Who we are
The Beacon Fund invests in expanding people’s opportunity to thrive. We focus on positive social change by removing systemic barriers to success for individuals and their communities. Based in Denver, Beacon achieves its purpose through three primary initiatives:
1) Career and post-secondary success
2) Immigrant advocacy and integration
3) Youth nutrition
Beacon advances the work of these initiatives through broad set of tools including philanthropic grants, investing, and advocacy support. A core set of beliefs guide our work: the power of partnership; humility in knowing that we do not have all the answers; respect for individuals to discover and engage in building a lifestyle of their choice; and an openness to adapt to ever-changing needs and to new ways of creating positive change.
As Beacon continues to implement its social impact strategy, the team is seeking an experienced, highly motivated and entrepreneurial individual to serve as its Managing Director.
About the Position
This role has emerged as a result of increased philanthropic, investments and advocacy by the organization. The expectation is that the Managing Director will assist the organization in driving social change.
The Managing Director will work closely with the Directors, Board of Directors and President to help design and support philanthropy, investment and advocacy strategies and goals. In addition, the Managing Director, will lead organizational planning, serve as a trusted advisor, manage all aspects of human capital and facilitate the assessment of the fund impact. With the support of internal and broader organizational resources, the Managing Director will ensure that needs are met in an integrated and high-quality manner, that enhances capacity and capability in meeting the organizations social impact ambitions to continually move the organization forward.
The Managing Director will bring business and investment acumen, strong leadership skills, an implicit service orientation, and specifically will:
Lead Organizational Strategy and Planning
• Assess the company’s operational and strategic performance;
• Align processes, resources-planning, budgets and department goals with overall strategy;
• Evaluate regularly the efficiency of business procedures and organizational structure according to objectives and apply improvements;
• Review financial information and adjust operational budgets as needed;
• Revise and/or formulate policies and promote their implementation
Serve as a Trusted Advisor
• Have the confidence and humility to effectively build credibility and relationships with board members and team; assume senior advisor and client service role to effectively anticipate and respond to the needs and requests of board members; proactively serve as a thought partner to help guide board members as they think through options, in order to promote informed decision-making;
• Enable and seek strategic opportunities to bridge individual funding or philanthropic initiatives into collective giving across various funders, stakeholder and shared interest groups;
• Provide clarity to all stakeholders regarding collaboration with shared service teams such as grants management support, accounting, legal, IT, communications and human resources;
• Foster strong relationships within and across a broad group of stakeholders;
• Represent the fund as a spokesperson with strategic partners, external audiences and other critical stakeholders;
• Identify, discuss and communicate synergies between existing funding partners giving strategies to maximize impact and promote cohesiveness, while respecting those partners individual philanthropic missions;
• Serve as a bridge between The Beacon Fund and a broader family eco-system
Manage Human Capital for Strategic Impact
• Manage performance of dedicated and shared service teams working in sync to enable the organization to achieve giving goals through creative strategies and use of multiple funding tools;
• Identify educational opportunities for board members and staff to empower them to achieve strategic objectives;
• Cultivate a supportive, inclusive and equitable work environment for all our staff and constituents. Continue to strategically build out the necessary human capital and operational infrastructure to support the organization’s needs;
• Attract and recruit top talent, motivate, delegate effectively, and celebrate diversity
Facilitate the Assessment of Fund-wide Impact
• Collaborate with external experts to further develop current data and metric systems to learn from individual programs, capture information, and ensure learnings are shared across the organization and with stakeholders;
• Help create a system that measures outcomes and assess business performance to ensure ROI;
• Increase the adaptive learning capacity of program staff and support a culture of learning and reflection, including incorporating of lessons learned into strategic decision-making processes;
• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the program Directors as they develop an evaluation framework and consistent evaluation approaches
Who we are looking for
We are seeking an outstanding, seasoned Managing Director who brings considerable experience in a service-oriented organization. The ideal candidate possesses experience in philanthropy and impact investing with a mix of the following core competencies, experiences and capabilities:
Required Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree required
• Robust professional experience as a leader in impact investing, which may include time at a venture or private equity firm, top-tier investment bank, family office, and/or strategic consulting firm, as well as in the philanthropic and/or nonprofit sectors
• Significant experience in grant making or philanthropy operations
• Experience negotiating large grants, contracts or financial transactions, including conducting due diligence and setting terms
• Financial modeling, company analysis, market and competitive analysis, analysis of investment merits and concerns, management benchmarking, evaluation of company and investment structure, and returns analysis
• Monitoring and oversight of existing investments, including analyzing financial figures received, responding to follow-on capital raises and other corporate actions, and exiting investments
Knowledge, skills and abilities that will support your success
Leading Teams
• The ability to attract and recruit top talent, motivate the team, delegate effectively, and manage performance; widely viewed as a strong developer of others
• A leader who is self-reflective and aware of his/her own limitations; leads by example and drives the team’s performance with an attitude of continuous improvement by being open to feedback and self-improvement
Executing for Results
• The ability to set clear and challenging goals while committing the team to improved performance; tenacious and accountable in driving results
• Comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty; the ability to adapt nimbly and lead others through complex situations
Integrity and Client Focus
• A leader who is viewed by others as having a high degree of integrity and forethought in an approach to making decisions; the ability to act in a transparent and consistent manner while always considering what is best for the organization
• Willingness to support, uplift, and shine a spotlight on the valued work of our funding partners and grantees while leading from behind the scenes and keeping a low profile for the organization.
The Beacon Fund is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to building and maintaining a culturally diverse workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment of any kind. We encourage women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate.
Basic Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree required
• Robust professional experience as a leader in impact investing, which may include time at a venture or private equity firm, top-tier investment bank, family office, and/or strategic consulting firm, as well as in the philanthropic and/or nonprofit sectors
• Significant experience in grant making or philanthropy operations
• Experience negotiating large grants, contracts or financial transactions, including conducting due diligence and setting terms
• Financial modeling, company analysis, market and competitive analysis, analysis of investment merits and concerns, management benchmarking, evaluation of company and investment structure, and returns analysis
• Monitoring and oversight of existing investments, including analyzing financial figures received, responding to follow-on capital raises and other corporate actions, and exiting investments
