Executive Director

~ The Heart of the Rockies Initiative (HOTR) is a partnership of local, regional and national land trusts who work along the Rocky Mountain corridor from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in southwest Wyoming to the protected open lands of the Bow River and Upper Columbia in Alberta and British Columbia. ~

The Mission of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative is to increase the pace and durable impact of conservation for both the continentally irreplaceable landscapes of the central Rocky Mountain corridor and community values that are prized locally.

Position Overview

The Executive Director provides leadership and staff supervision to support achievement of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative’s vision, goals and strategies.

Key responsibilities include foundation and major donor fundraising, coordinating and maintaining the Heart of the Rockies land trust membership and the Initiative’s many partnerships, developing and implementing a collaborative fundraising strategy for capital funding, increasing public funding in the region, science-based conservation planning, and building the collective and individual organizational capacity of HOTR land trusts.

Additionally, the Executive Director is a champion for collaborative, community-based conservation at landscape scale, and as such works with many partners to advance large landscape conservation.

The Executive Director’s direct supervisor is the Heart of the Rockies Board President, and the organization is governed by Bylaws adopted by the Heart of the Rockies membership.  The Executive Director’s work is guided by HOTR’s Strategic Plan.  The Executive Director supervises staff, contractors and consultants.

Responsibilities

The Executive Director leads the Heart of the Rockies partnership in identification, development of strategies that enable the partnership to achieve its vision and goals, and then in obtaining the funding and other resources needed to implement them. These include:

• Advancing the rate of conservation in the region by increasing private capital funding and public funding available for voluntary private land conservation and restoration as well as support for cross-boundary conservation in an all hands/all lands approach to landscape conservation.
• Completing collaborative conservation plans, and updating and revising them as needed.
• Ensuring that Heart of the Rockies is a hub for reliable, useful and up-to-date science to inform conservation actions and respond to landscape concerns such as climate change.
• Increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of HOTR land trusts by administering capacity building programs and working with collaborative partners to build opportunities for conservation and restoration in landscape initiatives.
• Networking and collaboration to share information and lessons learned, coordinate activities and launch joint ventures.
• Developing and sustaining collaboration across sectors and boundaries to enable member organizations and partners to achieve greater landscape conservation impact.

Fundraising: 

• The Executive Director has lead responsibility for raising the operating and capital funding necessary to achieve the HOTR’s vision and goals and to implement its priority strategies.
• The Executive Director develops and sustains relationships with major donors and foundations, writes grant proposals and prepares interim and final reports.
• The Executive Director works with the HOTR partnership and others to develop and implement collaborative fundraising strategies to bring new capital funding to private land conservation.

Outreach:

• The Executive Director builds strategic relationships with funders and other nonprofit and public partners both within and outside the region to ensure that Heart of the Rockies acts and is viewed as an agent for landscape-scale conservation with a community-based perspective.
• The Executive Director ensures that the organization and its members tell the story of the landscape-scale impacts of their community-based conservation work to engage wider public participation in land trust efforts and to eliminate fear-based reaction to landscape conservation.
• Additionally, the Executive Director represents the partnership in large landscape conservation initiatives to generate a higher profile for land trust activities.

Capacity building:

• The Executive Director administers capacity building regrant programs to HOTR land trusts and other partners.
• The Executive Director also develops and implements strategies to build the organizational capacity of individual HOTR land trusts and to establish collective capacity to influence public policy processes, build coalitions and conduct education and outreach about voluntary private land conservation and landscape conservation.

Foster the development and maturation of the HOTR partnership:

• The Executive Director leads the Heart of the Rockies partnership in the development and maintenance of governance policies and procedures as needed for the organization to function effectively and assists the partnership in setting strategic goals and work plans to achieve them and in monitoring and evaluating the success.
• The Executive Director ensures effective and timely internal communications among HOTR members through partnership meetings and regular member outreach.
• The Executive Director must maintain an effective working relationship with the Heart of the Rockies Board of Directors and any working committees.

Administration and Management: 

• The Executive Director works with the Board of Directors and supervises staff to ensure that the organization is effective, impactful, financially sound and sustainable.
• The Executive Director works with the Board of Directors to prepare and monitor budgets and to ensure responsible and accountable financial management.
• The Executive Director manages regular staff, contractors and consultants in accordance with the HOTR Personnel Policy toward achievement of Heart of the Rockies’s strategic goals.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate will be a seasoned professional who meets most or all of the following qualifications:

• A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in a natural resource field, planning, business, organizational development or a related field and 5 - 7 years of progressively responsible experience.  Advanced degree preferred.
• A demonstrated track-record of fundraising, preferably with major donor experience.
• Leadership experience, able to set a clear vision and motivate diverse groups to work collaboratively under changing and uncertain conditions.  Ability to create and thrive in a team environment and work in partnership with a variety of people and organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically, develop and manage complex projects from start-up to completion, and adopt new approaches in response to changing circumstances.  Ability to learn and translate information into action.
• Knowledge and experience with the policies and tools of voluntary private land conservation and conservation finance generally; administration, budgeting and the management of nonprofit organizations; previous experience with private land conservation preferred.
• Knowledge of the science and practice of large landscape conservation, conservation collaboration, and working with entities engaged in landscape conservation.
• Commitment to the mutual goals of sustaining working farms and ranches on the landscape and maintaining biological diversity and functioning ecological systems at the landscape scale.
• Ability to work independently.
• Ability to grow in the job with the capacity to infuse the organization with energy and creativity

Core competencies for success as the Executive Director:

•  As a visionary who understands the Heart of the Rockies culture and can inspire and motivate the partnership to imagine its possibilities and track its effectiveness.
•  As a change agent who can embrace a changing environment and lead organizational evolution to respond to new conditions.
•  As a relationship builder with the solid interpersonal skills needed to grow partnerships and help members, staff and partners build productive relationships with all kinds of people and interests.
•  As an astute interpreter of the social and political environment who can engage with people with diverse perspectives.
•  As a community creator who can engage with external stakeholders and build partnerships and collaborations.
•  As a resource manager who can ensure sound financial management and build team-based fundraising.

To Apply

Please click below: "Apply" to upload your resume and cover letter detailing your education and experience and how you meet the desired qualifications by May 1, 2017.