RIVET is seeking a strategic, relationship-driven fundraiser to grow, steward, and activate a community of ~100 donors, focused on high-net-worth individuals and family foundations. As we scale towards a future powered by Gen Z, RIVET’s philanthropic community plays a critical role in funding, advising, and growing this movement.
The Director of Philanthropy leads RIVET’s fundraising and donor engagement strategy - responsible for securing significant philanthropic investment while stewarding a highly engaged network of families and individuals. Working closely with the CEO, Impact, and Marketing teams, you will lead on frontline fundraising and manage a robust donor pool to ensure members feel deeply connected to RIVET’s mission, people, and impact. This is a hands-on role for someone who is excited to shape a global philanthropic community. RIVET currently has four offerings: Leadership Council (for families), Youth Impact Council (designed for individuals), Youth Impact Fund(for family foundations), and Social Innovator Accelerator (for firms).
This new, evolved role will focus on three work streams:
- Drive philanthropic revenue: Lead frontline fundraising across the organization by identifying and developing a donor pipeline, moving prospects through the cultivation cycle, and closing gifts.
- Steward & strengthen RIVET’s donor community through effective communication and programming: Build, manage, and deepen relationships with RIVET donors, ensuring members, including teen & young adult family members, feel highly engaged, valued, and connected to RIVET’s mission and people.
- Activate donors as a force for organizational growth: Design and deliver meaningful engagement experiences to leverage donors’ networks, insights, and influence to support RIVET’s broader growth, including across new foundations, firms, and brand partnerships.
You will join a dedicated, low-ego team in launching a first-of-its-kind philanthropic movement led by youth. Supported by the CEO and admin team, this role works across the organization and volunteer leadership.
Overview
For decades, the philanthropic community has been at the forefront of social innovation - providing critical resources to visionaries, movements, and networks that are boldly redefining and rebuilding the world.
Over the past five years, the world has been waking up to the historic and transformative role that leaders with lived experience play in the social innovation space. Too often overlooked in favor of more established and connected players, these leaders bring a vital lens to critical issues and are an essential part of the impact ecosystem.
For no group has this exclusion been more true (and more damaging) than young leaders from underserved communities. Often dismissed as “victims,” “problems,” or “the future,” youth have, in fact, been the key driver of significant social change over the past 120 years (Deloitte, 2015).
The Need
There are over 1.8 billion young people across the globe, hungry to change the world. While high-profile leaders like Greta Thunberg make headlines, they represent only a sliver of this generation's passion and talent. Millions more have vision and solutions, but lack the resources to bring their ideas to fruition.
Over 85% of young people live in “capital deserts”: places where they do not have access to the financial or social capital to turn their ideas into action (UNICEF, 2020). Of the $650 billion given away philanthropically each year, less than .002% is invested in early-stage, youth-created and youth-led organizations (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2023). If you dig deeper into that data, and focus on youth who have lived experience with the problems they are solving, that percentage drops to a mere .0001%.
Fellowships, pitch competitions, and accelerators offer some opportunity to young social innovators. But not only are these extremely limited, they are the 50th step in a changemaker’s journey, not the first. There is a systemic issue where talented social innovators have no access to small, start-up grants to turn their ideas into action.
Our Solution
RIVET is the world’s first youth-focused micro-funding platform to provide those essential “first funds” to youth (under 30) with brilliant ideas who, due to demographics and geography, would otherwise never be able to launch a new social venture.
Over the next decade, this “last-mile” philanthropy model will invest in a million new social entrepreneurs with small but powerful start-up grants (under $1,000), followed by additional funding for projects with promising results.
To distribute these grants, RIVET is tapping into the existing $11T youth development infrastructure (OECD, 2024; UNICEF, 2023; WorldBank, 2024) and deputizing youth workers, educators, aid workers and health care leaders to be local talent scouts and mentors. These 26 million youth workers, across 190 countries, identify and support youth with promising ideas that have yet to get off the ground. Through our partners, we are able to collect data on demographics, project impacts and benefits of participating in youth changemaking.
The Red Cross, City Year, Scouts (World Association), World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, YMCA & YWCA (global), Peace First, and UNLEASH are among our global partners. Other interested partners include: Communities in Schools, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and 4-H.
Powered By Young People
The truly game-changing part of our model? Our $500M fund will be raised by young people themselves.
As of 2020, GenZ controls over $3T in consumer spending, which is projected to grow to $12T by 2030 (Nielsen, 2024). And they are a completely different kind of consumer: 73% of are willing to pay more for sustainable products (First Insight, 2020), 62% want brands to have social change initiatives they can join (Edelman, 2022), and 84% of teens make purchase decisions based on values alignment (Edelman, 2022).
RIVET is building partnerships with the brands youth love (Apple, Nike, Adidas, Disney, Riot Games, are just a sampling of brands we are designing with); the companies create a consumer engagement moment - a product, round-up at register, likes on Instagram, etc. - which triggers a donation to RIVET.
