<p>A science-driven, nonprofit, <a href="https://www.sparkclimate.org/">Spark Climate</a> is dedicated to identifying and mitigating sources of unmanaged climate risk. Spark works directly with scientists, policy makers, and peer organizations, and also offers grants to support the growth of fields with the potential to limit warming, manage Earth systems risk, and help to enable our return to a safe climate.</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Spark’s first programs focus on large, under-addressed methane areas that currently represent unmanaged risks to our overall climate trajectory, including work on enteric methane mitigation, atmospheric methane removal research, natural systems feedbacks, and additional innovation areas to assist efforts to mitigate super climate pollutants. </span></p>

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Innovative nonprofit mitigating climate risk through methane reduction and Earth systems management.

<div><span style="font-size:24px;">About Spark</span></div><div>Spark accelerates progress in emerging, high-impact climate fields. By working directly with scientists, policymakers, and peer organizations, Spark supports the growth of emerging fields with the potential to limit warming, monitor and manage Earth systems risk, and help enable our return to a safe climate. Spark focuses on expanding the portfolio of mitigation and adaptation approaches that enable our return to a safe climate and minimize environmental and social risks along the way.</div><div><br></div><div>Spark’s first programs focus on large, under-addressed methane areas that currently represent unmanaged risks to our overall climate trajectory, including work on livestock enteric methane mitigation, atmospheric methane removal research, natural systems feedbacks, and additional innovation areas to assist efforts to mitigate super climate pollutants.</div><div><br></div><div>Spark's work is made possible through support from the Grantham Foundation, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Spitzer Charitable Trust, Astera Fund, Additional Ventures, and additional generous and audacious funders.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:24px;">About the Role</span></div><div>The Development Director will lead the design and implementation of a philanthropic fundraising strategy for Spark and spinout non-profit initiatives, collaborating closely with Spark’s program and organizational leaders. This is an opportunity to pioneer the position at Spark and meaningfully contribute to growing overall efforts in neglected, high-potential climate fields, starting with livestock methane mitigation, atmospheric methane removal, transformational agricultural nitrogen management, and climate feedback science. This work is crucial in parallel with the energy transition to decrease overall climate risks and create possible pathways to safe and stable climate futures, and the person who takes on this role will be a key partner and enabler in that work.</div><div><br></div><div>As Spark's first development hire, the Development Director will zoom in and out between strategy and execution, partnering with the rest of the team to engage with funders and increase the resources available in critical climate fields. The Director will be accountable for fundraising targets and funder relationships. This role is intended to lead the overall fundraising function at Spark, and future fundraising-focused roles (as team growth and need permit) would report to this role. There is current operations support for this role from other teammates.</div><div><br></div><div>Spark’s target fundraising goal will grow to $20-50M/yr over the next few years to be able to support transformational re-granting in the fields we work in alongside our smaller operational budget. We aim to support the growth of the climate fields we work in beyond our direct work and re-granting, and we also highly value helping partner organizations find the funding needed for their aligned efforts.</div><br><br><h3>You are (skills)</h3><ul><li><b>An expert fundraising strategist and major gifts fundraiser.