Director of People
Remote
Full Time
Groundswell Fund
Manager/Supervisor
About Groundswell Fund
Since its inception in 2003, Groundswell Fund has put intersectional grassroots organizing led by women, transgender, and gender-expansive people of color at the center of our giving. It is a channel into which individual donors and foundations pour resources to reach vital work at the grassroots, serving as an irrigation system for growing reproductive, racial, and social justice movements. Our staff are from the very movements we fund, and we deeply understand grassroots impact with long-term investment.
We do this work with our sibling organization, Groundswell Action Fund, founded in response to the first Trump Administration. Groundswell Action Fund was founded on a simple but revolutionary premise: those most excluded from our democracy should be at the center of transforming it. Both organizations work to revolutionize philanthropy through grantmaking, capacity building, and organizing within philanthropy itself to inspire more giving to the types of organizations we support – whether or not those resources come through our doors.
While we fund nearly every major social justice movement in the United States, we are a long-term funder of the U.S. Reproductive Justice (RJ) Movement. Since the start of our grantmaking, we have moved more than $180 million (across both our c3 and c4) to the field in grants and capacity-building support, increased the giving of dozens of national and local foundations, and helped bring thousands of new individual donors into the RJ Movement. Our grantees have been instrumental in the passage of hundreds of pro-RJ policies at the state and local level and in blocking many regressive policies, and they have built a growing grassroots base of support for RJ across the U.S.
Groundswell is a fully remote, highly collaborative, pro-worker, pro-union organization working across the four continental U.S. time zones. We believe that the best ideas emerge when diverse perspectives come together, and are committed to creating an inclusive and flexible work environment where employees can thrive. We’ve embraced remote work as a core aspect of our culture since 2017 and will celebrate our first union contract with Groundswell Workers United this year.
About the Role - Director of People
We seek a dynamic, experienced, and entrepreneurial professional to lead Groundswell's efforts to enhance HR best practices and infuse equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout our collective people operations. The Director of People (DoP) is an evolved position responsible for developing a people strategy that ensures the staff is supported and well-positioned for success and for leading the development and implementation of Groundswell Fund's (c3) and Groundswell Action Fund's (c4) human resources strategy, policies, and practices to support the organization's mission and goals.
This role will steward the overall employee experience - recruiting, onboarding, developing, retaining, and engaging staff in meaningful and joyful ways. The DoP reports to the Chief Operating Officer and supervises the Manager, People Operations and the Manager, Talent Management.
Your responsibilities will include:
Strategic HR Leadership
What You'll Need:
Who You Are:
Compensation & Location
The Application Process
Groundswell Fund has engaged Equitable Hiring Group to support this hiring process. To apply, please complete the short form to the right.
Individuals who apply by Tuesday, April 30th, will be given priority; therefore, we encourage you to submit yours soon!
When you apply, we kindly ask you to remove your schools from your resume. There is no need to reformat your resume and leave your degree as is; simplify it to "B.A. Economics," for example. Just remember to remove any references to undergraduate and graduate school names where possible. This "bias-reduced" process is aimed at opening this opportunity to more candidates, reviewing applicants on performance assessments instead of resume proxies (e.g., where you went to school).
This evaluation process will follow practices shown to reduce bias in decision-making and may be different from other application processes you have experienced.
Virtual Organization: Groundswell is a completely virtual organization and has been for many years before the COVID-19 pandemic. We are committed to building a strong identity and thriving culture that is exemplary in the nonprofit world and in the greater landscape of fully remote organizations. Our work is virtual but we will also have the opportunity to travel and see each other in person for retreats, conferences, and events. To succeed as remote workers, applicants should have a dedicated workspace, a commitment to clear and frequent communication, and comfort utilizing technology to increase collaboration and connection. Those with previous remote work experience are preferred, but we also welcome those who are new to remote work and understand the requirements of working in a thriving virtual organizational culture.
Work Schedule: Groundswell currently operates in a 4 day, 32 hour work week. We are a completely virtual organization, allowing for flexibility in work schedules for our staff across differing U.S. time zones. While work can usually be completed during standard business hours of the applicant's time zone, there may be times where early morning, evening, and weekend work may be needed to ensure organization-wide collaboration, to staff or attend events, and/or to meet organization workload needs during busy times of the year. Staff whose jobs require travel can expect longer hours, as travel may happen outside of business hours and on weekends.
Equal Employment Opportunity: The Groundswell Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates new and innovative public-interest projects and grant-making programs. We are committed to attracting, developing and retaining exceptional people, and to creating a work environment that is dynamic, rewarding and that enables each of us to realize our potential. Our work environment is safe and open to all employees and partners, respecting the full spectrum of races, ethnicities, national origins, ages, sexual orientations, gender identities, beliefs, religions, faiths and ideologies, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds and levels of physical ability.
