About Communities Foundation Of Texas
The mission of Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT) is to improve the lives of all people in our community by investing in their health, wealth, living, and learning. CFT works to accomplish this by growing community giving, expanding community impact, and advancing community equity. With a vision of building thriving communities for all, CFT works locally and across the state with many individuals, families, companies, foundations, and nonprofits through a variety of charitable funds and strategic grantmaking initiatives. CFT professionally manages more than 1,300 charitable funds and has awarded more than $2.5 billion in grants since its founding in 1953.
CFT is committed to serving and understanding donor needs, expertly handling complex gifts, wisely managing charitable funds, and leveraging its community knowledge to increase charitable impact, in addition to powering several initiatives including the W. W. Caruth, Jr. Fund at CFT, the Center for Business Impact , Educate Texas at CFT, Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy at CFT, GiveWisely , and CFT’s North Texas Giving Day . CFT’s North Texas Giving Day raised $64 million on a single day in 2023 to help over 3,250 North Texas nonprofits. Learn more at CFTexas.org .
Your role
The Philanthropy Department deploys CFT’s philanthropic capital into the community for the purposes of advancing the organization’s mission and strategic plan. Reporting to the Chief Philanthropy Officer, the Community Philanthropy Director supports CFT’s core grantmaking efforts, including campaigns, major gifts, and capacity-building initiatives. This position directly stewards relationships with grant applicants and grantees throughout the entire grant lifecycle and manages program officer(s) focused on specific issue areas (such as education). They collaborate closely with other members of the Philanthropy Department, as well as other departments within CFT including Finance, Legal, Strategy & Insights, Marketing, and Relationships. As a member of the department’s leadership team, they contribute to the vision, strategy, and overall success of Communities Foundation of Texas as an organization.
What you will do
Grantmaking
- Manage relationships with non-profit applicants and grantees throughout the entire grant lifecycle, including discovery, application, funding, and reporting. Ensure constant and clear communication with nonprofits about the grantmaking process, criteria, and decision process, to cultivate a culture of transparency and equity.
- Collaborate with grantees to set realistic timelines, deliverables, and outcomes for grant investments.
- Focus on high-impact investments, including philanthropic investments in campaigns, major gifts, and capacity-building.
- Develop and implement grantmaking processes that are efficient, transparent, equitable, and lead to effective outcomes in alignment with CFT’s mission and donor intent.
- Lead preparation and support presentation of Caruth, Discretionary, and Consent Agenda materials for Philanthropy Committee and Board, as well as updates on grant progress, community trends, grant previews, etc.
Leadership
- Directly manage and supervise program officer(s) and/or associate(s) within the core grantmaking team who are focused on specific issue areas (such as education), overseeing day-to-day operations, delegating tasks when appropriate, and setting clear expectations for performance. Creating an inspiring team environment with an open communication culture, soliciting team members’ feedback and working to resolve any issues or conflicts.
- Serve on the Philanthropy Department’s leadership team, drawing on experience and knowledge to advise Chief Philanthropy Officer on key decisions and direction for the department.
- Cultivate and mentor less experienced staff across the department, caring for their engagement, success, and professional development, recognizing high performance, and rewarding accomplishments.
Community Engagement / Knowledge of Community
- Represent CFT to other related organizations and coalitions to maintain a full understanding of the current landscape of local and regional nonprofits, activities, projects, funders, and, where appropriate, identify opportunities to integrate with other CFT projects and initiatives.
- Identify and support opportunities, where appropriate, to bring experts within the nonprofit, civic, and/or private sectors together to educate the community about key challenges being faced by local populations and manage the logistics inherent in hosting.
- Be attentive to changing community needs and trends and be a part of the process of contributing to creative solutions to these key challenges.
- As a leader within the Philanthropy Department, represent the foundation externally and steward positive, authentic relationships with nonprofits, donors, peer funders, and civic/business leaders, elevating the opinion of those in the community of CFT’s staff and work.
- Track emerging areas that merit focused funding and/or attention to drive support of needs not currently addressed by the foundation. Inform the selection of topics around which to convene further conversation between experts, funders, and community leaders.
- Maintain knowledge of peer foundation initiatives and their focus areas and funding priorities.
Communication
- Collaborate with Marketing and grantees to ensure the development and publication of stories, white papers, summary documents, case studies, etc., as well as press releases, marketing materials, and social media updates.
- Collaborate with Strategy & Insights and grantees to track outcomes and impact of grant investments, and produce learning and insights to improve CFT’s and other peer foundations’ future grantmaking activities.
Experience you bring
- Bachelor’s degree or higher, Master’s degree preferred
- 10 or more years of relevant work experience required
- Experience and knowledge of the Dallas community, including community-based organizations, familiarity with the nonprofit sector and key stakeholders, to effectively support outreach and engagement initiatives.
- Previous impact-oriented grantmaking experience a plus
- Ability to keep self and others organized while juggling both macro and micro details and requirements of the job. While management and supervision are in place at all levels, people who prefer heavier micro-management from their supervisors are not a good fit with our departmental culture.
- Strong interpersonal skills (listening, writing, and presenting at an appropriate level for the position)
- Ability to build and consistently grow genuine relationships across diverse communities, and interact with individuals at all levels and backgrounds
- Strong facilitation and meeting leadership skills
- Strong project management skills, with the ability to multitask and manage multiple parallel priorities and deadlines
- Highly organized, with the ability to provide attention to both detail and the big picture
- Ability to thrive in a fluid, unstructured, entrepreneurial environment
- Flexibility and the ability to work autonomously as well as take direction as needed
- Strong analytical and critical thinking skills
- Strong community engagement and facilitation skills
- Natural ability to work collaboratively from both an individual contributor position and when in a team context
- Effectively model and demonstrate CFT’s core competencies, which include Collaboration, Impact and Problem Solving, Integrity and Accountability, Learning, and Internal and External Service.
- Effectively model and demonstrate CFT’s leadership competencies, which include Leadership, People Management, Developing and Retaining Talent, and Team Building.
Disclaimer: The above sections contain representative examples of job duties that might be performed by employees assigned to this classification. CFT is a dynamic organization, and the environment can be fluid. Roles and responsibilities may be altered to accommodate changing conditions and objectives as well as to tap into the skills and experience of its employees. Accordingly, employees may be asked to perform duties that are outside the specific work that is listed. This is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and/or skills required of all employees within this class.
Accommodations: Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.