Deputy Director

About the Organization

The mission of Mosaic is to amplify the power of the environmental field by strengthening movement infrastructure—the connections and shared resources all social movements need to succeed. Launched in 2019 as the result of a two-year design process with diverse activists and organizations, Mosaic is led by a rotating Governance Assembly of leaders from environmental, philanthropic, and justice organizations and supported by a small staff.

Innovative in its focus and participatory grantmaking approach, Mosaic aims to make transformative investments that build the power of the environmental field by addressing “how” we win. With ideas sourced from the field, the Governance Assembly makes grants to support capacity building through leadership development, communications, shared resources, and fostering relationships within the environmental and justice communities.

About the Role

The Deputy Director will share initiative-wide responsibility and lead core operational functions to implement Mosaic’s cutting edge and innovative model. The Deputy Director will work closely with the Director and the Governance Assembly to set strategy, make grants, and lead the learning and evaluation process around Mosaic’s efforts.  This role will include management of one team member with the potential for future additional direct reports.

This role requires an outcome-oriented self-starter who believes in Mosaic’s mission of engaging the full field—from the frontlines to the “Big Greens”— to create the alignment, shared tools, and scale needed to win environmental victories during this critical decade. We strongly encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds and with a variety of skills, experiences, and ideas.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

Lead Mosaic’s Operations

• Lead efforts to run an effective and coordinated organization
• Identify best practices and improve internal systems & operations with an eye toward future needs
• Lead the implementation of Mosaic’s learning and evaluation framework across programmatic and grantmaking efforts, sharing learnings broadly both externally and internally

Contribute to Mosaic’s Strategy  & its Implementation

• Collaborate with Director to set strategy and support the annual grant review and selection process with the Governance Assembly
• Outline and support announcement of annual RFP cycle, including targeted and broad outreach to the field
• Lead design and oversight of proposal review process, due diligence and support the Governance Assembly’s decision-making
• Communicate decisions externally with all applicants and grantees

Support Key External Programmatic Efforts

• Launch and cultivate Mosaic’s advisory community of environmental movement leaders through consistent, proactive engagement opportunities
• Maintain strong relationships with grantees by providing support, coaching, and connection
• Collaborate with Director and consultants to determine and execute organizational messaging and materials

Desired Qualifications

Candidates should be able to demonstrate a significant number of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and experiences:

• Strategic and creative thinker with experience in the development and execution of strategy to achieve social goals and forge new ground
• Excellent analytical, problem solving, and organizational skills with attention to detail and commitment to high quality work
• Strong knowledge of environmental, social justice, systems change, and movement building
• Understanding of social movements and capacity to iteratively improve program implementation by thinking critically about theories of change
• Demonstrated commitment to justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Understanding of the complex interactions among the environmental and social justice fields, and a depth and range of collaborative working relationships across relevant organizations
• Experience working directly with people from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and an ability to adapt communication style to different cultural environments
• Ability to represent Mosaic and build relationships with stakeholders, including staff, board members, partners, and grantees with a respectful and authentic manner
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including the capacity to write clear and compelling program-related material, speak publicly on program themes, and conduct regular business-oriented communications.
• Self-starter, highly motivated, resourceful, and able to manage multiple projects simultaneously
• 7+ years' relevant work experience; 2+ years’ experience directly managing others
• Flexibility, emotional intelligence, and a willingness to help others
• Ability to accommodate travel (once it is safe to do so) approximately 10-20%