Since its inception in 2003, Groundswell Fund has put intersectional grassroots organizing led by women, transgender, and gender-expansive people of color at the center of our giving. It is a channel into which individual donors and foundations pour resources to reach vital work at the grassroots, serving as an irrigation system for growing reproductive, racial, and social justice movements. Our staff are from the very movements we fund, and we deeply understand grassroots impact with long-term investment.
We do this work with our sibling organization, Groundswell Action Fund, founded in response to the first Trump Administration. Groundswell Action Fund was founded on a simple but revolutionary premise: those most excluded from our democracy should be at the center of transforming it. Both organizations work to revolutionize philanthropy through grantmaking, capacity building, and organizing within philanthropy itself to inspire more giving to the types of organizations we support – whether or not those resources come through our doors.
While we fund nearly every major social justice movement in the United States, we are a long-term funder of the U.S. Reproductive Justice (RJ) Movement. Since the start of our grantmaking, we have moved more than $180 million (across both our c3 and c4) to the field in grants and capacity-building support, increased the giving of dozens of national and local foundations, and helped bring thousands of new individual donors into the RJ Movement. Our grantees have been instrumental in the passage of hundreds of pro-RJ policies at the state and local level and in blocking many regressive policies, and they have built a growing grassroots base of support for RJ across the U.S.
Groundswell is a fully remote, highly collaborative, pro-worker, pro-union organization working across the four continental U.S. time zones. We believe that the best ideas emerge when diverse perspectives come together, and are committed to creating an inclusive and flexible work environment where employees can thrive. We’ve embraced remote work as a core aspect of our culture since 2017 and will celebrate our first union contract with Groundswell Workers United this year.
About the Role - Director of People
We seek a dynamic, experienced, and entrepreneurial professional to lead Groundswell's efforts to enhance HR best practices and infuse equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout our collective people operations. The Director of People (DoP) is an evolved position responsible for developing a people strategy that ensures the staff is supported and well-positioned for success and for leading the development and implementation of Groundswell Fund's (c3) and Groundswell Action Fund's (c4) human resources strategy, policies, and practices to support the organization's mission and goals.
This role will steward the overall employee experience - recruiting, onboarding, developing, retaining, and engaging staff in meaningful and joyful ways. The DoP reports to the Chief Operating Officer and supervises the Manager, People Operations and the Manager, Talent Management.
Your responsibilities will include:
Strategic HR Leadership
- Work closely with the Chief Operation Officer, senior leadership, and directors to align organizational structure, roles, and responsibilities to achieve organizational goals.
- Create organizational policies and practices that remove barriers and foster inclusion for all.
- Serve as a thought partner on efforts to increase effective collaboration and address and resolve conflicts between staff and teams.
- Communicate HR policies, priorities, initiatives, and updates to all staff.
- Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the HR team, its processes, and workflows regularly, and make improvements as needed.
- In collaboration with the Chief Operating Officer and senior team, create and manage strategies for career development, leave management, and succession planning.
- Lead organizational efforts to reimagine Groundswell's performance management and review process. Develop and implement strategies, programs, and guidelines for performance management across the organization.
- Serve as a trusted resource for employees, addressing their concerns and fostering positive relationships.
- Design and deliver leadership development programs to nurture and grow our leadership talent and supervisors.
- Drive people management and recruitment efforts across Groundswell, focused on attracting, selecting, developing, and retaining employees.
- Champion Groundswell's commitment to inclusive hiring, developing best-practice approaches to attracting talent, and ensuring a fair, equitable, and effective process.
- In collaboration with the HR team, develop and implement a comprehensive onboarding program to integrate new employees into Groundswell's culture, ensure all staff have a consistent entry into the organization and access to the tools, resources, and information they need to be successful in their role.
- In partnership with the CEO, COO, and senior team, lead efforts to gather and understand staff input and create actionable steps to improve organizational culture; create an environment that fosters continual learning and staff who are engaged and energized by the work they do.
- Provide advice to the team and leaders across the organization on complex employee and labor relations situations, develop and execute strategies and initiatives to prevent and mitigate risk, and consult with external legal counsel as appropriate.
- Represent Groundswell management in administering and managing agreements reached with the union. Serve as the management liaison of the labor management committee. Develop and maintain cooperative working relationships with the union.
- Oversee benefits enrollment, administration, payroll, and employee data management through the PEO and drive integration into Groundswell's systems.
- Ensure HR compliance with all relevant labor and benefit laws; guide team, partner with vendors, and leverage best practices, including oversight of related federal and state unemployment, payroll, and other laws.
What You'll Need:
- 8+ years of relevant People/Talent/HR experience.
- The ability to shift seamlessly between strategic, big-picture thinking and operational, nuts-and-bolts systems building.
