About the Position

Namati advances a fairer, more sustainable world by building a movement of people who know, use, and shape the law. We work deeply in seven countries—from Myanmar to the United States—and we convene the world’s largest network of justice defenders, with members in 185 countries.

In the face of grave threats to democracy and our planet, we are getting creative and going big. Recent wins include the abolition of a decades-old discriminatory ID system in Kenya and a re-write of the global rules governing carbon projects. This year we’re launching the Grassroots Justice Network Academy, with a goal of strengthening movements in 100 countries.

We are looking for a visionary, strategic, and collaborative Managing Director, Partnerships to lead our global resource mobilization (RM) efforts and help ensure Namati’s long-term sustainability and impact.

This is a senior leadership role charged with driving Namati’s fundraising strategy, managing a high-performing team, and owning a portfolio of high-stakes relationships with philanthropic foundations, bilateral institutions, and individual donors. The Managing Director will work closely with the CEO, COO, program leads, and external partners to align organizational strategy with revenue strategy and to sustain and grow Namati’s $15M+ annual budget.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic leadership and planning

• Lead the execution of Namati’s current multi-year fundraising strategy, ensuring consistent progress on goals and data-informed decision-making.
• In close collaboration with organization leadership and the RM team, drive the long-term evolution of the fundraising strategy by analyzing internal data, monitoring external trends, and incorporating team learning from across the organization.
• Partner closely with Namati’s finance team to set clear revenue targets, forecast future resource needs and revenue scenarios, and help ensure that Namati is positioned for long-term financial health.
• Contribute to long-term sustainability through strategic experimentation with new sources of revenue - for example, digital fundraising to grow our grassroots donor base and earned revenue through the Grassroots Justice Network Academy.
• Contribute to overall organizational strategy and planning as a member of the senior leadership team.

Team leadership and management

• Lead a growing team (currently three fundraisers and two operations specialists), providing clear direction, coaching, and performance feedback.
• Monitor key pipeline health metrics and actively guide relationship owners to optimize fundraising outcomes.
• Oversee RM team operations, ensuring strong coordination and adherence to the team’s operating principles, processes, and systems.
• Promote a culture of learning, excellence, and joy both within the RM team and across teams.
• Partner with relationship owners, program leads, and finance to ensure both proposals for new funding and reporting on existing grants are timely and of the highest quality.

Donor cultivation and stewardship

• Act as a principal relationship lead for 10-15+ key funders and prospects, stewarding them through the fundraising lifecycle from identification to reporting to renewal.
• Engage funders with confidence, clarity, and heart to represent Namati’s vision and strategy in multi-program and organization-wide fundraising efforts.
• Develop and iterate thematic fundraising roadmaps, and advise relationship owners and program leads based on those roadmaps, to drive revenue growth across Namati’s priority themes (democracy/human rights/rule of law, land/environmental/climate justice, and the Grassroots Justice Network Academy).

Thought leadership and external representation

• Serve as a senior spokesperson and thought leader for Namati’s mission: shape sector conversations, elevate the organization’s visibility, and strategically position Namati with current and prospective funders through compelling public writing, speaking engagements, and relationship-building.
• Coach program leads to strengthen their external presence and donor engagement, including preparing for funder-facing events.
• Collaborate with the Strategic Engagement team to ensure consistent, creative, and compelling donor-facing communications.

Here’s what you might have tackled last month:

• Prepared a bi-annual fundraising update for the board that analyzes data about our pipeline and identifies key risks and opportunities (which you also used to inform a strategy conversation with the executive team later in the week).
• Set up conversations with program and RM colleagues to refine the fundraising roadmap for the land, environment, and climate justice theme, with a goal of aligning outreach with upcoming program milestones and trends in climate philanthropy.
• Conducted a review meeting with the fundraising team to analyze the prior quarter’s fundraising data, discuss trends in conversion rates, and refine 2026 revenue projections.
• Conducted one-on-ones with each relationship lead, troubleshooting bottlenecks and advising on tactics to advance their work.
• Gave final greenlight to the Strategic Engagement team for our year-end digital fundraising messaging and schedule.
• Secured a new, seven-figure award from a philanthropic foundation following a year-long stewardship and an extensive due diligence process you personally oversaw
• Authored an op-ed on Namati’s approach to global solidarity and learning, drawing on the organization’s recent M&E report and tying into philanthropic discourse around locally-led solutions.
• Reviewed our new opportunity and renewal pipelines, reassigning two major funder relationship owners to better align fundraising goals with evolving RM team structure.

About You

We anticipate the successful candidate will bring these qualifications, but they are not strict requirements. We're looking for vision, dynamism, and a proven track record of bold impact.

