Executive Director, Philanthropy Data Commons

MacArthur Foundation•Chicago, IL

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Executive Director will lead the Philanthropy Data Commons (PDC) through its next phase of growth, adoption, and long-term sustainability. The PDC is shared infrastructure that connects philanthropic systems and enables funders, changemakers, and ecosystem partners to share information securely on terms they choose. Its first live application, Exchange, helps funders explore standardized grant proposal data and coordinate funding decisions while giving nonprofits greater visibility to aligned funders. The Executive Director will turn PDC’s sector-wide vision into a focused strategy, broader participation, demonstrated value, and lasting impact. The role combines strategy, coalition-building, institution-building, fundraising, and execution, and serves as the initiative’s primary external representative. The Executive Director will work with the PDC Co-Directors and Mac Services to guide the initiative’s organizational transition, including determining its long-term legal and organizational home and establishing appropriate governance, financial, and operating structures. The Executive Director will lead a team of consultants across technology, governance, external relations, communications, and fundraising. They will assess and evolve the current team and operating model, build partnerships and participation across philanthropy, broaden financial support beyond MacArthur, and provide strategic direction for technology and data priorities. The work is focused on building trusted, neutral infrastructure that reduces nonprofit administrative burden, improves visibility, and gives organizations meaningful control over their data. This is a term-limited position with the MacArthur Foundation as the employer, seconded to Mac Services. The position is hybrid and based in Chicago, Illinois. The annual salary starts at $282,200, with benefits commensurate with MacArthur’s term-limited staff positions.

Requirements

Track record of building trust and mobilizing leaders across diverse organizations, sectors, and interests, particularly where participation is voluntary and collaboration is essential.
Demonstrated ability to build coalitions, consortia, platforms, or shared-infrastructure initiatives and influence organizations to adopt new ways of working.
Collaborative, inclusive leadership style and record of achieving results through influence, shared ownership, and collective action rather than formal authority.
Experience developing and executing strategy for an emerging, technology-enabled, or mission-driven organization in a complex and evolving environment.
Ability to clarify an organization’s distinctive value, identify high-leverage opportunities and network effects, and translate an ambitious vision into a focused path to impact.
Comfort navigating ambiguity and adapting strategy as an organizational model and path to scale evolve.
Demonstrated experience taking an idea, platform, network, or initiative from concept to tangible implementation, adoption, and measurable results.
Ability to set priorities, make decisions amid ambiguity, establish operating discipline, move work forward without complete consensus, and translate strategy into accountable plans.
Ability to communicate complex technical, organizational, and sector issues clearly to diverse audiences and articulate a tangible value proposition through concrete use cases.
Experience as a credible public representative, thought leader, spokesperson, or advocate, including with both technical and nontechnical audiences.
Capacity to understand complex ecosystems and lead change across organizations with differing incentives, influence, and readiness to act.
Experience advancing public good or shared infrastructure, persuading institutions to adopt new approaches, and navigating settings where partners may also be collaborators or competitors.
Fluency in data governance, privacy, security, and related technology issues sufficient to understand their strategic importance, ask informed questions, and engage appropriate expertise.
Record of leading a small, high-performing, flexible organization or initiative in a complex or evolving environment.
Ability to clarify roles, recruit complementary talent, empower experienced colleagues, and determine which capabilities belong internally versus with consultants, partners, or outside experts.
Self-awareness to identify where additional expertise is needed and build an operating model suited to changing organizational needs and scale.
Ability to raise philanthropic support, develop strategic partnerships, and build a sustainable financial model for an emerging or evolving initiative.
Public-good orientation and judgment to balance near-term sustainability with the goal of creating durable, trusted infrastructure.

Nice To Haves

Experience assessing organizational structure, revenue options, legal arrangements, and partnership models.

Responsibilities

Lead PDC strategy and execution by creating a focused roadmap, priorities, measurable goals, and disciplined execution.
Expand participation among funders, changemakers, grants-management systems, data platforms, and other ecosystem partners; identify relationships and use cases that can accelerate network effects.
Serve as PDC’s chief external ambassador and coalition builder, articulate its vision, build trust across constituencies, and position it as trusted, neutral infrastructure.
Ensure PDC delivers tangible value to changemakers and funders, including reduced nonprofit administrative burden, greater visibility, and meaningful control over data.
Guide PDC’s organizational transition with the Co-Directors and Mac Services, helping determine its long-term legal and governance structure and establish decision rights, systems, and an operating model.
Build and lead the organization for the future by assessing its consultant-heavy structure, recruiting complementary talent, and developing a high-performing team across relevant functions.
Strengthen financial sustainability by broadening philanthropic support beyond MacArthur, cultivating funders and strategic partners, and shaping longer-term revenue approaches consistent with PDC’s mission and neutrality.
Provide strategic leadership on technology and data, ensuring priorities reflect PDC’s mission, user needs, governance principles, and path to scale while empowering technical experts to lead the underlying work.
Maintain meaningful stakeholder engagement while enabling decisive leadership and timely decisions.