Job Openings

The Skoll Foundation Vice President for Program and Impact

The Skoll Foundation, based in Palo Alto, California, seeks to recruit a Vice President for Program and Impact.

About the Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation was created by Jeff Skoll in 1999 to pursue his vision of a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. The mission of the Skoll Foundation is to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems.

The Foundation believes that social entrepreneurs see opportunities where others see problems and crises. They apply innovative solutions to social and environmental issues, empowering people and communities to envision and create positive change. They work in many kinds of organizations, including nonprofits, social purpose ventures such as community development banks, and hybrid organizations that mix elements of nonprofit and for-profit organizations. The Foundation believes that social entrepreneurs represent a powerful force for large-scale impact or equilibrium change. Their work has the potential to reduce economic disparities, increase opportunities for the disadvantaged, promote healthy communities, and increase the interpersonal and intercultural understanding that is the foundation for world peace.

The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through its flagship award program, the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. These three-year awards support the continuation, replication or extension of programs that have proved successful in addressing a broad array of critical social issues: tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, economic and social equity, institutional responsibility, and peace and security. These issues are at the heart of the Foundation’s vision of empowering people to create a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable world. Within these issues, the Foundation is particularly interested in supporting social entrepreneurs working in five critical sub-issue areas that threaten the survival of humanity – climate change, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, conflict in the Middle East and water scarcity.

The Skoll Foundation connects social entrepreneurs with key partners and resources through a number of academic, business and community channels which serve to advance the work of individual entrepreneurs, as well as the field of social entrepreneurship as a whole. To further academic study and build knowledge of social entrepreneurship, the Foundation launched the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in November 2003 at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

The Foundation, in conjunction with the Centre, also convenes the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, an annual conference that brings together the world’s foremost practitioners and thought leaders in the emerging field of social entrepreneurship.  To foster connections online, the Skoll Foundation launched and built Social Edge where social entrepreneurs, nonprofit professionals, philanthropists and others in the social sector connect to network, learn, inspire one another and share resources. The site strikes a balance between the visionary and the practical, with spirited discussions, online workshops and access to resources and experts.

The Skoll Foundation also celebrates social entrepreneurs through film and broadcast partnerships enabling filmmakers, documentarians and other journalists to produce works that tell the stories of individual social entrepreneurs and promote large-scale public awareness of social entrepreneurship. The Foundation’s commitment to drive large-scale change by serving the world’s most promising innovators requires the Foundation to be ever more mindful of the privilege it has to add value to those it serves. Individually and collectively, the Foundation’s grantmaking activities signal its dedication through actions, large and small.  

Building on its mission the Foundation established the following core values:

• Leverage: the Foundation seeks leverage to achieve “a whole lot of good” from its investment of time and resources.
• Respect: the Foundation respects the individual and the power of community.
• Responsibility: Individually and collectively, the Foundation embraces a profound sense of responsibility.
• Tough Minded Optimism: Foundation staff are disciplined, rigorous and hopeful.
• Innovation: Inspired by the social entrepreneurs the Foundation is committed to service and is challenged to be innovative in its own behavior.

In addition, the Foundation’s values translate into a workplace culture which is defined by the following operating principles:

• Passionate pursuit of our Vision and Mission
• Creating a community among Skoll employees
• Practicing inclusiveness
• Commitment to excellence
• Collaboration and teamwork
• Caring – about the work and each other
• Transparency; open and direct communication
• Ambitious, entrepreneurial, can-do

For more information, visit the Skoll Foundation's Web site at www.skollfoundation.org.

Vice President for Program and Impact

The Skoll Foundation Vice President for Program and Impact (P&I) is responsible for leading the Foundation’s strategic program development, execution, and evaluation.  The Vice President for P&I will be challenged to advance the Foundation’s five success indicators and their relative weight in decision making and resource allocation: 

• Enabling “breakthrough” SASEs (Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship): The Foundation applies its resources and talents to enable SASEs to achieve breakthrough, large-scale solutions to the world’s most pressing problem.
• All SASEs strengthened: From the beginning of the selection process, the Foundation identifies SASEs based on their potential to achieve breakthrough impact on one of more of the issues identified in the framework. Once an SASE is part of the portfolio, the staff delivers “invest, connect and celebrate” services designed to strengthen their ability to achieve large-scale results.
• An enabling ecosystem for successful social entrepreneurship: As a third priority, the Foundation invests in the larger ecosystem that benefits social entrepreneurs within and beyond the SASE portfolio, believing that a healthy ecosystem enables more effective social entrepreneurship, and thus more successful societal problem-solving.
• Nurturing a healthy Skoll Foundation organization: The Foundation continually strives to enhance a team-oriented work environment that allows Skoll employees to develop and utilize their full range of professional talents.
• A compelling and authentic Skoll Foundation brand that exemplifies who we are, what we stand for, and the way we behave.

