Director Community and Field Building

About this role

ABOUT SPARK MICROGRANTS
Spark MicroGrants believes in a world where everyone lives with dignity and determines their own positive future. Spark has worked in 1000+ villages in 6 countries and has pioneered a community-driven development model in sub-Saharan Africa. Spark works with NGO and Government partners to scale the model's adoption and impact on rural communities - on their own terms. Our model combines facilitated community meetings with a small, discretionary grant to catalyze local action and institution building. Read more about our Approach, Impact and Values on our website.
WHO YOU ARE
The Director, Community & Field Building will help build the ecosystem needed to move decision-making and capital closer to communities at unprecedented scale.
The role has three interconnected ambitions:

• Build a cohort of champions who believe in community-driven governance and can influence how public, philanthropic, and multilateral resources are designed and deployed.

• Raise a $100M fund to support village grants, facilitation, innovation, learning, and the development of excellent community-led systems.

• Help move $20 billion in public and multilateral financing toward the world’s poorest villages by building the relationships, evidence, partnerships, and field infrastructure needed to make this possible.

This is a highly entrepreneurial role. The Director will help define the field, identify the people and organizations who should be part of it, create compelling opportunities for collaboration and investment, and turn a compelling idea into a growing community of practice.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Build a global community of practice
Identify and connect exceptional organizations, practitioners, researchers, funders, and public leaders working to put power and capital closer to communities.
You will:

• Map the global landscape of community-driven development, participatory governance, locally led development, and related approaches.

• Identify exceptional organizations and individuals who are advancing the field.

• Build relationships and create opportunities for practitioners to learn from one another.

• Develop forums, partnerships, convenings, and other mechanisms for shared learning and collaboration.

• Help practitioners develop shared standards, tools, and approaches for excellent community-led systems.

• Identify emerging ideas, evidence, and innovations that could strengthen the field.

• Help articulate what excellent community-driven development looks like and where the field needs to advance.

Build a community of champions and capital
Build a core group of philanthropists, public leaders, researchers, institutions, and other influential actors who can fund, champion, and help advance community-driven approaches.
You will:

• Develop a compelling proposition for philanthropy and institutional partners around community-driven development.

• Build and manage relationships with high-level philanthropic, public, multilateral, and research partners.

• Identify opportunities where private capital can help unlock significantly larger pools of public and multilateral financing.

• Create opportunities for funders and partners to learn directly from communities and practitioners.

• Develop strategic partnerships that increase the visibility, credibility, and adoption of community-led approaches.

• Build a network of champions who can advocate for greater community decision-making and resource allocation within their own institutions and networks.

Build a $100M fund
Lead the development and fundraising strategy for a major fund supporting village grants, facilitation, learning, innovation, and the broader infrastructure required for excellent community-led development.
You will:

• Develop the fund's proposition, strategy, and fundraising narrative.

• Identify and cultivate major philanthropic and institutional funders.

• Build a pipeline of high-value funding opportunities and strategic partnerships.

• Lead or support major donor conversations, proposals, pitches, and partnership negotiations.

• Develop a compelling case for why philanthropic capital can play a catalytic role in unlocking significantly larger public and multilateral financing.

• Work closely with Spark's Growth and leadership teams to convert relationships and opportunities into funding.

• Help shape how the fund can generate learning, evidence, and infrastructure that benefit the broader field.

Help unlock $20B in public and multilateral financing
Work across Spark and its external network to help create the conditions for governments and multilateral institutions to direct significantly more resources toward community-led systems.
You will:

• Build relationships with senior government, multilateral, philanthropic, and development-finance leaders.

• Identify opportunities to influence large-scale financing mechanisms and programs.

• Connect evidence and lessons from Spark's work to broader policy and financing conversations.

• Work with Spark's Global Programs and Innovation teams to translate field learning into compelling propositions for governments and multilateral institutions.

• Identify strategic partnerships that could accelerate adoption of community-led approaches at national and international scale.

• Help build the narrative, evidence, and coalition necessary to make community-driven financing a mainstream approach.

Build Spark's field-building capacity
As this work develops, the Director will help determine what Spark itself needs to become to support a growing global field.
You will:

• Develop strategies and priorities for Spark's field-building work.

• Build systems for tracking relationships, opportunities, learning, and impact across the network.

• Develop compelling communications and thought leadership with Spark's leadership and communications teams.

• Represent Spark externally at high-level meetings, conferences, convenings, and with strategic partners.

• Bring…