Foundation Executive Director $400,000 USD/year Pay is set based on global value, not the local market.
Most roles = hourly rate x 40 hrs x 50 weeks
Description
Most SGOs spend their best leadership talent on work that shouldn't require it: manually tracking compliance thresholds, pulling scholarship eligibility reports, managing donor spreadsheets, staying on top of IRS guidance by hand. The operational overhead is real — and it crowds out the work only you can do.
This is a build-from-scratch role at a stealth education startup designing the first Scholarship Granting Organization in America where the administrative burden is handled by AI, built by a dedicated tech team and directed by you. Compliance monitoring runs in real time. Donor prospecting and segmentation happen automatically. Scholarship eligibility workflows are AI-assisted. You don't build the systems; you identify where they're needed, and the tech team implements them. That means your calendar is open for the work that actually requires your judgment: strategic decisions, major donor relationships, board leadership, and organizational direction.
In year one, you're building: designing the operational architecture, integrating the AI systems, and running the donor development function yourself. You'll be in the room with major donors, state politicians, and corporate partners. As the first SGO proves out, the model replicates across more states: more students served, more donors activated, more scholarship dollars distributed. The role grows with what you build.
This is a fully remote, full-time role open to candidates authorized to work in the United States. Apply and you'll move through a Basic Fit Questionnaire, an assessment, and a hiring manager interview — straightforward and fast.
What you will be doing
- Identifying which operational processes should be automated (compliance tracking, eligibility verification, donor prospecting, reporting) and partnering with the tech team to implement them before adding headcount
- Building a personal major donor portfolio: cultivating gifts of $10,000 or more from individual donors, corporate partners, state politicians, and community stakeholders, using the dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit as the ask
- Preparing and leading quarterly board meetings with strategic recommendations, performance data, and documented decisions
- Maintaining 100% compliance with IRC Section 25F requirements: the 90% scholarship spending threshold, priority award rules, anti-earmarking provisions, and 300% AMI income verification, through AI-monitored workflows
- Tracking competitor SGOs, evolving IRS and Treasury guidance, and emerging AI capabilities, adjusting operational systems within 30 days of any material change
What you will NOT be doing
- Managing a fundraising department. You are the relationship function; staff support is AI and lean operations, not a development team.
- Managing a large permanent staff. Your leverage is systems and relationships, not headcount; a lean team supported by AI is the design, not a cost-cutting measure.
- Running mass outreach campaigns or managing social media. The fundraising here is high-touch, high-stakes relationship work with major donors, corporate partners, and institutional stakeholders; AI handles the targeting and segmentation so you can focus on the conversations that matter.
- Inheriting established systems. There are no playbooks, no existing CRM, no org chart to step into; you build what the organization needs.
Key responsibilities
Build and operate an AI-native Scholarship Granting Organization that distributes federal tax credit scholarships to students nationwide, running lean through AI-powered compliance, eligibility, and donor systems.
Candidate requirements
- You're based in the US and don't need visa sponsorship
- You've spent at least 5 years in senior nonprofit leadership
- You've led or worked directly inside a Scholarship Granting Organization — you know the compliance requirements, the scholarship award process, and the operational reality from the inside
- You've personally closed major gifts of $10,000 or more and run a donor campaign from design through execution
- You've owned 501(c)(3) compliance in a leadership role — Form 990, board governance, or a regulatory inquiry
- You've operated without a manager checking your work daily; you've made consequential decisions on your own and lived with the results
- You use AI tools like ChatGPT in your work; no technical background needed
Nice to have
- You've launched an SGO from scratch, not just run one someone else built
- You already have relationships with major donors or corporate partners in Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, or Indiana
- You've built something from the ground up — a nonprofit, a program unit, an organization that didn't exist before you showed up
- You have an MBA, MPA, or JD
Applying for a role? Here’s what to expect.
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Interview with the hiring manager.
Pass
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Accept job offer.
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