Director of Operations

About Elevate Philanthropy

Elevate Philanthropy is a philanthropic consultancy co-founded by Joey Savoie, co-founder of Ambitious Impact and Charity Entrepreneurship, and Anna Christina Thorsheim, co-founder of Family Empowerment Media. The organization operates with a culture similar to both of its co-founders’ previous ventures, though with a stronger emphasis on traditional consulting and philanthropy practices. The consultancy works with some of the world’s largest philanthropic funders, principals, and executive directors who collectively give over $100 million per year. Elevate Philanthropy specializes in solving the problems that limit how effectively these funders can deploy their capital. The organization employs a distinctive “common good” approach, where projects commissioned by a single client are designed to benefit the entire philanthropic ecosystem, with the bulk of work intended for public release. Elevate Philanthropy’s project portfolio includes designing systems that enable foundations to operate more efficiently, identifying and facilitating key leadership hires, recommending funds that influence where hundreds of millions of dollars are allocated, and building shared infrastructure and frameworks that many funders adopt and implement. The organization deliberately maintains a lean, talent-dense structure, taking on only work that aligns with its comparative advantage while outsourcing other functions to trusted external partners. Currently comprising three people with plans to expand to six by year-end, the organization experiences significant demand that outstrips its capacity, regularly declining strong project opportunities to maintain quality and focus.

About this Role

Elevate Philanthropy seeks a Director of Operations to lead the organization’s operational functions as its first dedicated operations person. This role represents a unique opportunity to build operational infrastructure from the ground level within a high-impact organization. Within two years, this position is expected to evolve into leading a small team within a larger organizational structure. The organization operates across two legal entities and works in multiple countries with an ambitious hiring plan that will roughly double its size. The successful candidate will assume comprehensive ownership of all operational functions, managing financial operations including client contracting, invoicing, collections, and expense management; people operations spanning payroll administration in the UK and US, employment contracts, onboarding and offboarding, and HR policy; and legal compliance and risk management across both entities including governance, insurance, data protection, and client due diligence. During the first year, you will build the operational infrastructure necessary to scale from six to significantly more employees. This includes developing hiring pipelines, creating comprehensive onboarding systems, establishing salary frameworks, and building the operational foundation of a larger organization. You will also manage the infrastructure to handle approximately $20 million in funding flows through the legal entities, with approximately $15 million being regranted. The role requires intelligent and autonomous handling of large operational problems with limited senior team availability due to time constraints, though with operations experience present. Some responsibilities involve unglamorous work that everyone in the organization participates in. The pace is fast, requiring excellent prioritization skills and the ability to distinguish between critical issues and lower-priority tasks. The organization contracts out bookkeeping, accounting, audit, legal counsel, IT support, and payroll processing to maintain focus on core operational priorities.

Responsibilities

• Manage financial operations including client contracting, invoicing, collections, and expense management
• Track budgets and manage relationships with outsourced bookkeeping providers
• Administer payroll for UK and US employees
• Prepare and execute employment contracts
• Lead onboarding and offboarding processes
• Develop and implement HR policies
• Manage the logistics of heavy hiring activities
• Govern UK and US legal entities
• Maintain appropriate insurance coverage
• Ensure data protection compliance
• Conduct due diligence on clients and partners
• Manage contractor compliance
• Coordinate fellowship cohorts and grantmaker training sessions
• Organize funder convenings and educational events
• Coordinate team and client travel logistics
• Identify and take ownership of process improvement opportunities
• Build hiring pipelines and salary frameworks
• Establish infrastructure to manage approximately $20 million in funding flows through legal entities
• Develop systems and processes to support organizational growth

Requirements

• Impact-driven mindset with rigorous thinking about organizational improvement
• Ability to think strategically while maintaining hands-on operational involvement
• Strong prioritization skills with clear understanding of risk mitigation
• Commitment to optimizing processes to save time rather than add hours or headcount
• General ability, sound judgment, and a results-oriented mindset valued over specific prior titles
• Helpful but not required: Experience across jurisdictions, particularly UK/US employment and entity administration
• Helpful but not required: Experience in a consultancy, NGO, or professional services environment
• Helpful but not required: Experience in high-tempo operating environments
• Helpful but not required: Experience building an operations function or serving as a sole operations hire
• Helpful but not required: Interest in effective philanthropy
• Ability to work autonomously with limited senior oversight
• Comfort with both glamorous and unglamorous operational work
• Excellent organizational and project management capabilities

Benefits

• Salary: $115,000 to $150,000 depending on experience and location
• Donation matching program: 1:1 up to $100,000 per employee per year
• Healthcare coverage dependent on country of employment
• Pension contributions benchmarked to location
• 33 days paid leave annually including bank holidays with flexible scheduling
• Flexible working hours
• Annual professional development budget plus 5% of work time dedicated to professional development
• Opportunity to work on high-impact projects influencing hundreds of millions in philanthropic funding
• Rapid organizational and personal skill growth within a scaling startup
• Financial stability with more demand than capacity
• Equal opportunity employer with flexible application process accommodations

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