Job Title: Chief of Strategic Planning
Department: Strategy
Location: Oakland, CA; Washington, D.C.; Chicago, IL; Flexible for the Best Candidate
Reports to: Chief Strategy Officer
Supervises: Strategic Planning, Evaluation, and Innovation Unit
Context: At the Sierra Club, we believe in the power of interdependence. Together, we remain committed to the fight for a healthy climate built on a foundation of environmental, racial, economic, and gender justice – a future where all people benefit from a healthy, thriving planet and a direct connection to nature. As the climate crisis and deeply entrenched systemic racism all fuel injustice, we will continue to fight for a bold, transformational agenda that recognizes the interconnectedness between our planet, our humanity, and our future. By recognizing that our destinies are tied, we continue to name that all things are fundamentally connected, and the overlap between ecology, race, gender, and representative government will move to either advance our collective humanity or to oppress it. Sierra Club has close to 800 staff across the country and a network of 64 local chapters that are led and fueled by thousands of volunteers. We are also proud to be a unionized employer, with three labor unions representing more than half of our employees.
Scope: The Chief of Strategic Planning manages the Sierra Club’s strategy planning process, programs to infuse innovation throughout the organization, supports different units of the Sierra Club in their organizational strategies, oversees the organization’s analytics team, and oversees a project management office tasked with leading cross-departmental strategic initiatives, planning efforts across teams to support campaign outcomes, and measuring and evaluating organization-wide work to achieve the Sierra Club’s strategic plan and campaign goals. In this role, the Chief of Strategic Planning will work closely with every member of the leadership team, counterparts in the Operations teams, and in close partnership with the Executive Director, Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer.
Job activities include but are not limited to:Strategic Planning: Manage the strategic planning department and lead the design of Sierra Club’s strategic planning process, including setting organizational priorities, the organization’s theory of change, the organization’s campaign portfolio (hedgehog). This position heavily influences the strategies, goals, and or campaigns that guide the entire organization;Manage the Data and Analytics team to provide proactive analysis and support for fundraising as well as member, volunteer, and supporter engagement to a broad range of end users and technical stakeholders across the organization to steer the strategic direction of the organization based on data.Lead a team of staff that works in close coordination with the Campaign Strategy, Field, Communications, Digital, and Legal programs to facilitate and manage the processes for program planning and assessment across the organization to develop clear, consistent, measurable indicators across all of our campaign and power building strategies - ensuring metrics are in place to measure performance and progress in alignment with the organization’s strategic plan and campaign outcomes. Strategic Alignment: heavily focused on relationship management with internal leaders to clarify the strategic plan to align their goals and priorities to ensure all rolls up to shared organizational goals. Ensure all elements of Sierra Club are synched up to ensure the organization is nimble and effective.Partner with the Operations Team, which will manage Quarterly Impact Reviews, Balanced Scorecard collation, and organization-wide operational process redesign.Act as a scout, sensing and interpreting changes to the landscape - new regulations, economic trends, new technologies, changes in the workforce, and other opportunities and threats. Facilitates the creation of long-term and medium-term scenario plans to facilitate decision-making in partnership with the Enterprise Risk Analyst and other key partners.Emergent Strategy: As a grassroots organization with chapters and local groups that work on a variety of environmental issues, much of the Sierra Club’s best work started as experiments in chapters. Seek out strategic opportunities and help accelerate decision-making by convening the right internal and external experts, senior volunteers and staff to make decisions based on a strategic and financial rationale. Where decisions are not being made in accordance with strategy, determine if the strategy needs to shift or to recommend that the department make changes to align with the strategy.Support Innovation: focus on innovation in what Sierra Club provides to donors, volunteers, members and supporters; business process improvement; financial structure; expansion, and other key areas of innovation.Partners with the Chief of Advancement and Membership & Direct Marketing to identify new opportunities and strategies to increase membership, supporters and unrestricted revenue.Special Projects: High-impact initiatives as assigned by the Chief Strategy Officer. These projects often include work that falls outside the typical department’s remit or requires cross-departmental leadership.The successful candidate must demonstrate the following skills, experience and competencies:Experience in management consulting or a similar strategy role, working with both nonprofit and for profit organizations;Emotionally intelligent, with the ability to motivate teams, ask for and receive feedback, and foster a positive team culture.Exemplary track record of 10-15 years experience in organizational and personnel management in complex, diverse institutions.Deep data-orientation, particularly around using data and metrics to make informed decisions around strategy, and measure success.Strong team management skills, including the ability to manage managers and drive accountability and progress and foster a culture of collaboration, respect, and open dialogue across, geographically dispersed teams.Experience, and a proven track record of, making organizations and teams more equitable, just, and inclusive, and a commitment to anti-racism work.Resilient and flexible, with the ability to continually experiment, learn, and revise strategies.Committed to evolution. You are committed to continuously deepening and evolving your own understanding of systems of oppression through study, openness, and humility. And you easily recognize your own relationship to privilege and power, examining and shifting your behaviors as appropriate.Uplifting and additive. You see mistakes as opportunities for growth; problems as catalysts for solutions, and inspire others along the journey. You carry a constructive approach, can-do attitude, a sense of humor, and authentic kindness wherever you go.The strongest candidates will also demonstrate the following skills, experience and competencies:A positive energy and good humor that engenders enthusiasm and collaboration.A passion for the Sierra Club’s commitment to environmental and social justice.Ability to travel 20% of the time.To Apply
The Sierra Club provides equal employment and advancement opportunities to all staff members. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, lived experience and skills. The Sierra Club does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, immigration status, socioeconomic status, ancestry, age, size, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, familial status, veteran status, disability, AIDS/HIV status, medical condition, prior conviction, arrest history, traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, or any other characteristic protected by law.
The Sierra Club values applicants who are people that identify as Black, Indigenous, and other minoritized groups; women; queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, and gender fluid people.
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