Overview
Many Americans feel increasingly isolated and discouraged by the civic process — refusing to talk to canvassers, ignoring phone calls, and disengaging from civic life. We know that misinformation and disinformation is rampant — distorting everything from the work of elected leaders and our government to how and when and why to vote. We also know that resources needed to combat these challenges and to advance and protect democracy are not meeting this moment, and in some cases, drying up quickly. Indeed, charitable giving overall experienced one of the sharpest declines in history last year (by more than 10%, adjusted for inflation).
To combat these challenges, as leading donor networks, we have launched Building For Democracy (BFD), a collaborative campaign to engage new funders and expand funding for the pro-democracy and non-partisan civic engagement field as a whole. Our goal is to increase overall funding for nonpartisan civic engagement capacity in multiple states by a factor of two or more in the next 18 months, and to grow the financial capacity needed to fight authoritarianism over the long haul, and in the lead up to the next census and redistricting in 2030.
The funding partners leading this unified effort, including the Democracy Alliance Pooled Fund, Movement Voter Fund, Strategic Victory Fund, and Way to Rise, will identify and engage new donors by promoting the most imperative, priority gaps across tactics and infrastructure in a targeted group of states.
RFP Need
The Building for Democracy Campaign seeks a detail-oriented, hyper-organized, and efficient consultant to serve as our operations assistant. The operations assistant will be responsible for supporting the donor and program teams in maintaining accurate records of all anticipated and completed transactions; helping manage spreadsheets and other data management systems; and working with the operations lead to ensure all data are regularly reconciled with both internal financial accounting and financial reports provided by the project’s fiscal sponsors.
Responsibilities:
Assist in building out and maintaining tracking of prospective and actual donors as well as prospective and actual grant beneficiaries
Coordinate between the finance, donor, and grantmaking teams to ensure regular reconciliation of internal data
Help facilitate and maintain relationships with the project’s fiscal sponsors, including in regular reconciliation of internal records with the financial records provided by the fiscal sponsors
Coordinate with the relevant finance and data management counterparts of each partner organization to ensure the necessary cohesion of and communication between data management systems
Support BFD principals in preparation for meetings with internal and external stakeholders
Take and distribute detailed notes on required internal and external calls
Support principals and team on miscellaneous administrative items as needed
Qualifications:
Proven experience in a fast-paced and entrepreneurial setting
Obsessive attention to detail
Skilled at facilitating coordination and collaboration between multiple departments and entities
Solution-oriented mindset
Ability to manage up
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Ability to manage multiple tasks and deadlines simultaneously
High level of discretion and ability to handle confidential information
A passion for equity, human rights, and democratic ideals
Compensation: Competitive retainer: approx. 4k/monthly, roughly 15 hours/week
Start Date: Immediate
Proposals Due By April 15 - send CVs & Cover letters to: Heather.Reddick@gmail.com
Nondiscrimination
All qualified consultants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, creed, age, sex, national origin, ethnic identity, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected basis. The vendor will adopt and disseminate a policy that the vendor, in employment, recruitment, selection, compensation, benefits, promotion, demotion, layoff, termination, and all other terms and conditions of employment will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, age, sex, national origin, ethnic identity, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected basis.
No obligation to contract
This request for proposal does not obligate our organization to contract for services specified.
Rejection of proposals
Our organization reserves the right at its sole discretion to reject any and all proposals received without penalty and not to issue a contract as a result of this request for proposal.
Other
Our organization reserves the right to make an award without further discussion of the proposal submitted. Therefore, the proposal should be submitted initially on the most favorable terms that the vendor could propose. There will be no best-and-final-offer procedure. We reserve the right to contact a vendor for clarification of its proposal.
The vendor should be prepared to accept this request for proposal for incorporation into a contract resulting from this request for proposal. Contract negotiations may incorporate some or the vendor’s entire proposal. It is understood that the proposal will become a part of the official procurement file on this matter without obligation.