Overview of U.S. Energy Foundation

U.S. Energy Foundation’s (EF) mission is to secure a clean and equitable energy future to tackle the climate crisis. We envision a healthy, safe, equitable economy powered by clean energy. We believe a thriving clean energy economy can create sustainable opportunities, spur innovation, and protect our climate—for today and future generations.

EF supports education and analysis to promote non-partisan policy solutions that advance renewable energy and energy efficiency while opening doors to greater innovation and productivity—growing the economy with dramatically less pollution. For more than 30 years, EF has supported grantees to help educate policymakers and the general public about the benefits of a clean energy economy. Our grantees include business, health, environmental, labor, equity, community, faith, and consumer groups, as well as policy experts, think tanks, universities, and more.

At EF, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are top organizational commitments. We are working daily to uproot racism and other forms of oppression and create equitable systems that support people to flourish. We aim to bring humility, transparency, respect, and an appreciation for others’ lived experiences to our interactions with colleagues, grantees, and partners.

EF is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and our more than 100 staff members are based in locations throughout the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, and West regions where they can best serve our programs, partners, operations, and other functions.

The Opportunity

Buildings are a significant portion of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and must be electrified as quickly as possible to avert the climate crisis. With millions of structures to retrofit by midcentury, clean structures to build, and critical intersections with everything from grid capacity to housing affordability, this is no small task. The Program Director, Building Decarbonization (Program Director) will lead the strategy development and campaign design for EF’s work federally and in states to reduce emissions from new and existing buildings. The Program Director will coordinate closely with EF’s National Policy team, its States and Regions Program, and its Strategic Communications team to co-develop, fundraise, and implement a strategy to transition toward all electric buildings. The Program Director will play an influential role as a convenor to engage state and regional campaigns, grantees, and stakeholder groups in the business, government, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors. Reporting to the Vice President of Policy, the Program Director will develop and fund multi-year strategies at the national level and work collaboratively across EF’s States and Regions Program, supporting strategies to advance federal, regional, and state policies that achieve ambitious and regionally-aligned policy goals related to the buildings sector.

Key Responsibilities

Policy and advocacy leadership: Working closely with programmatic leadership and policy leads across the organization, establish an ambitious all-electric buildings policy agenda and create compelling strategies and advocacy campaigns to achieve EF’s clean energy and equity goals.
Program Execution: Lead all planning and implementation of grantmaking strategies, ensuring that policy ideas and advocacy approaches move from concept to action effectively. Incorporate learnings to refine and iterate on strategies going forward.
Relationship-building: Work with state, regional, and national partners as well as other stakeholders to address issues equitably and strategically. Build an environment of co-creation and support for grantees and partners based on trust. This includes collaboration with campaigns, networks, and coalitions.
Staff management: Lead the Building Decarbonization Program team of approximately one to two staff in a remote-work environment, ensuring strong supervision across the team with a focus on enhancing diversity and inclusion, performance management, and individual growth.
Fundraising: Collaborate with the Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and EF Leadership as well as with colleagues in the Strategic Partnerships and Program teams more broadly to cultivate and maintain funder relationships, while engaging and supporting States and Regions Program and Strategic Communications staff around direct and aligned fundraising goals.
Thought leadership: Support all communications efforts around EF’s Building Decarbonization Program policy ambitions, its strategies, and its progress. Convene philanthropy around EF’s aligned strategy, bring diverse perspectives together to find solutions, and represent the organization to a variety of thought partners, including with internal and external stakeholders.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Investigate, partner with stakeholders, and understand the most pressing equity concerns related to electrifying buildings. Develop and implement a solutions-oriented approach to advancing equity through program strategy, management practices, and organization-wide leadership.

Candidate Profile

EF seeks candidates with demonstrated expertise in strategy and campaigns to equitably abate emissions from buildings. Experience at the federal, state, local, or regional level will be considered. The Program Director must know how to engage and lead in policy and campaign development, understand the political landscape, bring exceptional planning and implementation capabilities, and be an effective collaborator and co-creator with diverse stakeholders.

Additional qualifying factors for the Program Director include:

Knowledge of key topics impacting climate and clean energy at both the federal and state levels. Demonstrated experience developing effective strategies to reduce emissions from the built environment and achieve climate policy goals.
Extensive experience designing and advocating for solutions relevant to climate, clean energy, buildings, and housing.
Demonstrated management excellence in a complex, multi-site, and multicultural organization, including supporting the personal growth of all employees with a coaching and mentoring orientation.
Experience developing strategies that consider and synthesize multiple perspectives into a coherent big-picture strategy and workable plan, prioritizing investments, and evaluating progress; able to facilitate strategy across a network of internal and external partners.
A service orientation for your work, with a commitment to support staff to thrive and the organization to succeed in meeting its goals.
Experience that reflects understanding of the role of philanthropy.
Bring a high degree of cultural competence and emotional intelligence, experience participating in or leading equity initiatives, and a track record of contributing meaningfully to a workplace where equity and inclusion are core values in our internal and external EF work.
Respected leader in the field with an ability to establish rapport internally and with funding partners, grantees, consultants, and other stakeholders.
Skilled in writing and speaking, including being able to present complex information in a meaningful way to the EF Board of Directors, funding partners, and allies.
Solutions-oriented problem-solver who is committed to working collaboratively in a diverse, dynamic, and complex environment with a combination of local, regional, and national staff and partners.
Curious and inquisitive, with excellent relationship-building and convening skills, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
Fundraising experience is a plus, but not required.

To Be Considered

Position Compensation, Location, and Work Environment

This is a full-time position. The national target salary is $184,500. The San Francisco Bay Area target salary for this position is $207,000. EF provides a comprehensive benefits package, including competitive salary, medical, dental, vision, disability, and retirement benefits and paid time off.

EF is a remote-first work environment. Employees have the option to work remotely anywhere in the U.S., or in one of EF’s offices in San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; or Raleigh. The office environments include some shared workspace, some individual offices, shared kitchen facilities, with moderate noise levels and a collegial atmosphere. On occasion, there are activities or events after work hours.

Ability to travel 8 to 10 times per year for 1-4 business days at a time is required.

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Please submit your resume and cover letter expressing your interest in the position and fit for the role via the “Become a Candidate” button.

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Program Director, Building Decarbonization