- A track record of embedding equity throughout HR practices, transforming organizations to be inclusive and just, and supporting teams with a rich mix of partners across race, gender, sexual orientation, and other group identities.
- An enthusiasm for efficiency and a focus on constantly looking for ways to improve, streamline, and simplify processes.
- A high capacity to manage one's own emotions and to identify the emotions of others in order to support staff; ability to facilitate challenging and courageous conversations about race/racism and other topics.
- Strong supervision skills with proven results coaching staff and building a team's performance capacity.
- Demonstrated experience in tactical HR administration (i.e., benefits, compensation, training and developing, employee relations and performance management).
- Knowledge and experience with HR compliance, federal and state labor and employment laws.
Who You Are:
- An Effective Collaborator. You've successfully worked across cultural lines on a dispersed team, and you have the ability to operate in complex situations. You can easily gain trust from team members and are known for supporting them to ensure they are set up for success. You're not afraid to ask questions.
- Flexible. You can manage a diverse set of team needs and aren't afraid to step outside your job description or comfort zone to help the team reach its goals. You're comfortable with shifting schedules and don't expect every day to go "as planned."
- Highly Ethical. You will be asked to make sensitive and critical judgment calls, and as such, you are known for your integrity; you take that reputation seriously. You always choose to make the right decision versus the easy decision. You know what information is sensitive, and you will protect it accordingly.
- Emotionally Intelligent. You are self-aware and perceptive. You nurture relationships and can work and communicate well with everyone. You are optimistic, empathetic, flexible, curious, and well-respected by all who work with you, irrespective of title. You can handle demanding situations professionally.
- Equity-Driven. You have experience centering diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in organizational practices. You bring sensitivity to issues of privilege, class, and race and are dedicated to incorporating principles of social justice into decision-making and strategic initiatives.
Compensation & Location
- The salary range for this position is $139,500 - 151,900. Please note that it is for a flexible 4-day, 32-hour work schedule.
- Very generous benefits include fully paid-for employee and family health, dental, vision, and a matching 401K plan, as well as additional employer-provided reimbursements for fertility expenses, gender-affirming health care costs, and midwifery/doula expenses that are not covered by insurance.
- Three weeks of vacation upon hire and a generous holiday schedule, including a week during the summer and the last two weeks of December off.
- This is a full-time, fully-remote, exempt position.
The Application Process
Groundswell Fund has engaged Equitable Hiring Group to support this hiring process. To apply, please complete the short form to the right.
Individuals who apply by Tuesday, April 30th, will be given priority; therefore, we encourage you to submit yours soon!
When you apply, we kindly ask you to remove your schools from your resume. There is no need to reformat your resume and leave your degree as is; simplify it to "B.A. Economics," for example. Just remember to remove any references to undergraduate and graduate school names where possible. This "bias-reduced" process is aimed at opening this opportunity to more candidates, reviewing applicants on performance assessments instead of resume proxies (e.g., where you went to school).
This evaluation process will follow practices shown to reduce bias in decision-making and may be different from other application processes you have experienced.
- Early May: Selected candidates asked to complete short answer questions
- Mid-May: Phone interview with Groundswell staff
- Mid-May: Finalist candidates will be asked to complete a paid, timed, trial assignment
- Late May: Finalists will participate in a multi-team member panel interview
- Candidate references will also be checked at this step
- Early June: Offer extended
Virtual Organization: Groundswell is a completely virtual organization and has been for many years before the COVID-19 pandemic. We are committed to building a strong identity and thriving culture that is exemplary in the nonprofit world and in the greater landscape of fully remote organizations. Our work is virtual but we will also have the opportunity to travel and see each other in person for retreats, conferences, and events. To succeed as remote workers, applicants should have a dedicated workspace, a commitment to clear and frequent communication, and comfort utilizing technology to increase collaboration and connection. Those with previous remote work experience are preferred, but we also welcome those who are new to remote work and understand the requirements of working in a thriving virtual organizational culture.
Work Schedule: Groundswell currently operates in a 4 day, 32 hour work week. We are a completely virtual organization, allowing for flexibility in work schedules for our staff across differing U.S. time zones. While work can usually be completed during standard business hours of the applicant's time zone, there may be times where early morning, evening, and weekend work may be needed to ensure organization-wide collaboration, to staff or attend events, and/or to meet organization workload needs during busy times of the year. Staff whose jobs require travel can expect longer hours, as travel may happen outside of business hours and on weekends.
Equal Employment Opportunity: The Groundswell Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates new and innovative public-interest projects and grant-making programs. We are committed to attracting, developing and retaining exceptional people, and to creating a work environment that is dynamic, rewarding and that enables each of us to realize our potential. Our work environment is safe and open to all employees and partners, respecting the full spectrum of races, ethnicities, national origins, ages, sexual orientations, gender identities, beliefs, religions, faiths and ideologies, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds and levels of physical ability.
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