Disaster Response Associate

Who We Are

We have a casual work atmosphere where everyone’s input and ideas are valued. We’re committed to work-life balance and offer everyone opportunities to learn, experiment, and grow. Since creative, enthusiastic employees are our most valued resource and the basis for our success, we take great care in how we attract, hire, and support our employees for a successful career. If you care about collaboration, curiosity, communication excellence, and continuous improvement, this position is right for you.

Disaster Response At GlobalGiving

Disaster response is one of the most visible and tangible ways GlobalGiving delivers on its mission. For the past 16 years, we have been shifting decision-making power to crises-affected communities through trust-based grantmaking and support. Doesn’t that sounds awesome?

When crises happen—from a hurricane in Texas to an earthquake in Nepal, to ongoing refugee crises around the world—the GlobalGiving community is there to provide support. GlobalGiving responds to major disasters by posting general relief and recovery Funds, from which we then make grants. Our grantmaking supports local and community-led immediate response and longer-term rebuilding and resiliency efforts, as funding is available and the circumstances warrant. We also provide funding to international organizations that specialize in humanitarian relief operations.

During 2020, we supported hundreds of nonprofits helping communities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, while responding to hurricanes across the globe, the explosion in Beirut as well as the Australia and California Wildfires. In 2019 alone, GlobalGiving awarded nearly $10 million in grants to organizations responding to Hurricanes Maria, Irma, Harvey and Dorian, the 2017 earthquakes in Mexico, and annual flooding in South Asia.

Consistent with our mission to accelerate community-led change we expect our disaster response and grantmaking to emphasize the following:

• We lead with our values, internally and externally.
• We work in partnership with, and look to support, local and community-led organizations that put the voice of the community front and center in their program design, development and implementation.
• We prioritize support that is aimed at underserved and vulnerable communities.
• We work in partnership with humanitarian response organizations that have demonstrated transparency and community-value in large-scale crises.
• We seek to minimize unnecessarily burdensome administrative requirements in favor of flexible and trust-based grantmaking principles.
• We fund programs that emphasize strengthening community, economic and environmental resilience, and sustainability.
• We embrace learning, evaluating our impact, and adapting to specific crises and a changing world as needed.

Job Summary

Are you excited to be part of a small but mighty, entrepreneurial team in a social enterprise? Do you want to work with fantastic nonprofits around the world addressing natural and humanitarian disasters?

Our team is growing - and we are looking for a disaster response associate who will support our efforts to build and strengthen relationships with community-led organizations in disaster-affected/prone regions, and play a critical role in our trust-based grantmaking through GlobalGiving Funds and our management of the Facebook Crisis Donate Button program. You’ll have the opportunity to work closely with the Disaster Response and Marketing and Communications teams to develop human-centered impact content, telling the stories of our nonprofit partners and GlobalGiving’s increasing footprint in disaster response.

Primary Responsibilities

You will support wide-ranging projects with an extensive focus on our responses to emerging programs as a result of the increasing frequency of disasters worldwide. Specifically, you will collaborate across the team, navigating competing priorities - reliably sourcing and recommending high-impact, community-led partners for both internally-driven and corporate-partner-driven programs. You will support our nonprofit partners through responsive engagement, development of resources to assist them in leveraging our funding, and by creating and executing opportunities for them to foster connections and partnerships.

• Disaster Fund Support: Support “Fund Leads” (senior Disaster Response Team members) to create/update fund strategies through crises and context research, identifying frontline responders, conducting outreach and follow up with responding nonprofit partners (existing and new), managing communications with grantees, and reviewing grant proposals. The disaster response associate may, at the discretion of management, also play the role of “Fund Lead” for some disaster funds.
• Corporate Program Support: Support execution of fast-paced corporate disaster response programs - researching global disaster activations, identifying and communicating with responding organizations, and monitoring and reporting on program data. Deliver disaster context analysis and nonprofit recommendations to the Business Partnership team related to corporate programs.
• Visibility: Collect and document partner stories to enable people-centered narratives to be easily accessible for future Fund reports to donors, internal staff, corporate partner and board presentations. Attend sector-specific webinars and other convenings to share GlobalGiving learnings and experience and report back to the team on key outcomes and opportunities, and make recommendations for additional opportunities for visibility. In coordination with Disaster, Business Partnerships, and Marcomms teams, develop disaster-related content to highlight the work of GlobalGiving and our nonprofit partners.
• Partner Support: Collaborate with GlobalGiving’s Program, Marketing & Communications, and Vetting & Grants teams to develop tools and enhance processes to assist our grantee partners as they seek to leverage their engagement with GlobalGiving to increase funding and support more broadly.
• Innovation: Through collaboration with GlobalGiving teams, partners and peers, support pilot initiatives that aim to improve GlobalGiving’s feedback practices, and enhance support to and among community-led partners and grantees while deepening our trust-based philanthropy practices.
• Customer Response: Provide timely responses to inquiries from nonprofit partners, individual and corporate donors, media and other community members on a wide range of topics relating to disaster relief and recovery.
• Program Effectiveness: Support effective project management for new and ongoing workstreams by flexibly plugging into tasks that optimize the team’s execution on strategic goals and objectives. Ensure that documentation of policies and processes is maintained and well-organized.

Required Qualifications

For our team to be a great fit for you, the following qualifications should resonate with you:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience in international development/studies, communications, social enterprise, crisis management or related fields. At least 1-2 years of work required.
• Excellent written, oral and interpersonal communication skills; thoughtful consideration of cultural contexts and empathetic approach to communicating in traumatic situations.
• Ability to collaborate across multiple teams - including using asynchronous/digital/virtual platforms like Slack and Zoom - to deliver quality output in a timely manner.
• Ability to use and comfort with technology based tools for productivity and analysis, including Salesforce.com, Metabase or other reporting systems, and Google Suite.
• A demonstrated track record of building relationships through humility, compassion, and transparency.
• Enthusiastic, organized, flexible team player capable of multitasking under sometimes tight deadlines and who thrives under high pressure situations.
• The ability to communicate ideas effectively, to listen to others' ideas, and to collaborate to arrive at great solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

In addition, the ideal candidate would also have some or all of the following qualifications:

• Experience with grant management or other philanthropy-supporting software.
• Experience in grant making and/or grant management, including proposal review.
• Demonstrated passion for working with vulnerable communities, and a commitment to GlobalGiving’s mission and values.

Salary + Benefits

Salary range: $42k to $50k.

Benefits include flexible work hours, remote work options, 5 weeks of paid time off per year, professional development opportunities, and a meaningful job where you can go home at night and say, "Today, my work helped more than 700 kids get their essential health and educational needs met.” (One of many true stories.) And of course, we’ve also got you covered with benefits like health care, dental/vision, paid family leave, paid sabbaticals, commuter benefits, and 401K.

Location

This is a full-time, exempt position reporting to the Disaster Response Team, Executive Lead and will be filled remotely for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Once in-office operations can safely resume, this role can either be based in GlobalGiving’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. or continue to operate remotely. If you intend to apply as a remote-worker, be prepared to speak about your experience with remote employment in the recruitment process.

Applicants must reside in the United States. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that they have legal authorization to work in the United States for the duration of the position. GlobalGiving does not sponsor employment visas.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity in our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.