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Director of Special Projects

Groundwork CollaborativeWashington, DC
$145,000 - $179,000Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Special Projects is a creative, nimble operator in Groundwork's operations team, partnering with the COO, internal team members, and outside consultants to drive key operational initiatives. The job is equal parts inventor and builder: sometimes designing a solution where none exists, other times laying the systems and infrastructure a fast-growing organization needs to scale. The role engages projects in different ways depending on the work: as end-to-end owner, cross-vertical collaborator, or subject matter expert lending operational depth to a specific workstream. This role is built for someone who thrives in both structure and ambiguity, jumps between contexts with ease, and brings both creative problem-solving and rigorous follow-through to whatever lands on their plate. You'll work across systems, data, operations, and strategy—building the infrastructure and workflows that help the organization scale and perform.

Requirements

  • 7–10+ years of experience in operations, program management, or implementation-focused roles
  • Demonstrated ability to move quickly, work across diverse workstreams, and pivot without losing momentum
  • Creative problem-solver who can ideate effectively in spaces without established processes or precedent
  • Strong project management skills with a track record of delivering complex initiatives end-to-end
  • Experience building or managing dashboards, reporting systems, or data workflows
  • High comfort with ambiguity—able to structure unclear problems, not just execute well-defined ones
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills; able to work across teams and translate between technical and non-technical contexts
  • Self-directed and low-ego: equally comfortable taking direction and rolling up their sleeves

Nice To Haves

  • Experience in nonprofit finance and operations, startup organizations, data development, CRM and project management platforms (e.g., Airtable, Salesforce, ClickUp, Asana), creative problem solver, and servant leadership mindset.

Responsibilities

  • Lead Project Management & Execution
  • Own project management for high-priority initiatives, from scoping through delivery
  • Translate initiatives into clear workplans and timelines.
  • Drive execution, proactively unblock issues, and ensure on-time delivery at a high standard
  • Establish and maintain project management norms, systems and reporting
  • Pivot fluidly between initiatives as organizational priorities evolve
  • Ideate and Build in New Spaces
  • Partner with the COO and leadership to problem-solve in areas without established playbooks and help define success when the organization is tackling something new, then build toward it
  • Bring creative, practical thinking to novel operational challenges
  • Surface approaches and opportunities that leadership hasn't yet considered
  • Build Data Systems & Dashboards
  • Lead development of internal dashboards and reporting tools across teams
  • Help define key metrics and ensure consistent data tracking across the organization
  • Maintain and improve fundraising data systems for pipeline tracking, reporting, and profiles
  • Translate team needs into practical, usable reporting tools that improve data visibility and reliability
  • Drive adoption of tools (e.g., CRM, dashboards, project tracking) in partnership with outside vendors where relevant
  • Ensure systems are practical, well-documented, and consistently used
  • Improve Workflows & Reduce Friction
  • Identify and implement opportunities to streamline operations
  • Introduce automations and process improvements that reduce manual work
  • Standardize workflows to improve clarity, efficiency, and consistency
  • Help turn strategy into clear, usable workflows and documentation; support teams in adopting new ways of working
  • Support Strategic Planning
  • Help operationalize organizational strategy and planning frameworks
  • Support progress tracking and internal reporting on key goals
  • Contribute to forward projections and materials development

Benefits

  • We offer a generous benefits package including five weeks of vacation and personal leave, two week-long office closures, additional time off for floating and federal holidays, zero-premium health insurance, a generous HRA, a retirement match of up to 6%, up to 16 weeks parental leave, and health club and cell-phone reimbursements.
  • We are a hybrid workplace, with two days a week in the office and three days remote, as well as the occasional need to work in person for events and special projects.
  • Groundwork is a unionized workplace and is represented by the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU). This position is not in the bargaining unit.

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What This Job Offers

Job Type

Full-time

Career Level

Director

Education Level

No Education Listed

Number of Employees

1-10 employees

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