategies and staying true to its values and principles.

●      Serve as the key strategist for external influence for GGF, providing guidance, support and information to the CEO and board to inform strategic direction; serve as a thought partner to the CEO in positioning, messaging, and engagement with global movements and funders and provide robust and detailed strategic political and movement support to the CEO when required.

●     Support the CEO and ED in donor stewardship, funder engagement, and organizational visibility efforts. Represent the CEO and GGF in key donor and philanthropic spaces, by participating in relevant meetings, conferences, and special events as necessary and prepare and deliver public presentations, articles and/or other media products as required to convey organizational highlights and positioning, in line with the strategic objectives for external audiences.

●      Develop and steward global partnerships to deepen reciprocal, shared work and ensure alignment with our values and strategy.

●      Promote an organizational culture of high performance and continuous improvement that values learning.

●      Promote a culture of strategic storytelling and learning within GGF’s communications and donor engagement work, centering grassroots movements and advancing political clarity through messaging and field presence.

●      Expand GGF’s influence and strategic objectives by cultivating relationships and building trust-based alliances with external stakeholders—including philanthropic peers, donor institutions, global advisors, grassroots partners, and aligned movement actors. Advance the GGF’s strategic objectives by networking and sharing information with relevant external stakeholders (including grantees, coordinators and advisors, and donors, feminist, environmental and social justice and/or human rights organizations and other social justice actors) in different select spaces and regions of the world.

●      Proactively identify, manage, and mitigate risks to the organization and its board members working closely with the CEO and management team.

●      Ensure partnership, visioning, communication flows are holistic and not duplicative, by developing and maintaining ways of working that facilitate strong cross-team interaction within the organization and the global network.

●      Lead the transformation within own role and responsibilities, as needed for the organization and the team, towards developing more collaborative teams. 

2.     Oversee strategy development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation for GGF’s external relations work ensuring that the organization develop and grow sustained fundraising pipelines and donor engagement, lead the strategic fieldbuilding and steward existing global partnerships to deepen reciprocal, shared work and ensure alignment with our values and strategy.

●      Provide strategic vision, direction, guidance and input to the work of the organization including in fieldbuilding, communications, donor stewardship and philanthropic partnerships and global partnerships and the development of systems and procedures in alignment with the overall organizational strategic vision and priorities and the needs of the global network.

●      Maintain active and broad external engagement to ensure awareness of social and environmental movement needs and opportunities, as well as a broad understanding of trends and needs in the GGF global network of grantees, environmental justice and philanthropic ecosystems.

●      Oversee and advance the global strategy for all internal and external communications, including branding, messaging, and digital presence. Oversee the External Relations team in designing and deploying learning-centered communication strategies, change processes, and relationship building that strengthen GGF’s visibility and role as an intersectional, justice-centered funder.

●      Build and sustain relationships with philanthropic peers, funding collaboratives, global allies, and donor networks to co-create shared work and long-term engagement. Build and maintain relationships with the global network of advisors, movement actors, and with relevant peer organizations that may lead to collaborations and partnerships to strengthen GGF’s model of a learning organization.

●      Oversee the provision of proactive, in-depth partnership and funder engagement analysis, to enhance the organization’s leadership and Advisory Board impact, as well as the necessary management reports; conduct regular planning, monitoring and evaluation in collaboration with GGF staff teams.

●      Support with analyzing the feedback from the global network in developing GGF’s political positioning and contribute to the development of GGF’s global strategies based on gathered intelligence and analysis. Provide leadership in how GGF synthesizes external intelligence and sector trends to refine its strategies, enabling deep alignment with evolving movement and philanthropic landscapes.

●      Ensure collaboration and integration within and across the US Organization, the US ER team, and the UK organization. Work closely with the UK organization and the US ER team to integrate collaborations in ER and Philanthropic Partnerships and exchange of information and other activities relevant to the ecosystem.

●      Oversee the Philanthropic Partnerships Team to develop and grow sustained fundraising pipelines and donor engagement.

●      Oversee the tracking of organizational funding and lead the development of high quality analysis for funder reporting.

●      Contribute to the annual budgeting process and ensure strong alignment with annual planning and GGF’s defined strategic goals.

●      Ensure adherence to approved budget and all internal financial policies and procedures, including timely submission of quarterly and annual budget and variance information

●      Oversee strategic storytelling and learning within GGF’s communications and donor and partner engagement work, centering grassroots movements and advancing political clarity through messaging and field presence to a variety of stakeholders, including the leadership team, the Board, funders and GGF’s global network partners.