The critical aspect of the work of the Vice President for P&I is to drive mission-aligned program investments that achieve maximum results.  Skoll’s program strategy is led and advanced by the Vice President for P&I, who works closely with all members of the senior management team. Collaboration, execution and evaluation are all critical elements of success for the Vice President for P&I. The Vice President for P&I reports to the President and CEO and is based in Palo Alto, California.

The broad goals for the Vice President for P&I include:

• Evolve the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship program to maximize the impact of the grants relative to the Foundation’s mission, and to optimize the human resource talents of the organization.
• Agree upon and provide “baseline” services to all SASEs and determine customized “add-on services” to provide to SASEs who demonstrate the greatest capacity for achieving large-scale change.
• Establish process and tools for impact assessment of investments and services, and ensure this information informs decision-making.
• Align vital resources—time, talent, and funding—to maximize impact, consistent with Jeff Skoll’s vision, the Foundation’s mission and Success Framework (5 indicators).
• Evaluate and evolve P&I processes, practices, and structure to ensure team members’ individual and collective talents are effectively and efficiently deployed in the service of the Foundation’s mission; reinforce, model and celebrate the Foundation’s core values.
• Participate fully in the Foundation’s management as a member of its executive team: contribute, challenge, and debate ideas and opportunities openly and honestly. Ultimately ensure decisions—and the reasoning behind them—are effectively communicated to staff and implemented.
• Build and nurture strategic partnerships with the portfolio's leading social entrepreneurs and with the field to advance the Foundation’s mission and contribute to its effectiveness.

The new Vice President for P &I will be challenged to meet the following responsibilities:

• Recruit, coach, develop and evaluate performance and contributions of P&I team members.
• Create and manage the P&I department annual and 5-year budgets, including grant making and payout.
• Serve as a member of the senior leadership team in developing, aligning, and updating  the Foundation’s annual and long-term strategic and business plans.
• Partner with the CEO, the Board, and colleagues in focusing the Foundation on the privilege of working to achieve its founder’s vision for a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable global community.

The Vice President for P & I should ideally possess the following Professional Qualifications and Personal Attributes:

Professional Qualifications:

• Significant experience in managing, guiding, and developing professional staff with an emphasis on establishing clear and measureable objectives, empowering and coaching staff members, teambuilding, and accountability.
• Demonstrated leadership and business acumen, a proven record of continually  enhancing organizational effectiveness, engaging and fully utilizing Board input, and skill in dealing with the budgeting process and management of staff and financial resources.
• Combination of both business and nonprofit/philanthropic experience.
• Substantial international work experience, preferably with social entrepreneurs or other local organizations in developing countries.
• Advanced degree (M.A., M.S., M.B.A., or Ph.D) required.

Personal Attributes:

• Thrives in an organization which includes the strategic engagement of the donor.
• Ability to persuade, inspire and motivate others, and an ability to be flexible and adaptive in consultative process with senior management and Board.
• An ability to inspire trust, a proven ability to lead and facilitate with strong interpersonal skills and an ability to move from ideas to action.
• An ability to communicate effectively and professionally with a diverse range of people from different environments, sectors, and society.
• An ability to stay grounded, trustworthy, an ability to give credit and recognition to others and a personal style of acting with humility and grace – in sum a superb professional with personal presence.
• Intellectually curious with sound judgment and a sense of the potential impact the Foundation can make in its areas of interest.
• Ability to be proactive, flexible and well-organized, with appropriate attention to detail and follow-through.

Compensation for the Vice President for Program and Impact includes a competitive base salary and an excellent package of employee and health benefits.

Interested candidates should send their resume to:

Daniel Sherman
President
Explore Company
Email: resumes@explorecompany.com