</b> You’ve led $5M+ fundraises for novel efforts, ideally, those that touch on climate, policy, science/research, or field-building. You have a strong network and understand how to manage relationships for joint impact partnerships in the long term. You understand how to leverage relationship building, events, and communications effectively to create and sustain a fundraising flywheel.</li><li><b>A kick-starter and comfortable with ambiguity.</b> You’re excited to build new systems and develop strong processes. You know how to think big and also get stuff done. You know how to manage competing priorities and deadlines to deliver results.</li><li><b>Highly organized.</b> You consistently prioritize tasks and create structure and plans from diverse information streams. You can work with multiple people and systems to keep everything on track while responding rapidly to many high-stakes community members.</li><li><b>Independent leader and strong partner.</b> You can operate independently and also thrive on partnering with other organizational leaders, collaboratively ideating and sharing needs and opportunities, then helping them to appropriately triage their time and inputs to the fundraising and partnerships process. </li><li><b>Exceptional communicator.</b> You can engage with nuanced concepts from scientists, policy advocates, and organizational leaders to understand their work and translate it into compelling materials for potential funders. You have experience writing and editing fundraising materials and grant proposals. You can work with professional designers and other staff to ensure that our materials are of the highest quality and finely edited.</li><li><b>A high-trust team player.</b> You will collaborate closely with Spark leaders and our existing philanthropic backers and partners. Colleagues and philanthropic funders you’ve worked with would say they always had high confidence in their working relationship with you and would partner with you again.</li></ul><h3>You will (duties)</h3><ul><li><b>Drive and own our fundraising strategy. </b>Given knowledge of our unique field-building model in emerging climate fields, funding needs, and timeframes, you will design and lead our overall development strategy.</li><li><b>Cultivate and own deals</b> within fundraising pipelines and partner with organizational leaders to cultivate and close deals.</li><li><b>Partner on fundraising materials.</b> In collaboration with organizational leaders, including our strategic communications lead, you will refine external-facing fundraising materials to be most effective, recognizing the need to bring new funders into each field we’re working in.</li><li><b>Work closely with our existing funders</b> to align on shared goals and support our ongoing partnership. </li><li><b>Help the leadership team </b>manage their time on development and communications-related tasks and priorities.</li><li><b>Help shape our external communications strategy</b> to optimize for funder growth and sustainability.</li><li><b>Develop our funder event </b>and meeting strategy</li></ul><h3>In 6 months you will have (6 month goals)</h3><ul><li><b>Understood the essence</b> of Spark Climate Solutions, the fields we work in, our programs and spinout initiatives, and why they uniquely matter towards overall climate progress. You can articulate this comprehensibly to people less steeped in the work and highlight new, highly relevant partnership opportunities.</li><li><b>Designed our development process</b>. Unified diverse materials, notes, and conversations into a prioritized fundraising roadmap and CRM.</li><li><b>Refined/developed key fundraising materials.</b></li><li><b>Honed in on key deals</b>. You’ll have zoomed into particular projects at high granularity and designed a deal-closing strategy based on the project’s unique purpose, needs, and network.</li><li><b>Put together at least one major donor cultivation event</b><a href="http://event.Built">.</a></li><li><b>Built relationships</b> with key people in and around the Spark sphere</li></ul><br><div><b style="font-size:11pt;">Location</b></div><div><span style="font-size:11pt;">For this role, being located in the San Francisco Bay Area is preferred, though candidates located anywhere in the United States will be considered. All candidates will need to be able to travel for in-person funder meetings; the travel load for candidates outside of the Bay Area will likely be higher.</span></div>