3.     Team mentoring, development, and support.

●      Lead, mentor and provide strategic direction to the ER team who may be working remotely in multiple locations across multiple time zones.

●      Mentor the team and individual members to set goals and milestones for success and professional evaluation, accountability, and growth.

●      Provide ongoing coaching, mentoring and day-to-day line management support to the ER team in creating the team practices and collaborations to meet their performance goals, reach team goals and ensure team strategies are implemented.

●      Lead the team in ensuring the team has the tools, resources, support, guidance and information they need to reach team goals and maintain a collaborative and trust-based environment.

●      Contribute to the development of a high-quality team in the organization through participation in recruitment, evaluation and career development.

Position Specifications

Essential Values and Competencies

●      Commitment to the guiding principles, mission and values of Global Greengrants Fund;

●      Commitment to a value based intersectional framework and its implications for organizational practices and principles of anti-oppression.

●      Transparency and Accountability

●      Critical thinking and analysis

●      Strategic risk management

●      Build strong Interpersonal relations from the role - across both organizations (up, down and across and externally)

●      Influencing & resolving differences across boundaries

●      Self-awareness and insight

Essential Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Experience:

●      Significant relevant experience in similar roles in non-profit environmental, development, social/environmental justice, feminist, gender, human rights organization, philanthropy, movement building and/or funding organization.

●      Demonstrated experience in creating global communications, partnerships and filebuilding strategies that address the needs of movements and how movements are supported by philanthropy and meeting the evolving needs of a growing and transforming progressive organization.

●      Experience in utilizing the critical role communications plays internally and externally, and having articulated and advanced innovative communications strategies and milestones that generate support for the organization’s work.

●      Strong familiarity with the philanthropic ecosystems and social and environmental justice movements and frameworks. A deep, relational understanding of a collective approach to movement-centered action with a commitment to sharing and dispersing power in all aspects of work.

●      Proven experience in planning and implementation, operationalizing strategies to achieve priorities and goals and change management with excellent organization skills and extensive experience in project and program management, ability to develop, monitor and evaluate an operational plan with multiple projects, multiple deliverables and deadlines; ability to plan, organize and lead the implementation of plans and processes.

●      Demonstrated capacity to think strategically, innovatively, and analytically, with expertise in complex problem solving, decision making and critical thinking skills, displays good judgment.

●      Excellent interpersonal understanding, relationship building and interpersonal skills to build strong alliances with diverse constituencies and manage complex politics, positioning and relationships.

●      Strong financial management acumen; knowledge of accounting procedures and protocols, budgeting and financial analysis

●      Experience as a leader in ensuring the team meets fundraising milestones and quarterly and annual targets and can pivot activities when needed to address new context with the ability to engage team members, build consensus, and build high performance collaborative teams.

●      Experience working with diverse communities from multiple identities across the globe, in a virtual environment.

●      Fluency in English; proficiency in other languages preferred.

●      Strong expertise in the use of various software and a high level of computer literacy (MS Office Suite, Google Apps, instant messaging and virtual team collaboration software such as Trello, Zoom, Slack and Asana and Raiser’s Edge or other donor management systems)

●      Ability to travel within the US and rest of the world (approx. 8-10 weeks per year).

Personal characteristics

●      A transparent and adaptive leader with a commitment to lifelong learning and a drive to mentor, coach, and share leadership and who are able to intellectually drive the vision and ensure that there is space and opportunity for others to come along on its transformative journey while taking meaningful purpose-driven actions.

●      Experience and skills to give, receive and work with feedback constructively, with the intellectual and emotional resilience necessary to take up critical responsibilities for an international global organization.

●      Articulate communicator, storyteller, and visionary.

●      Demonstrated skills as a leader who guides wisely and compassionately through unknowns, motivating teams toward results and developing creative strategies to evolve and embrace new opportunities, while also being clear on which opportunities to pass on if they are not strategically aligned.

●      Able to innovate and navigate uncertainty and thrive in seeing and taking up opportunities in the context of the ongoing organizational transformational journey.

●      Relevant lived experiences related to GGF’s work and community.

Desirable Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Experience

●      Experience with donor organizing and advocacy, and prior experience mobilizing resources for community- or movement based work;

●      Experience of strengthening growing organizations.

●      Experience of shared leadership models of work, and more collaborative ways of working.