• 12+ years of experience in non-profits, including at least 5 years in a leadership or senior management role with significant fundraising and staff management responsibilities.
• Proven track record of securing multiple 7- or 8-figure gifts from institutional funders and/or individual donors.
• Strong people management skills and experience overseeing high-performing teams with humility and empathy.
• Ability to pair big-picture strategy with strong execution, both through your own work and by enabling excellence in your team.
• Exceptional relationship-building and communication skills that allow you to write and speak with clarity, humanness, and moral force.
• Cross-cultural competency and experience working across diverse teams, themes, and geographies.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience driving capital campaigns or building social enterprise is a significant asset.
• Prior experience in legal empowerment, human rights, or international development.
• Experience living in or fundraising for organizations in Africa, Asia, and/or Latin America.
• Experience leading teams through periods of change and/or growth.

Location and Travel

We have a strong preference for candidates in the United States located in one of the following places: CT, Washington DC, MD, MA, NJ, NY, PA, or VA. We’re open to consider candidates located in the following places: CA, CO, GA, IL, WA.

If the successful candidate is based in/near Washington DC, they will follow Namati’s hybrid office policy, which calls for staff to report to the office two days per week between Tuesday and Thursday.

Please note that candidates must already be legally eligible to work in the United States to be considered for the role; Namati cannot sponsor visas.

The role typically requires 15-20% travel, including internationally. Travel requirements may change over time based on evolving priorities. The successful candidate will be expected to work non-standard hours occasionally to accommodate the various time zones of Namati’s teams.

Compensation and Benefits

We base our compensation on the markets where our staff operate and the responsibility, scope, and complexity of the role. Namati's staff position bands range from 1 (entry level / assistant) to 9 (Managing Director). This position is at band 9. The offer range for this position is likely to fall between $150,000 - $185,000 based on the final job level determined by the responsibility, scope, and complexity of the position; most offers are made in the first half of the offer range.

Namati offers a broad range of benefits, including:

Health insurance: we pay 80% of the base plan premium for employees, and 50% for dependents.

Paid time off: new staff have 12 sick days and 3 personal days, and accrue 15 days of paid vacation (increasing to 20 after two years). Namati closes its offices organization-wide for “winter break” from December 25 to January 1. Additionally, we provide six weeks of paid parental leave.

401(k) retirement planning: Namati contributes 5% of your salary plus matches your contribution up to an additional 5%.

Professional development: We value – and set aside a professional development fund toward – staff having access to external professional development opportunities.

How to Apply

Please apply by completing our online application form. No phone calls, please.

Namati is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

About Namati

Since 2012, Namati has worked to build a movement of grassroots justice advocates worldwide. We’ve grown from a small founding group of change-makers to a global staff of 170+ people across 12 time zones in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Grassroots Justice Network, which we co-founded and convene to this day, has grown from 30 people in one room to the world’s largest community of justice advocates, with membership from 4,200 organizations across 190 countries.

Since our founding, we have supported local communities to take on thousands of justice issues, directly improving the lives of over 5 million people, protecting over 3 million acres of forests and grasslands, and strengthening rights for over 155 million people. Together with communities, partners, and Network members, we’ve envisioned - and won- transformative changes, like the Customary Land Rights and National Land Commission Acts of Sierra Leone, and the world’s first Legal Empowerment Fund.

Namati has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Journal of Law and Equality, TED, DW, The Economist, Amanpour & Co., The Baltimore Sun, The Telegraph, and Open Global Rights, among other outlets. We’ve received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Global Pluralism Award, and the 2030 Racial Equity Prize, among other honors. Documentaries about our work have been screened at film festivals, government offices, museums, in communities, and beyond.

As we move into our next phase, we’re growing our global team of passionate, results-oriented, big-hearted advocates, united by a common mission and a strong culture, which you can read more about here.

About Resource Mobilization

Alongside the growth in our ambition and impact, Namati’s budget has increased, on average, by 18% per year -- from $5M to more than $16M in ten years. Our donor base has grown from 3 founding partners to over 40 bilateral and philanthropic funding partners. Major recent investments include two unrestricted awards from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott and an 8-year, $20M award from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation through the Racial Equity 2030 competition. Namati is in the strongest financial position in our history, with assets four times of our annual budget.

Many of our funding partners remain with us for the long haul. We are particularly proud that two longtime supporters, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, went on to support the Legal Empowerment Fund, with an aim to mobilize $100M to support grassroots justice.

At the heart of our fundraising track record is our commitment to bold, inspired action as fundraisers. Namati’s Resource Mobilization team does not take a transactional approach to fundraising; instead, we operate from the principle that fundraising is organizing -- forming relationships with funding partners committed not only to our organization, but to the entire legal empowerment movement. We strive to build and steward expansive, long-term, and high-level funding partnerships that match the ambitious scale of our vision.

This kind of fundraising requires a team of aligned, courageous, and strategic connectors who understand where Namati is uniquely placed to make a difference, who can learn continually from our work - and the work of our network and collaborators - to identify promising opportunities, and to create new ones.