Who We Are: Carina Initiatives
Carina Initiatives is a philanthropic fund working to send more kids from more communities to the frontiers of science and technology. We see math as fundamental to future innovation; as such, we fund and support organizations that work to inspire, unearth, and train math talent.
The U.S. math enrichment space is full of extraordinary programs that inspire and train talented youth. There are established summer camps such as Mathcamp, Ross, SUMaC and PROMYS and up and coming camps like G2. There is a growing ecosystem of math circles including Berkeley Math Circle, UCLA Math Circle, Math Circles of Chicago, Cambridge Math Circle, and Navajo Math Circles. There are also amazing boutique programs like Athemath, run by high school students, and Euler Circle, which offers college-level math classes during the school year.
These are the places that are developing and nurturing the future leaders in STEM fields and they do it by challenging and inspiring their students.
The problem with this math enrichment space, as we see it, is that it's not serving enough students. Acceptance rates at some of these programs are lower than top universities. Furthermore, many of these programs struggle to bring in diverse cohorts of students despite wanting to improve socioeconomic, geographic, gender, and racial diversity.
We want to support the growth of this space by helping organizations increase their capacity to serve more students and diversify their student body. Carina is committing $2M (given the space is ready for this level of funding) of annual grant funding to this work and will work closely with other aligned funders with the goal of bringing at least $5M annually in new philanthropic funding to this space.
Role
We are looking for a Principal with experience building organizational capacity to join the Carina team and lead our math enrichment initiative.
The Principal’s primary responsibility will be growing the enrichment space through capacity building support and grant making. They will work closely with a grants committee for this initiative, which includes Josh Taylor, President of Carina, and Paul Sherman, President of Polynera, to build a portfolio of organizations. The Principal will lead on sourcing and management of portfolio organizations, which will include in depth consulting stints when needed.
The Principal's secondary responsibility will be building and managing a community of Carina-aligned funders. This work will include organizing meetings amongst the funders, creating repositories of shared best practices, developing co-funding opportunities, and recruiting new funders.
You’ll be part of a small and energetic team with a nimble decision-making process. This is a full-time position reporting to the President of Carina Initiatives.
Responsibilities
- Create relationships and originate grant opportunities
- Evaluate potential partner organizations
- Monitor partner organizations and manage relationships
- Work directly with the leaders of math enrichment programs to provide them operational and organizational advice
- Grow and nurture a community of Carina aligned funders
Skill and Experiences
- Experience with advanced mathematics or prior exposure to math enrichment programs, STEM degree preferred
- Exceptional communicator, capable of managing partner relationships and working collaboratively with our grants committee
- Sufficient managerial experience (3-5 years) to evaluate and advise grantee organizations on operational and organizational issues
- Self motivated problem solver capable of independent work and time management
- Extremely high energy and drive
- Exceptional quantitative and analytical skills
- Management consulting experience is a plus
Preferred Location
Remote and/or Southern California. Open to a fully remote US-based position with light quarterly travel. Occasional travel to meet with partner organizations is also required.
We value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, veteran status, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.
Salary:
$150k-225k