Development Director

<div><span style="font-size:11pt;">Spark is helping to accelerate field organization around transformative changes in nitrogen management in food production systems to increase efficiencies and decrease nitrogen pollution, including emissions of ammonia and nitrous oxide and leaching of nitrate. These potential transformational solutions — collectively called </span><a style="font-size:11pt;" href="https://www.sparkclimate.org/page/nitrogen-2-0">Nitrogen 2.0</a><span style="font-size:11pt;"> — include increased use of non-protein-nitrogen in livestock feed, breeding corn and other crops for improved nitrogen use efficiency, improved manureshed management to increase circularity of nutrient cycling, and anticipation of favorable and unintended consequences of the advent of green ammonia technology.</span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:11pt;">Spark is looking for a candidate who is deeply motivated by climate action, pollution abatement, and food security issues and is excited to engage with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. This role is highly interdisciplinary, taking science, engineering, talent development, society, economics, and policy into account to holistically advance the field, and is an opportunity to play a pivotal role in defining and shaping a new set of agricultural approaches with climate and environmental benefit.</span></div><div><br></div><div><b>Applications will be accepted until September 25th. </b></div><br><br><h3>Responsibilities</h3><ul><li>Lead and manage the development of Spark’s agricultural nitrogen management program which identifies and acts on the highest leverage potential solution areas and the critical intervention points, ranging from impactful research projects to policy changes and public communications, to accelerate the development and evaluation of new approaches.</li><li>Coordinate an emergent collaboration of about 30 university, government, and NGO scientists, under the umbrella title of <a href="http://Lead%20and%20manage%20the%20development%20of%20Spark%E2%80%99s%20agricultural%20nitrogen%20management%20program%20which%20identifies%20and%20acts%20on%20the%20highest%20leverage%20potential%20solution%20areas%20and%20the%20critical%20intervention%20points,%20ranging%20from%20impactful%20research%20projects%20to%20policy%20changes%20and%20public%20communications,%20to%20accelerate%20the%20development%20and%20evaluation%20of%20new%20approaches.%20Coordinate%20an%20emergent%20collaboration%20of%20about%2030%20university,%20government,%20and%20NGO%20scientists,%20under%20the%20umbrella%20title%20of%20%E2%80%9CNitrogen2.0,%E2%80%9D%20to%20develop%20preliminary%20modeling%20and%20life-cycle%20analysis%20studies,%20communication%20materials,%20and%20funding%20opportunities%20to%20advance%20the%20Nitrogen2.0%20vision.%20Build%20relationships%20with%20science%20partners,%20policy%20makers,%20philanthropic%20partners,%20NGOs,%20and%20other%20field%20actors%20to%20collaborate%20on%20roadmaps,%20research%20agendas,%20and%20other%20efforts%20to%20accelerate%20the%20field.%20Serve%20as%20a%20subject%20matter%20expert%20and%20area%20advocate%20to%20other%20organizations,%20funders,%20and%20policymakers%20in%20this%20space,%20as%20needed.%20Identify%20key%20adjacent%20areas%20to%20support%20in%20order%20to%20most%20comprehensively%20address%20the%20climate%20and%20other%20pollution%20impacts%20of%20agriculture.">“Nitrogen2.0,”</a> to develop preliminary modeling and life-cycle analysis studies, communication materials, and funding opportunities to advance the <a href="http:">Nitrogen2.0 vision</a>.</li><li>Build relationships with science partners, policy makers, philanthropic partners, NGOs, and other field actors to collaborate on roadmaps, research agendas, and other efforts to accelerate the field.</li><li>Serve as a subject matter expert and area advocate to other organizations, funders, and policymakers in this space, as needed.</li><li>Identify key adjacent areas to support in order to most comprehensively address the climate and other pollution impacts of agriculture.</li></ul><h3>Desired Skills &amp; Experience</h3><ul><li>Graduate degree in agriculture, biology, biogeochemistry, biotechnology, environmental science, or physics</li><li>7+ years of combined professional and research experience, including any graduate work; of which 4+ years are professional experience outside of graduate work. The ideal candidate has a combination of scientific/business/policy-related background in agriculture, biology, biogeochemistry, biotechnology, environmental science, or physics.</li><li>Demonstrated ability to develop strategies and independently run projects and complex worktracks, particularly in research-heavy areas.</li><li>Proven scientific literacy and comfort working with scientific material and collaborating with leading scientists in agricultural sciences.</li><li>Adept at system-level thinking –  understanding how scientific research, policy, funding, industry, etc all play a role in the development of new critical climate fields.</li><li>Demonstrated experience working collaboratively and effectively with external stakeholders to drive meaningful outcomes.</li><li>Experience leading and mentoring in a manner that centers collaboration, empathy, and equity.</li><li>Excellent written, speaking / presentation, and interpersonal communication skills.</li><li>Experience working with communication specialists to develop a variety of communication products targeted at specific audiences, such as funders, policy makers, and influencers.</li><li>Self-motivated, proactive professional who works well independently and collaboratively with others.</li><li>Insatiable curiosity about the climate problem; open-mindedness in exploring all possible climate solutions; and the flexibility, creativity, and tenacity to drive the necessary work forward</li><li>Fluency in English.</li></ul><h3>Eligibility</h3><ul><li>Able to work as a W2 employee for a US non-profit</li><li>At least 4 overlapping work hours with US Pacific time work day (9am-5pm PT)</li><div><br></div><div>We encourage anyone who is interested in this role to apply, regardless of whether you feel you meet 100% of the qualifications. The top candidates will bring their own unique perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds from a variety of industries along with many but not necessarily all the skills listed above.</div></ul><br><div><b style="font-size:10.5pt;">Location</b></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:10.5pt;">As with all positions at Spark Climate Solutions, this will be 100% remote. Employees can work anywhere within the United States, or internationally with approval.</span></div><div><br></div><div><b style="font-size:10.5pt;">Compensation</b></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:10.5pt;">This is a all full-time positions with benefits. Th</span>e starting salary range is $130,000-$180,000 / year, dependent on experience and location, and may be higher for more senior candidates.<span style="font-size:10.5pt;">  In addition, Spark Climate Solutions provides exceptional benefits including generous PTO, sick time, holidays, a 401-k match, generous health insurance coverage, and full-covered dental/vision/life insurance, and parental leave.</span></div>

