Senior Associate, Climate

Background

Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) is the nation’s leading investment intermediary and network CDFIs serving rural, urban, and Native communities across the United States. With over $1 billion in total assets under management, OFN manages a national membership network of over 410 mission-driven lenders and CDFIs, including community development loan funds, credit unions, green banks, community development banks, minority depository institutions, and venture capital funds. OFN is a trusted investment partner to the public, private, and philanthropic sectors – foundations, corporations, banks, government agencies, and others. For more than 30 years, our team has helped partners invest in communities to catalyze change and create economic opportunities for people and places traditional finance doesn’t reach.

To learn more, visit ofn.org

People who work at OFN come from a variety of professional and academic backgrounds. If you have:

• Passion for the mission and true believer in our core purpose.
• Courage to be a fearless advocate who is confident and resilient in our fight to drive capital into low-income communities.
• Smart, quick seekers of knowledge who thrive on creating and developing new strategies, products, and programs for increasing capital to communities we serve.
• Desire to be a collaborative team player who possesses humility and a willingness to lean in all areas of our work.

Summary

OFN is seeking an entrepreneurial, knowledgeable, and detail-oriented Senior Associate to join the Climate team. OFN has established climate change as a priority area of focus for the organization. This role will support OFN’s growing climate initiatives, including the development and deployment of our new program which will be funded by the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The goal of this program is to transform the community development finance industry with a new clean financing ecosystem.

The Senior Associate, Climate will support the development and subsequent management of new climate initiatives including: workforce development programs, help desk, lender training programs, market building activities, and impact data collection. The role will collaborate substantially with other teams across the organization to support integration of climate-related programming and knowledge across departments.

Come be a part of our growing, diverse, highly committed, skilled, and collaborative staff. At OFN, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive workplace, so if you are excited about this role but your experience does not align perfectly with every qualification, we encourage you to apply nonetheless. You may be the right candidate for this or other roles.

This position is based in Washington, D.C. All staff currently work a hybrid schedule.

Report to: Vice President, Climate and Environmental Programs

Responsibilities

• Support Climate program initiatives as directed, including but not limited to support for market building activities, green workforce development, contractor accelerators, and delivery of project-level assistance via a help desk.
• Work cross-functionally to support implementation of Climate program initiatives across the organization and to increase climate presence and programming in other OFN departments.
• Support the creation of capacity building resources to help OFN members launch or deepen their climate lending, providing subject matter knowledge to help other teams develop training materials, marketing toolkits, and other resources. Core subject matter areas include solar, wind, storage, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles.
• Collaborate with other teams to support recruitment of climate-focused lenders.
• Support the VP, Climate in the creation of tools to enable multiple lenders to participate in financing a project (ex: loan syndication platform).
• Assist with monitoring and disseminating climate lending-related resources and funding opportunities, including federal and state incentives, which lenders may be able to leverage.
• Collaborate with relevant teams to assist the VP, Climate in the build out of climate data reporting platform, including data collection, cleaning, synthesis and presentation.
• Support the development and implementation processes for collecting and managing climate data in Salesforce (for prospecting, connecting, etc.), with responsibility for data entry and maintenance.
• Support development of processes and content creation for new climate help desk.
• In partnership with relevant teams, manage climate communities on CDFI Connect and support other direct communications with OFN members (e.g.: webinars, outreach activities, etc.)
• Provide support for Sustainability Committee and Climate Industry Advisory Council meetings, including agenda development and logistics.
• Engage with external stakeholders, including OFN members and industry stakeholders and partners.
• Perform other duties as assigned, including supporting climate-related special initiatives and Climate team functions, such as climate transaction pipeline development activities, climate research projects, etc.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in sustainability, business administration, community development, environmental or urban planning, or related fields, or 5+ years of relevant work experience required in lieu of a degree.
• Minimum of 3+ years of relevant experience is required.
• Experience working in clean energy or climate-related initiatives.
• Experience within a community-based nonprofit organization or CDFI and knowledge of and strong commitment to community development is preferred.
• Familiarity with financing of decarbonization and clean energy technologies (solar, energy storage, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, etc), workforce development, and small business development.
• Experience developing new processes or programs is preferred.
• Must possess a strong passion for, understanding of, and commitment to OFN’s mission, vision, and values. In addition, be a fearless advocate, who is confident and resilient in OFN’s fight to drive capital into low-income communities.
• A collaborative team player who possesses the interpersonal skills to work across all levels of the organization, humility, and a willingness to learn in all areas of our work. Be a strong team contributor, effective and comfortable in leading as well as supporting roles within teams.
• Be a smart, quick seeker of knowledge with the ability to think strategically, creatively, and tactically to analyze grant reports and assist in assuring success with our grant programs.
• Superior interpersonal skills and ability to work well with diverse constituents.
• Strong project management and ability to multitask and quickly shift gears to support organizational and/or departmental demands.
• Ability to learn quickly and adapt to fluid work demands.
• Digital literacy to navigate workplace technology required.
• Occasional travel may be required (up to 5% of time).
• No extraordinary physical requirements beyond ability to travel.
• Job involves normal physical requirements for an office position.

How to Apply

Apply by submitting your resume and cover letter here.

EOE STATEMENT – We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.