Director of Grantmaking

About SFF

The Spaht Family Foundation (SFF) is dedicated to fostering substantive, long-term impact in the areas of climate, mental health, and the arts. It offers multi-year, flexible funding backed by collaboration and mutual learning for visionary leaders with defined strategies. Learn more at https://spahtfamilyfoundation.org/.

About the role

The Director of Grantmaking will be the second full-time employee and the right-hand to the Executive Director. This is a rare, entrepreneurial opportunity to help co-create a foundation’s operations from the ground up. The primary focus will be managing the lifecycle of SFF’s philanthropic partnerships—nurturing past, current, and future relationships. The Director of Grantmaking will serve as a vital partner to the Executive Director, helping to navigate, translate, and execute the Foundation and Principals’ philanthropic vision.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Portfolio Stewardship
  • Relationship Management: Serve as the primary, high-touch liaison to past, current, and future nonprofit partners, institutionalizing a culture of deep respect, clear communication, and storytelling.
  • Capacity-Building Strategy: Proactively identify organizational needs within SFF’s grantee portfolio and coordinate resources to support.
  • Impact Tracking & Learning: Develop nimble, qualitative, and quantitative learning frameworks that capture the short- and long-term impact of investments without creating friction for partners.
• Strategic Grantmaking
  • Rigorous Due Diligence: Support the Executive Director in conducting research, vetting, and building relationships with prospective grantees that align with the foundation’s emerging strategic priorities across climate, mental health, and the arts.
  • End-to-End Grant Lifecycle Management: Design, deploy, and manage a streamlined grants management framework to effectively track current and prospective partners.
  • Executive Briefing & Synthesis: Synthesize dense nonprofit data, scientific research, and complex community landscapes into concise, institutional-grade briefing memos and dashboards for the Executive Director and Principals.
• Foundation Operations
  • System & Tech Ownership: Implement and maintain the foundation’s core database management solutions and internal knowledge-sharing tools to ensure institutional memory is preserved.
  • Governance Support: Assist in coordinating annual reporting timelines and helping navigate the evolving governance needs of a start-up family office environment.

Candidate Profile

Ideal candidates will display the following professional and personal qualities, skills, and characteristics:

• Philanthropic Operator: Deep familiarity with foundation operations, grantee vetting and due diligence; understanding of sector dynamics across climate, mental health, arts, or related fields. Prior experience as a foundation strategist, family office operator, corporate social impact manager, philanthropic donor advisor, or nonprofit leader is preferred. Experience with living donors or in founder-led environments is valuable.
• Collaborative Relationship Builder: Exceptional ability to cultivate authentic, high-trust relationships with nonprofit leaders, foundation principals, and sector stakeholders. Warmth, empathy, strong interpersonal presence, sound judgment, and discretion. High EQ, low ego, high curiosity; able to partner effectively with an engaged Executive Director and Principals.
• Communicator & Synthesizer: Proven ability to synthesize complex information into clear, compelling briefs for Principals, Executive Director, and nonprofit partners. Strong written and verbal communication; comfortable translating between nonprofit operators, philanthropists, and subject-matter experts. Persuasive with conviction in the work.
• Dynamic Operational Strategist: Energized by developing processes from scratch; comfortable with shifting priorities and evolving strategy in a lean, fast-paced environment. Self-starter who identifies needs, takes ownership, and proactively flags risks and opportunities. Comfortable building and maintaining databases, grants management systems, and internal tools; strong project management skills and flexibility.

Compensation and Benefits

• Salary: $225,000 – $275,000; final offers determined by depth of experience, skill set, and alignment with strategic demands.
• Health & Retirement: Health insurance and 401(k) retirement plan with employer contribution/match.
• Vacation: Paid Time Off (PTO) policy plus standard federal holidays.
• Flexible Work Environment: Hybrid model balancing collaborative in-person days in San Francisco with remote flexibility; no weekly office requirement.
• Professional Growth: Annual dedicated professional development budget for conferences, leadership workshops, or sector-specific training.