Program Lead, Agricultural Nitrogen Systems

<div>If you're passionate about the mission of Spark, believe you could uniquely contribute, and don't find a relevant currently open role, we'd still love to hear from you to see if there might be a strong fit.</div><br><br><br>

General Role

<div><span style="font-size:11pt;">Methane removal approaches are being researched to determine how methane, once in the atmosphere, can be broken down faster than with existing natural systems alone to help lower peak temperatures, and counteract some of the impact of increasing natural methane emissions. This new climate field has </span><a style="font-size:11pt;" href="https://www.sparkclimate.org/article/amr-exploratory-grant-round-1-interest">growing scientific interest</a><span style="font-size:11pt;"> as </span><a style="font-size:11pt;" href="https://www.sparkclimate.org/article/the-atmospheric-methane-challenge">atmospheric methane levels</a><span style="font-size:11pt;"> continue to rise, the threat of growing natural systems emissions becomes better understood, and early approach research suggests the potential feasibility of large-scale approaches. With a </span><a style="font-size:11pt;" href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/atmospheric-methane-removal-development-of-a-research-agenda">National Academies of Sciences study</a><span style="font-size:11pt;"> coming out later this year focused on the field, it’s a critical period to steward the development of the field to ensure it grows responsibly, including with increased scientific research, appropriate governance, and engagement across stakeholders, rightsholders, policymakers, and other organizations. Methane removal is not a replacement for methane or any other greenhouse gas emissions reductions, which are crucial.</span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:10.5pt;">Spark seeks a Program Director for the </span><a style="font-size:10.5pt;" href="https://www.sparkclimate.org/methane-removal/home">Methane Removal Program</a><span style="font-size:10.5pt;"> to advance this new field. Responsibilities of the role include developing and executing on strategic roadmaps to responsibly grow and steward the field, managing the internal team, growing the community needed to advance policy-relevant scientific and social understanding of potential scalable, effective, and safe methane removal approaches, and directing funding to support the advancement of science and policy. This position is an opportunity to play a pivotal role in defining and shaping a new climate field. This role will be highly interdisciplinary, taking science, engineering, talent development, society, economics, and policy into account to advance the field across every dimension. Spark is looking for a candidate who is deeply motivated by climate action and is excited to deeply engage with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders and rights holders to change what’s possible for climate action.</span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:10.5pt;">As illustrative examples, some of the past and current projects on the team that you’d be managing include: design, development, and implementation of a </span><a style="font-size:10.5pt;" href="https://www.sparkclimate.org/methane-removal/funding-opportunities">scientific grants program</a><span style="font-size:10.5pt;"> to accelerate research and grow the research community; development of strategic content and material, educating a diversity of audiences to build awareness and support for the emerging field; engagement with policymakers on opportunities for high impact public research funding; collaboration with cross-organizational colleagues on legal- and governance-related workstreams; organization of research workshops, conference sessions, and other research community-building efforts.</span></div><br><br><h3>Responsibilities</h3><ul><li>Own and drive a strategy that supports the healthy development of the methane removal field as part of a larger climate solution ecosystem, with robust science, social license, responsible governance, and appropriate funding</li><li>Drive strategic and collaborative efforts in field building, including spinning up new programs internal to Spark, partnering with other organizations, and potentially seeding new organizations where needed</li><li>Lead and manage a small team to research and author roadmaps for the overall solutions ecosystems, including well-researched and supported recommendations for RD&amp;D topics, policy changes, and public communication efforts</li><li>Build relationships with science, policy, and philanthropic partners to collaborate on roadmaps, research agendas, and granting opportunities</li><li>Serve as a subject matter expert with other organizations and funders getting involved in the space</li><li>Partner with Spark