About XPRIZE

XPRIZE competitions change the world for the better by accelerating innovation life cycles, catalyzing markets, and energizing stakeholders.  

The XPRIZE Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and incentivizing breakthroughs to the most critical challenges facing humanity. Since its beginning in 1994, the Foundation has been building and continues to build a vision of hope and abundance for humanity’s future by harnessing the power of innovators, technology, and resources.  

Through incentive prize competitions, XPRIZE enables people to create bold and transformative solutions that are scalable and drive real impact. XPRIZE competitions positively impact both the marketplace and humanity by addressing the market failures that have prevented significant breakthroughs across multiple sectors.  

An XPRIZE… 

sets an audacious but achievable goal that aims to overcome challenges deemed impossible. It tackles some of humanity's most pressing issues by redefining what is achievable and pushing the boundaries of human potential.  

defines and addresses a clear problem through extensive research, a design sprint, and a competition that catalyzes the development of the next breakthroughs to put humanity on the path toward a preferred future state for all. The desired outcome from an XPRIZE is clear and measurable, and the rules of the competition are transparent and easily understood.  

democratizes innovation by encouraging expert and nonexpert participation and multidisciplinary collaboration.  

catalyzes markets and revitalizes stagnant industries by increasing awareness of market failures and accelerating innovations to address them.  

is highly leveraged, with competing teams attracting and mobilizing investment capital, partner support, and new members in pursuit of the prize. Philanthropic dollars are thus magnified in support of a solution.  

Our first XPRIZE, the $10 million Ansari XPRIZE for private spaceflight, spurred an industry and created exponential breakthroughs. Since then we have provided over $140 million in incentives through these competitions. Each prize has created an industry-changing technology that brings us closer to a better, safer, more sustainable world.  

The use of incentive competitions, or prizes, to accelerate innovation goes back over 300 years, to when the British Admiralty launched the Longitude Prize in 1714 to find a better way to navigate our seas. In the years since, several well-known innovations have resulted from incentive competitions, including canning as a form of food preservation (a competition launched by Napoleon in 1795), modern plastics (the Billiard Ball Prize, 1863) and commercial aviation (the Orteig Prize, 1919).  

This is more than a job to us. When you work at XPRIZE, you’re making a positive impact on some of the biggest challenges facing our world. Whether you’re working in prize design or development, marketing and communications, stakeholder relations, business operations or any other department, you’re playing a critical role in turning the impossible into the possible.

Role Overview 

The Senior Strategist, Operations will define, build, and manage an operations and enablement team within our development department, focused on supporting front-line fundraising efforts and stewarding the donor experience. S/he will assign responsibility for the various operational functions within the team, as well as foster a team mentality for achieving department goals. S/he will work closely with other departments and company leadership to promote process buy-in and adoption, foster trust, enable bidirectional flows of information, and ensure alignment of team efforts with foundation goals.

Responsibilities 

• Design, build, and manage the operations and enablement department 
• Create and execute a prioritized plan for defining and implementing the various functions of the operations team, which include research and prospecting; pipeline tracking and reporting using Salesforce; supporting donor relationship managers with materials and processes to increase donor conversion; stewardship; business process definition, including interdepartmental processes for contracting and invoicing; setting and measuring individual and team goals and associated KPIs; and operations strategy 
• Support better management reporting, information flow, business processes, and organizational planning 
• Provide cross-functional team leadership through establishing and facilitating focus, direction, and motivation of team members, leveraging diverse views, and encouraging innovative solutions 
• Align cross-functional teams to drive decision making in governance settings and to execute on the development strategy 
• Promote strong relationships with and between project team members and serve as key point person for team members issue identification and management 
• Work closely with cross-functional team leaders to communicate on strategy, operations plans, progress, and risks to senior management 
• Lead optimization and maintenance of the Salesforce database 
• Manage a team of two (Salesforce administration, donor research and stewardship)

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in sales or fundraising operations and/or project management 
• 2+ years of direct management experience, ideally including training of new employees 
• Experience with Salesforce preferred (CRM experience a must) 
• Prior experience in a non-profit environment preferred 
• Demonstrated success in a post-secondary academic environment
• Proven leader who is comfortable both taking direction and taking charge 
• Ability to foresee and proactively align program to changing requirements 
• Ability to motivate a team and influence stakeholders, including executive level and across the organization 
• Comfortable bringing order to an ambiguous and constantly shifting environment
• Excellent interpersonal skill; awareness of team and stakeholder dynamics and environment, strong mentorship/ leadership capacity, emotional IQ, active listening 
• Exceptional writing and editing skills, with proven ability to take complex information and communicate it broadly and concisely 
• Ability to think strategically as well as execute at the detailed level 
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously 
• Experience in grant writing/fundraising a plus

Personal Abilities and Characteristics

• Ability to thrive in a fast paced, innovative environment 
• Self-starter who takes the initiative to start projects, work unsupervised, complete tasks independently, solve roadblocks, and address issues before they become problems 
• Exceptional organizational abilities; uncompromising attention to detail and dedication to excellence
• Collaborative approach; appreciation and enjoyment of working as part of a team 
• Rigorous time management skills 
• Excellent prioritization and ability to manage multiple assignments 
• Ability to maintain discretion regarding confidential and sensitive information 
• Ability to navigate a complex organization and demonstrate sound judgment in handling multiple personalities and situations 
• Personable, professional and outgoing but calm demeanor
• A desire to change the world and a determined optimism about our future

Come change the world with us.

XPRIZE Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to having a truly inclusive workforce. We do not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, national origin, marital status, age, disability, sexual orientation, political affiliation or on the basis of actual or perceived gender as expressed through dress, appearance, or behavior.