Program Director; MRBF

The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation seeks a highly collaborative, discerning, mission-driven and experienced grantmaker committed to taking on entrenched challenges and structural inequalities for its next Program Director. With its mission of helping people and places move out of poverty and achieve greater social and economic justice, the Foundation is often described as a pioneer and leader in Southern philanthropy, thanks in part to a sophisticated array of strategies and approaches, as well as its long-term support of community asset building, civic engagement efforts, and supportive policies and institutions.

The Foundation strives to foster respectful, supportive relationships with its grantee partners while diligently developing a deeper understanding of their specific contexts than is common in philanthropy. The Foundation's grantee partners, with support from the Foundation and others, have made meaningful progress on key issues across the region through boldness, patience and a carefully curated set of multi- strategy approaches.

While some raise skepticism about the prospect of social change in the region, the Foundation and its partners believe there are multiple opportunities to make a substantive difference for low-wealth communities and people of color.

The next Program Director will be coming at an exciting time for the Foundation. While the Foundation does not currently envision major strategic revisions to its mission and approach, in recent years there have been a number of personnel and organizational changes that make this perhaps the most fluid moment in its history. New board and staff members are bringing fresh ideas and perspectives to the work.

While the team is young in some ways, it is nonetheless a deeply committed, collegial and enthusiastic group that has the potential to carry on and even explore new approaches to achieving its mission. Organizationally, there has been a greater push to instill a clearer commitment to racial equity, and as a result more shared and collaborative decision-making processes.

The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation is a family foundation with total assets of $200 million and an annual grantmaking outlay of approximately $9 million. The Program Director will be expected to work consultatively and collaboratively with other staff to determine grantmaking guidelines and strategies. Mentoring and developing the Program Team and continuing to enhance and deepen the Foundation’s efforts on racial equity will be critical duties.

The Foundation’s mission is to help people and places move out of poverty and achieve greater social and economic justice. Because poverty is complicated and multi-faceted, there is a need for significant changes in systems and structures—laws, behaviors, attitudes, policies, and institutions—to make a lasting difference. The Foundation’s vision for the South is anchored in a belief in people, organizations, and the power of partnerships.

A core value is that people must directly influence the institutions and leaders that shape their economic and civic lives, and they need support and resources to do so. A defining feature of the Foundation has been centering the needs and views of grantees and communities; that those closest to the problems know best how to solve them. The Foundation’s footprint spans 11 Southern states:
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Today there are serious challenges to an equitable, inclusive and more democratic South: structural racism and other forms of discrimination are major barriers. Political control remains too concentrated. Disinvestment in public goods like education and the safety net has eroded the foundation people need to get ahead. The economy too often rewards short-term market behavior that hurts low-wealth people, communities, and natural systems.

To overcome these challenges, the Foundation employs patient, long- term investments; facilitates collaboration among unusual partners; and helps develop supportive networks for greater impact.

In pursuit of its…