Senior Advisor

Organization Description: 

Tides Advocacy is a team of political, legal, and financial experts that identify, connect, and fuel movements for social justice and the health of our democracy. We leverage our 25-year progressive network, navigate the rules, and solve problems in order to make advocacy accessible to social change innovators in all sectors.

Tides Advocacy has over 85 partners who represent activists, donors, movement leaders, lawyers, researchers, and journalists who are promoting equity, justice, and dignity for all. They are engaged in ballot, electoral, and legislative campaigns as well as public education and charitable activities.

From funder advised funds to fiscal sponsorship, grants management to risk management and more, Tides Advocacy gives members of the nonprofit and philanthropic community freedom to focus on the change they want to see. For more information, please visit tidesadvocacy.org.

Position Summary:

The Senior Strategic Advisor will provide a wide range of core client management and strategic support for the Tides Advocacy team. A successful candidate will work as an integral part of the Tides Advocacy team providing excellent client advising. This role will collaborate within the Tides Advocacy team and across departments regarding business development, communications, human resources, operations and finance, event planning, and systems implementation. This role is an exempt position. Exempt employees are expected to work the appropriate and necessary time in order to complete key assignments and related tasks on schedule. This role can be based in the New York and San Francisco office, with a possibility of working remotely part or full time.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Client management and cultivation (60%)

• Manage a mixed client portfolio of grantmaking entities and fiscally sponsored organizations in the advocacy and political space
• Provide high-level strategic, financial, and organizational guidance to grantmaking entities and organizations for social impact and mission success
• Deliver high quality service as the single point of contact for clients, ensuring a coordinated and efficient sharing of information, including client communications, systems support, and meetings
• Leverage and deepen expertise to curate relationships and knowledge in a specific issue area (e.g., education) or with a specific BIPOC community and serve as a lead of a project portfolio
• Work collaboratively with team members and across departments to address financial and grant management, legal and risk compliance, human resources, and event support for clients
• Develop a pipeline of potential mission-aligned clients and strategic partnerships
• Support operational, evaluative, and strategic efforts for continuous improvement
• Cultivate relationships with individual, foundation, and corporate funding partners

Capacity Building Support (20%)

• Provide strategic framework for organizational development and capacity building support
• Understand and pilot tiered approach to organizational growth and scaling efforts for clients
• Support qualitative and quantitative research regarding field trends in advocacy and political space
• Curate educational and capacity building materials for existing advocacy/ political organizational clients and the field to support thought leadership
• Plan and support convenings and briefings related to issues areas and political updates to expand and deepen issue, political and power-building knowledge
• Support trend analysis to better understand and track trends and investment opportunities in advocacy/political space and to support projects’ to mobilize additional resources

Learning Agenda, Thought Leadership and Communication (20%)

• Support research and data analysis on best practices and emerging trends within the progressive advocacy space; sharing findings via reports, case studies, and convenings highlighting trends
• Support research on best practices/ lessons learned in the progressive advocacy space
• Support Tide Advocacy’s learning agenda, including tracking of impact metrics for continuous learning and performance improvement for internal team and clients and leveraging data and research on the efficacy of investing in political/advocacy organizations
• Represent Tides Advocacy externally and build collaborative networks across sectors and issue areas
• Research, propose, and present on a regular basis at conferences, gatherings, professional associations and other external events
• Support the production of fact sheets and other collateral for funder and donor materials, conference presentations, and panel talking points
• Contribute to internal and external bodies of knowledge on innovative organizational models and social impact related to advocacy and political work
• Prepare presentations and materials for conferences and events
• Develop specific issue area expertise and actively engage clients and partners
• Participate in internal and cross-department teams to create materials for events, capacity building services, and business development

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Demonstrated ability to hold information confidential with excellent judgment
• Ability to work well on a team in a fast-paced, deadline oriented environment
• Demonstrated commitment to high quality client service and adaptability to evolving client needs
• Strong ability to work collaboratively toward solutions that generally benefit all involved parties
• Demonstrated understanding of specific issue and/or industry areas in the philanthropic, political, and/or nonprofit sector
• A strong understanding of the capacity building services, advisory/consulting work, and/or fiscal sponsorship
• Demonstrated ability to read and interpret contracts, analyze market trends, model potential solutions, interpret market research, and review technical data
• Possess a strong work ethic and “can do” attitude
• Demonstrated success leading and working with cross-departmental teams
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize amongst multiple commitments, and to drive multiple high profile and complex projects simultaneously in a challenging and fluid environment
• Ability to understand clients’ needs and leverage that knowledge to improve service delivery, deepen relationships and identify new or expanding business opportunities

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree and 5 - 7 years in strategic advising, research, evaluation, consulting, capacity building, or fiscal sponsorship work (preferred)
• Core values rooted in social justice, racial equity, and human rights
• Understanding of systemic inequities and inequality within U.S. institutions and policies
• Experience with progressive advocacy and political organizations.
• Successful experience working within diverse populations
• Demonstrated experience with clear written and verbal communications
• Demonstrated experience in adjusting and anticipating needs of executives and clients

Application Instructions:

Please submit a resume and a thoughtful cover letter online. Your cover letter should express your interest in working for Tides and your qualifications for the role. You may also share your detailed LinkedIn profile with us. Tides is an Equal Opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and we look forward to reviewing applications from all who are qualified to apply.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Tides is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from women, people of color, and bilingual and bicultural individuals, as well as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. Applicants shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status, or medical condition including acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related conditions. Also pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we encourage and will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Applicants with Disabilities:

Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. Please advise in writing of special needs at the time of application.