leadership to raise additional funding for the overall program, regranting, and any special initiatives</li><li>Identify key adjacent areas to support in order to most comprehensively address under-resourced, high-leverage approaches to near-term warming mitigation, and natural systems feedback avoidance and response</li></ul><h3>Qualifications</h3><ul><li><b>Strategic, flexible systems-thinker </b>— has deep respect for, and understands how various disciplines all fit together to support field development. Can identify cross-cutting and high-impact strategic priorities within a shifting field landscape. Can dig into the details of a specific science or policy proposal and zoom out to the big picture to see what’s missing in a field, moving comfortably among fundamental science, technological potentials/limits, and broader social and policy implications</li><li><b>Team and field leader</b> — has experience supporting the development of a small team, while accelerating the overall output of a team, supporting strategic decision-making and execution, building team culture, and maintaining a high bar for output. Is ready to expand the “hometeam” to a field of colleagues and collaborators outside of any single organization.</li><li><b>Scientific partnership </b>— can partner with a scientific team, and quickly understand and clearly publicly communicate new scientific and technical topics, with high humility and clear communication about where their expertise starts and ends.</li><li><b>Climate impact-motivated</b> — strong climate mitigation motivation and understanding of the climate system and climate action to motivate work in the field. Can tie individual pieces of work to programmatic, field, and overall climate action progress. </li><li><b>Approach-agnostic innovation-minded</b> — follows science and guiding principles for approach development to support research across different possible approach categories. Takes an innovation-forward view of the space to see where there might be high-potential opportunities and “big bets,” understanding not all of these will succeed.</li><li><b>Excellent communicator </b>— strong written, speaking/presentation, and interpersonal communication skills and adept at communicating complex concepts (including technical ones) to various audiences </li><li><b>High bar for work quality</b> — can produce high-caliber work, and work with team to do the same.</li><li><b>Empathetic teammate</b> — Consistent track record of working collaboratively, effectively, and efficiently in ways that prioritize and center empathy and equity7+ years of combined professional experience, including 4+ outside of graduate work3+ years of program and/or people management experience</li></ul><h3>Preferred Attributes</h3><ul><li>First-hand experience building/scaling real-world technology, businesses, and/or programs</li><li>Proven understanding of climate action and how other climate solution spaces have been shaped, particularly in new and complex areas</li><li>Strong understanding of the broad climate space across many dimensions (technical, scientific, social, political, financial, etc.) in order to contextualize and advance this new field appropriately and impactfully.</li></ul><h3>Eligibility</h3><ul><li>Able to work as a W2 employee for a US non-profit</li><li>At least 4 overlapping work hours with US Pacific time work day (9am-5pm PT)</li><div><br></div><div>We encourage anyone who is interested in this role to apply, regardless of whether you feel you meet 100% of the qualifications. The top candidates will bring their own unique perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds from a variety of industries along with many but not necessarily all the skills listed above.</div></ul><br><div><b style="font-size:10.5pt;">Location</b></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:10.5pt;">As with all positions at Spark Climate Solutions, this will be 100% remote. Employees can work anywhere within the United States, or internationally with approval.</span></div><div><br></div><div><b style="font-size:10.5pt;">Compensation</b></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:10.5pt;">This is a all full-time positions with benefits. The salary range is $150,000-$200,000 / year.  In addition, Spark Climate Solutions provides exceptional benefits including generous PTO, sick time, holidays, a 401-k match, generous health insurance coverage, and full-covered dental/vision/life insurance, and parental leave</span></div>

Spark Climate Solutions

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Development Director

Development Director

Program Lead, Agricultural Nitrogen Systems

Program Lead, Agricultural Nitrogen Systems

General Role

General Role

Program Director, Methane Removal

Program Director, Methane Removal

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