Our Impact
RIVET will invest millions in youth-led social innovation over the next decade.
Just as microfinance revolutionized access to start-up capital for the world’s most needy, this “micro-philanthropy” model, powered by young consumers, will fund 1 million new youth-led projects over the next decade, created by the most diverse group of young leaders ever.
RIVET provides additional capital (philanthropic and investments) behind the most promising ideas. Check out RIVET’s Impact Report here.
Not all will scale. But among those million new projects, will be thousands of truly game-changing ideas that will revolutionize how we work, learn, love, and care for each other and our planet.
Our Values
RIVET lives and operates by these core values:
Equity: Equity is not just something we live by, but commit to create. We prioritize those who are historically overlooked, and work to lower access barriers.
Youth-centered: We are created for young people, by young people. Youth shape and sign off on every decision we make.
Trust: We see the best in people, and work from a place of empowerment rather than control. We trust others, and honor the trust put in us through kindness, communication, and transparency.
Belonging: Our movement is designed to unite. We actively celebrate our collective diversity, and consider it our superpower. Anyone who shares our values is welcome to join.
About the Role
Core Responsibilities
This role requires a strategic operator. A director who can manage frontline fundraising, oversee systems refinement, and operate top-notch donor programs while also leading the strategy work to define and iterate priorities, ensure alignment between goals and capacities, integrate with other team members, and ensure a terrific culture is being built among our donors. This is how those tasks breakdown:
Prospecting & Pipeline Development (~25%) Identify, build and qualify the prospect pipeline of donors:
- Leverage our existing supporters through network mapping, co-hosted events (virtual and IRL), and warm introductions.
- Identify & prioritize conferences, networking events, and speaking opportunities to bring RIVET in front of the right audiences.
- Refine & update collateral materials and ensure donors can effectively communicate on our behalf.
Donor Cultivation & Asks (~25%) Secure five and six-figure philanthropic commitments, working closely with the CEO on higher-capacity donors:
- Manage the cultivation life-cycle from warm introduction to exploring fit to securing gifts, bringing in others as needed.
- Manage the renewal and the uplift of existing members’ next, multi-year commitments.
- Ensure gift agreements and onboarding surveys are completed and recorded, and pledges are received when expected.
Donor Stewardship & Activation (~40%) Lead the high-quality stewardship of donors, including teen and young adult members:
- Ensure donors feel connected to RIVET’s mission, team, and each other through regular, warm communication.
- Deliver high-impact engagement experiences (mentoring sessions, in-person gatherings, virtual site visits) to show the impact of RIVET’s mission to donors, including working closely with the Impact team to share impact data and learning.
- Design and implement an engagement strategy for tween, teen, and young adult Council members.
- Coordinate closely with the CEO, Impact, and Marketing teams to leverage donors to support broader organizational priorities (strategy advice, future board member cultivation, introductions to brand partners, etc.).
Data & Systems (~10%)
- Ensure successful execution for fundraising data systems & processes, donor reporting, and fundraising team meetings.
- Track and report KPIs against monthly and quarterly fundraising targets.
- Manage fundraising budget (approving and tracking spending plan).
- Coordinate with others across RIVET to ensure alignment on priorities and implementation strategies.
History & Strategy
RIVET will eventually be powered by GenZ and the $3T they control as consumers. In the near-term, philanthropic supporters will play an absolutely critical role helping RIVET fully launch. In the long-term, we see tremendous power of philanthropy as a catalytic and companion resource to our consumers-driven strategy: covering overhead and expanding reach.
RIVET’s Philanthropic History: RIVET was founded at the end of 2021. To launch, a group of individual donors inspired by RIVET’s mission and model, provided $2.5M in philanthropic startup capital, including $1M that served as a match for additional donors. In mid-2024 we designed our current philanthropic strategy focused on families, foundations, and firms, hiring our first full-time fundraiser in early-2025 to test and refine the strategy. Since her departure in March, we have had a team of consultants working to sharpen the offerings, strengthening systems, and building robust donor programming. The Director of Philanthropy role has emerged from that work.
Fundraising Audience: RIVET has narrowed our fundraising strategy to three key audiences:
- Committed Individuals: Business leaders, philanthropists and strategists who care about financial inclusion and innovation and are inspired by RIVET’s consumer-driven revenue model. Leaders excited to support young entrepreneurs and who may have tween/teen/young adult children they would want to involve. We have two offerings: Leadership Council (for families) and the Youth Impact Council (for individuals).
- Foundations & Family Offices: Innovative philanthropic players interested in seeing how youth-led initiatives can move the needle in issues they care about. We are building a funding collaborative to invest in youth innovation and focus on issues or geographies that align with their interests. The concept note is here.
