Associate Director, Planning

About the Organization

ClimateWorks Foundation is a global organization committed to our mission: to end the climate crisis by amplifying the power of philanthropy. Since our founding in 2008, we have awarded over $1.8 billion in grants to more than 850 organizations working to advance climate solutions around the world. We helped grow the field of climate philanthropy to where it stands today, establishing infrastructure, global networks, and momentum for continued growth. Through our Global Programs and Services, we equip philanthropy with global knowledge, networks, and solutions to drive climate progress.

• Scaling solutions: Our collaborative Global Programs — focused on solution areas including carbon dioxide removal, cooling, industry, transportation, and more — produce results that are bending the greenhouse gas emissions curve. From the U.S. to Europe, China, Brazil, and beyond, we collaborate with a diverse community of funders, NGOs, and climate leaders to accelerate just and equitable climate solutions.

• Guiding and supporting funders: Our Global Services provide funders with comprehensive resources to assess, build, evolve, and execute high-impact climate-giving strategies. Our Global Intelligence service equips funders and the climate community with climate insights to pinpoint opportunities for impact and philanthropic insights to help identify investment priorities. We facilitate Global Collaborations that enable funders to increase individual and collective impact. Our Global Grantmaking services enable funders to invest in climate solutions around the world. 

• Fostering collaboration, exploration, and growth: Our collaborative approach and commitment to learning ensures that we continuously explore innovative ideas and emerging opportunities — all with the aim of scaling philanthropy-supported initiatives to help end the climate crisis.

As experts in climate science, public policy, economic and social analysis, and strategic philanthropy, ClimateWorks’ staff understands the multi-faceted challenges and opportunities of climate change. We are researchers, strategists, collaborators, and grantmakers who care passionately about our mission. For more information, please visit www.climateworks.org. 

Department Summary

The Operations and Planning Team is responsible for designing and implementing processes that support inclusive and effective decision-making at ClimateWorks and help teams to prioritize, collaborate, and achieve their goals. This includes managing the Annual Planning process for teams to agree on priorities and align activities with available funding and our strategic plan; ensuring the success of our hybrid work approach by overseeing in-person events and managing hybrid-related policies; and driving key organization-wide projects and priorities related to Organizational Health, Leadership, strategic implementation, and project management practices. The Planning team partners with teams across the organization, and collaborates especially closely with the Executive Team, Human Resources, Information Systems and Technology, JEDI, and Communications teams.

Job Summary

CWF seeks an experienced, thoughtful, and collaborative Associate Director to manage the annual planning cycle. The Associate Director will report to the Senior Director for Operations and Planning but work closely with teams across ClimateWorks. The Planning Process is designed to drive alignment, resource allocation, decision-making, and prioritization across ClimateWorks. As our work has grown in complexity, scale, and urgency, we are seeking dedicated capacity to ensure that we are leveraging our planning process to inform decision-making throughout the year, track progress against our organizational strategy, and identify areas for learning and improvement. In this role, the Associate Director will collaborate across teams to continue refining our approach to planning, support teams in completing and managing their annual plans, analyze the results and findings from our planning processes, and track follow-on projects emerging from planning. 

Essential Tasks  

• Managing the cadence of our Annual Planning Cycle, working across Operations and other functions to identify and communicate planning and decision-making timelines<