Chief Revenue Officer

About Water.org

785 million people — 1 in 9 — lack access to safe water at home; 2 billion — 1 in 3 people — lack access to a toilet. Water.org is dedicated to changing this.

For more than 30 years, Water.org has been at the forefront of developing and delivering solutions for the water crisis. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, Water.org pioneers innovative, community-driven, and market‐based solutions to ensure all people have access to safe water and sanitation; giving women hope, children health, and communities a future. To date, Water.org has positively transformed more than 31 million lives in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Currently, Water.org manages a $22 million operating budget and has 140 employees located in seven countries, with offices in India, Kenya, Indonesia, Peru, the Philippines, Bangladesh and corporate office headquarters in Kansas City, MO. Water.org operates a secondary office in San Francisco, CA; staff members are located in other cities as well.

Summary

Water.org seeks an outstanding global Chief Revenue Officer to help shape the next stage of its evolution. This unique individual must possess strategic acumen, a global perspective, and a passion for the mission to help solve one of the world’s most urgent challenges. The ideal candidate has a strong track record of securing annual resources ranging from $25M–$50M+ to fuel the attainment of a bold vision, with demonstrated success in fundraising and business development within a complex global context. This leader will bring an innovative mindset that has translated into revenue growth and strategic differentiation, ideally within both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. They will have cultivated and maintained corporate and foundation partnerships at the highest levels within nonprofit organizations. The ideal candidate will have fluency and expertise in building an individual giving pipeline with a focus on high net worth individuals in addition to having built and managed distributed global teams. They will contribute fundraising expertise steeped in leveraging partnerships to build brand leadership for Water.org and leveraging cause marketing to elevate the brand as an on-ramp to secure new supporters and donors for Water.org’s mission.

This critical member of the executive management team will be instrumental to realizing the organization’s vision and desired impact. They will partner closely with the Chief Executive Officer, President, Board of Directors, Executive Leadership team, Country leadership, and key external stakeholders to drive revenue while maintaining and growing brand equity and presence.

As such, this position will have accountability for Water.org’s high-performing fundraising, marketing, and partnerships teams and will partner directly with leaders representing Global Impact, Public Affairs, Finance, Administration, Technology, Human Resources and WaterEquity.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and deliver against fundraising goals that will fuel the organization’s impact.
• Innovate and deliver new ways to engage targeted audiences that increase capital to solve the crisis.
• Develop, inspire and manage talented global team to achieve ambitious revenue objectives.
• Build and engage outside partners, resources, Board, and influencers that can accelerate the organization’s success.
• Ensure effective deployment of Water.org resources, directly overseeing a $22M operating budget.
• Serve as key executive team member, contributing both broad organizational mindset and deep functional expertise to help set strategy and priorities to achieve short and long-term objectives.
• Collaborate with other executive team members to build broadly-respected, highly effective non-profit organization that delivers against brand tenets and organizational goals.

Strategic Fundraising

• Serve as unified lead responsible for all Fundraising in support of Water.org’s global strategy.
  • Develop and fulfill integrated Water.org 5-year and annual strategic revenue plans that coalesce action to deliver sustainable revenue growth.
  • Develop, align, and support team to build priority revenue sources (corporate, foundation and high-net worth individuals in the immediate term and long-term, diversify Water.org base of engaged supporters, donors, and lenders, expanding audiences to achieve sustainable revenue, capital and brand objectives.
• Landscape and stay current on trends, influencers and leaders relevant to mobilizing capital for impact, including in individual, corporate, and collaborative philanthropy. Deploy insights to shape fundraising strategies and the broader environment.
• Partner with Global Impact, Public Affairs and Executive leadership teams on translating the fundable priorities to donors and partners.
• Partner with Technology and Finance teams to ensure best of class utilization of digital platforms and customer engagement tools.

