THI - The Health Initiative · 2 weeks ago
Upstream USA Vice President of Development & External Affairs Strategy & Operations
United States
Full-time
Remote
Director/Executive
$230K/yr - $250K/yr
12+ years expUpstream USA is a national, nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to ensuring equitable, patient-centered contraceptive care. The Vice President of Development and External Affairs Strategy and Operations provides strategic and operational leadership for Upstream’s Development and External Affairs department, ensuring the systems, planning processes, and team coordination required to achieve ambitious revenue goals.
Non ProfitHealthcareAdvocacyHealth Care
No H1B
Responsibilities
Represent Development and External Affairs in key internal leadership forums and cross-organizational planning sessions, ensuring donor and investor insights inform organizational decisions and communicating enterprise priorities back to the Development & External Affairs team
Serve as the strategic integrator between the Transformational (investor engagement and prospecting) team and other Upstream teams and leadership bodies, ensuring fundraising priorities are aligned with and informed by organizational strategy and programmatic work
Serve as the primary operational leader for the team’s development, external affairs, board governance, and executive support functions, with end-to-end accountability for systems, workflows, team coordination, and execution across Development & External Affairs functions
Act as the day-to-day operational decision maker for Development and External Affairs resourcing, prioritization, executive engagement strategy, training, communications and core operating processes, resolving tradeoffs and escalations to ensure effective execution and protect the CDEAO’s focus on enterprise leadership and high value fundraising
Establish and lead the operating rhythm for the Development & External Affairs function, including planning cycles, portfolio management infrastructure, progress monitoring, and team forums that support alignment and execution
Oversees Development and External Affairs team’s systems and operations, including CRM, analytics, reporting, planning cycles, and portfolio management infrastructure
Provides strategic oversight, development, and accountability for the Development and External Affairs budget in partnership with Finance
Lead, develop, and build the capability of a team of 8, including 4 direct reports, across development operations, communications, giving, and external affairs functions
Lead the development and recommendation of Development and External Affairs’ annual operating plan, goals and KPIs across the transformational team (prospecting and investor relations) as well major donors and external affairs; align these with overall organizational objectives. Track progress toward goals and recommend adjustments in strategy in order to meet revenue targets
Define and operationalize a comprehensive service menu for the Portfolio Team, ensuring consistent and high-quality engagement of top donors
Evaluate strategic options for engagement and prospecting approaches ensuring an optimal balance of proactive and opportunistic approaches
In close partnership with team leads, determine the optimal resourcing to achieve these strategies including job buckets, accountabilities, portfolio size metrics, and portfolio assignments
Oversee operational prioritization and planning to ensure that investor engagement touchpoints, prospecting efforts, executive travel as well as team and cross-team meetings, are coordinated, strategically aligned, and well-executed
Recommend and oversee training and professional development for the Portfolio Team and others involved in transformational fundraising to prepare staff and operationalize top-tier, high touch, white glove transformational donor engagement
Ensure the portfolio team and internal staff develop and demonstrate top-tier donor communications and engagement capabilities, and have the tools, content, and executive presence required to confidently speak to investors and donors about organizational strategy, programmatic approaches and impact, investor motivations and philanthropic narratives
Oversee development and deployment of cross-portfolio and segmented donor-facing communications materials, ensuring exceptional quality, consistency in voice, clarity in message, and alignment with strategic priorities, reflecting the standards expected of an elite transformational fundraising team
Liaise with other teams required to support training and donor communications: Marketing & Communications, Strategy, Regions, Growth, and Digital
Oversee and approve the integrated engagement plan for Upstream’s top investors, developed by the Senior Director of Investor Relations, ensuring coordinated deployment of the CEO and CDEAO for high impact engagement opportunities
Work closely with the External Affairs Officer to develop communication strategies to keep this broad audience warm, informed, and inspired, balancing proactive outreach with meaningful, mission-aligned touchpoints
Provide leadership and oversight for the organization’s annual and major donor strategy, ensuring alignment with broader fundraising goals, and ensuring that relationship ownership and execution are clearly assigned and consistently managed by the appropriate team members
Help determine the cross-functional relationship management structures enterprise-wide
Additional duties and projects as assigned
Qualification
Required
12-15+ years of progressive experience in development, external affairs, revenue strategy, or a closely related field, including demonstrated success as a senior operating leader responsible for enterprise-level strategy, systems, planning, performance management, and cross-team coordination (beyond individual fundraising)
Experience on a development team that has secured eight- or nine-figure (transformational) gifts, with a demonstrated understanding of what excellent transformational donor stewardship, engagement, and operational support require
Proven experience designing and overseeing investor relations, external affairs and major gifts strategies through teams, including portfolio design, resourcing models, and accountability frameworks
Strong track record of leading and developing senior leaders across multiple development-adjacent functions, such as operations, fundraising, external affairs, communications, content, and training
Demonstrated experience partnering closely with C-suite leaders and boards, including preparing executives for high-stakes donor and investor engagements, managing executive deployment, and elevating executive effectiveness in fundraising contexts
Demonstrated ability to operate as a buffer and integrator, absorbing complexity, resolving tensions, and protecting executive and frontline capacity while exercising day-to-day decision-making authority aligned with executive leadership
Exceptional executive presence, credibility, and judgment, with the ability to coach and enable executives and senior staff to communicate confidently and persuasively with ultra-high-net-worth donors and investors
Experience building or overseeing training, enablement, and content systems that strengthen executive presence, donor communications, and narrative consistency across the organization
Deep understanding of fundraising operating models, including CRM systems, analytics, portfolio management, reporting, planning cycles, and functional budgets
Demonstrated ability to set and manage KPIs, goals, and performance frameworks tied to ambitious revenue targets
Proven ability to evaluate strategic tradeoffs, allocate limited resources, and make prioritization decisions in fast-moving, high-expectation environments
Demonstrated ability to remain focused, adaptable, and solution-oriented in the face of challenges, setbacks, or ambiguity. Approaching obstacles with a growth mindset and maintaining a steady commitment to goals, even under pressure or changing circumstances; resilience
While Upstream is a remotely based organization, they maintain an on-camera culture during meetings to support connection, engagement, teaming and collaboration. Must be comfortable and able to participate in this environment
Benefits
Medical
Dental
Vision
Life insurance
Long and short term disability
401K with employer match
Generous vacation
Personal time off
Sick time off
Holiday time off
Parental leave
Professional development
Fitness and cell phone allowance for all full time employees and part time employees who work a minimum of 24 hours per week
Engagement in organization-sponsored learning & development
Fully Remote
Hybrid work environments (reliable access to phone and Internet to ensure connectivity to their teams)
Up to 25% business travel
Minimum of 8 days of business travel per year to attend 1 annual organizational retreat and 1 or 2 annual team/department meetings
All Upstreamers must be able to attend work-related in-person meetings and functions as needed
Comprehensive benefits package including parental leave, professional development, and a fitness and cell phone allowance for qualifying employees
Company
THI - The Health Initiative
Our country has been deeply divided on healthcare.
2-10 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageLeadership Team
Rocco Perla
Co-Founder
Christina Gunther-Murphy
Chief Campaign Officer
Company data provided by crunchbase