- VC & Private Equity Ecosystem: Firms with a media/consumer/tech focus, donor advisories, plus investment banks (and other LPs) that cater to this community. We offer a strategic CSR partnership and a standout corporate volunteering experience for employee engagement. That concept note is here and a lighter-lift opportunity is here.
Current State
Annual Fundraising Goal: $3.5M
- Councils: Goal:$1.5M. Current commitments: $1M. Potential in pipeline: $1.2M.
- Foundations: Goal: $1.5M. Current commitments: $1.1M. Potential in pipeline: $3M.
- Firms: Goal: $500K. Current commitments: $170K. Potential in pipeline: $300K.
Resources:
- Our CEO is a relentless networker and excels at top-of-the-funnel pipeline development. He reliably follows through on fundraising actions and is deeply committed to building relationships with donors and prospects. His strength is selling the mission of RIVET in a compelling way to funders.
- Our administrative team consistent of our Operations Manager and Administrative Assistant provide critical administrative support to fundraising efforts, including prospect research, CSR data management, gift processing, event coordination, and integration with our finance team.
- Two part-time consultants are on board through early September. One leads our foundation strategy, focused on pitch design and pipeline development. The other is focused on building out our firm strategy from design to implementation. The Director of Philanthropy will have an opportunity to assess whether to extend contracts or reallocate support.
- Our Youth Engagement Coordinator oversees all donor engagement experiences featuring our young social innovators. She also secures and preps youth speakers for fundraising events and calls.
- Our Chief Impact Officer works closely on family foundation pitches, from design to joining calls.
- The Senior Impact Manager supports on impact reporting and stories of young social innovators.
- We have almost-weekly donor experiences that have been designed and scheduled through the fall, including brain trusts and pitch practices (where supporters mentor young changemakers in small groups), virtual site visits (geared for younger supporters to see the impact of RIVET directly), quarterly learning community calls, and donor cultivation events (with templates for invitations, communication, and program design).
- The rest of the team is ready to support, along with a passionate group of youth speakers.
- Monday.com is our CRM system, which is built and widely used for fundraising.
Who We’re Looking For
We recognize that no one candidate will possess every qualification and welcome candidates from different professional backgrounds who bring many of these qualifications and personal attributes:
- Experience Securing Major Gifts. You understand and have a track-record in securing and stewarding significant philanthropic investments from individual donors, families, and their foundations. You understand, through experience, the needs and rhythms of these donors and how to excite, invite, and manage expectations.
- Experience Creating Effective Donor Communities. You not only understand how to foster a meaningful experience for donors, but delight in providing one. You deeply listen to others and understand how to align values, strategy and desired impact. You have a proven track record of managing and maintaining relationships, providing timely updates, and delivering engaging programming to donors.
- Team Player. Your interpersonal and organizational skills allow you to work effectively with a diverse community of global stakeholders, inside and outside the organization.
- Startup Fit. You thrive as an energetic and independent operator in an early-stage startup environment while maintaining a high attention to detail. You can easily spend time efficiently focused on systems tasks and can pivot to donor-facing relationship activities or to thought partnership conversations with founders. You are comfortable with ambiguity and actively work to create clarity for others.
- Focused Implementer. You make data-driven decisions and understand how to translate strategy into effective systems and operations. You are able to execute on moves management administrative responsibilities or direct others to do so. You can set clear priorities and steer others towards achieving goals.
- Effective Communicator. You have exceptional writing and verbal communication skills. You’re comfortable using and analyzing data and stories to make a compelling case for investment.
- Mission-aligned. You’re passionate about authentic youth leadership and accelerating youth-led social change.
Compensation:
Full-time, $135,000 USD
For non-US candidates, salary will be adjusted based on local market data.
Start Date: September 1, 2026
Location:
Fully remote. Candidates can be based anywhere in the world as long as they can work at least six hours of overlap with the Eastern Time zone (9am-5pm) and travel to the US, Europe, and GCC countries for events. Travel will be expected for events, donor meetings, and conferences (10% - 25%, depending on the season). Our supporters are primarily based in San Francisco, New York City, London, Amsterdam, and the GCC.
Our Hiring Process
We value your time and energy.
Look, we know applying for jobs can be a terrible, soul-crushing experience. Some of this we can fix and some of it is the nature of trying to vet lots of candidates as fairly and quickly as possible with a small team. We aim to create a humane process by providing as much clarity as possible. We will always be available to answer questions about the status of your application and next steps.
Come on, give it a try!
Promising candidates will be invited to share a short video submission as a way to get to know you better.
- Interview with Hiring Manager
An interview where we’ll get to know more about your background and experiences, and for you to deepen your understanding of RIVET and the role.
One-on-one conversation with CEO to assess fit, vision, and alignment.
- Final Interview and Alignment
You will get to meet other core members of RIVET and have a conversation to explore fit, strategy, and vision with your core collaborators.
RIVET is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, age, ancestry, or disability.