Strategic Partnership Development and Cultivation

• Working with the Offices of the CEO and President, contribute to long-term strategy and annual plans that drive revenue and establish Water.org as a thought leader among influential audiences.
• Build a portfolio of strategic partners, grantmakers and individual donors; cultivate and steward these relationships over time to achieve shared objectives and to deliver impact. Innovate engagement approaches that add value over time.
• Build a network of engaged influencers to catalyze change in water and sanitation across diverse segments (media, celebrity, technology, social innovators, corporate and sector leaders).
• Represent Water.org externally through engagements and collaborative initiatives that further the Water.org agenda to coalesce action for and capital to the water sector.
• As needed, lead Water.org’s Board Fundraising Task Force and/or Committees.

Operational Effectiveness

• Partner with Leadership team across functions to ensure alignment against key priorities.
• Develop and implement key processes, resources, tools and communications to facilitate effective deployment of staff and resources, accelerating attainment of fundraising objectives.
• Contribute to development and attainment of annual high-level organizational objectives and metrics. Establish and track revenue performance metrics.
• Develop and implement organizational structure to support the success of global functions, partnering with country offices to build and align dispersed team, with emphasis initially on India.

Team Leadership/Development

• Lead, mentor and develop high-performing strategic leaders and team members within fundraising, marketing, and partnerships at Water.org, ensuring high-level performance and engagement.
• Strong executive leadership capabilities. Build and manage senior managers and operate successfully across departments and functions. Proven capability to manage from strategy to execution. Emotional Intelligence. Agility.

This description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required. Some duties, responsibilities and activities may change or be assigned at any time with or without notice.

Qualifications

Candidates will embody Water.org’s values and must possess the following experience and key attributes:

• Bachelor’s Degree in related field; MBA or equivalent degree desirable.
• Minimum 20 years’ experience in progressively responsible revenue and fundraising leadership roles within a global entity. Blend of both for-profit and not-for-profit experience ideal. Success operating within a decentralized, matrixed organization a plus.
• Proven track record of building and leading team within innovative nonprofit organization that deliver on approximately $50M+ in funds raised annually from diverse channels including at a minimum, foundations, corporations, and individuals.
  • Relevant network of potential strategic funding partners.
  • Track record in driving recurring revenue.
  • Depth and breadth of experience in developing and delivering compelling value proposition that secures revenue-generating partnerships.
  • Long-term view and strong brand orientation required.
  • Proficient at harnessing technology to drive results.
  • Expertise in securing major and principal gifts from individual donors.
• Exceptional relationship and partnership-builder internally and across diverse organizations at senior levels.
• Experience translating strategic vision into operational success, setting and measuring performance against targets within complex and evolving operational environment.
• Creative problem-solving capabilities grounded in data to deliver results. Ability to quickly digest complex information and connect dots to determine future action.
• Possess a track record of building and developing high-performing team and of self- development.
• Effective and insightful communication skills, adept at inspiring and engaging teams and partners to action.
• Ability to convey complex concepts effectively and simply is important. Comfort with financial concepts, understanding of capital as a vehicle for global development a plus.
• Experience with celebrity engagement preferred but not required.
• Willing and able to travel domestically and internationally, estimated 20%.

Key Attributes for Success

• Bias for action and results, entrepreneurial spirit.
• Curious, creative thinker with track record of delivering innovative approaches and outcomes.
• Quick Study – able to distill highly complex information into essential elements.
• Strong Executive Presence. Excellent communicator, both written and oral. Candid, forthright.
• Adept at working within and across dispersed collaborative teams in a global context.
• Organizational problem-solver - able to look beyond functional area to build organizational strength.
• High ethical standards

Key Competencies

• Strategic mindset
• Financial stewardship
• Plans and aligns, operationally disciplined
• Builds effective teams
• Drives results
• Values differences

Travel Requirements

Up to 30% of domestic and global travel. Travel will commence as is advisable given business needs and safety considerations as determined by organizational guidelines.

Compensation

Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with experience.

Water.org is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing an inclusive environment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy status, military and veteran status, genetic information, and any other status protected by law. We provide qualified applicants and employees reasonable accommodation, when necessary, to enable individuals to complete the application process and/or perform the essential functions of the job.

Information

• Location: Kansas City, United States

Taxonomy

• Funding Partnerships
• Fundraising
• Fundraising
• water funds