Development and Operations Associate
Development and Operations Associate
Full-time, Non-Exempt
Reports to Director of Operations
Expected start date: November 2025
About Acterra
Acterra is driven by the opportunity to learn and grow together while achieving high impact through fighting climate change and reducing carbon emissions. We harness the individual strengths within our staff and our network to foster a leader-full organization. Our team members are high performers and high collaborators. We encourage creativity and failing forward.
Inclusiveness
Acterra strives to ensure that the organization is welcoming and inclusive. Acterra is an equal opportunity employer that supports and lives diversity in our staffing and values. Acterra does not discriminate as to gender, race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, social background, disability, pregnancy, marital status, political affiliation, or age. Acterra strives to include persons from traditionally under-represented groups and complies with all applicable national and local laws on non-discrimination and equal opportunity.
We strongly encourage and seek applications from women; people of color; immigrant, bilingual, and bicultural individuals; and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming communities. Acterra complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment.
Acterra’s Climate Action Programs
Acterra is a Bay Area-focused environmental organization based in Palo Alto that brings people together to create local solutions for a healthy planet. The organization’s roots go back to 1970 with a history of inspiring and motivating action for change. Our programs are:
● Beneficial Electrification for All: helps accelerate an equitable shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy by prioritizing and accelerating the adoption of all-electric appliances, buildings, and vehicles that operate on clean energy instead of fossil fuels.
● Food: promotes plant-rich eating and food waste reduction by residents, institutions, and local communities for better personal health and a lower carbon footprint.
● Education: includes the Public Lecture Series, which invites leading voices from academia, business, and policy to discuss global change issues; the You(th) Be the Change climate-based education and leadership program.
● Advocacy: elevates equity issues across our program areas and includes EV Charging Access Coalition, focused on accessibility of charging in multi-family housing, and Acterra’s Student Ambassador Program, which encourages student-led change in local communities.
- The Development and Operations Associate provides administrative, HR, development and special projects support for Acterra’s programs, senior staff and Board leadership. This supports Acterra’s operations and development departments, handling administrative, HR, and IT support for staff, correspondences including donor relations, overseeing and troubleshooting scheduling, entering and sourcing data, and planning and preparing materials for meetings. This position will also maintain our hybrid office space, as needed. The position is also responsible for providing administrative and logistical support to the Board of Directors.
Operations and Program Support:
- Provide administrative and logistical support across Acterra’s range of programs, including tracking deliverables for key projects, updating each program’s website, and other duties as necessary.
- Maintains onboarding materials and supports onboarding processes for all staff.
- Communicate with IT support to procure necessary technology. Support all Acterra’s tech as necessary.
- Maintains human resources folders on all staff.
- Supervise use of Acterra’s hybrid office space to maintain cleanliness, organization, and ease of use to all staff.
- Oversee Acterra’s file management systems, including Dropbox and Google Drive.
- Produce pre-event checklists, forms, and timelines and communicate with the program team including volunteers and staff.
- Undertakes special assignments and projects at the request of the Executive Director and provides necessary support on Leadership activities.
- Represent Acterra in a positive way within the environmental community, and in interactions with individuals and organizations external to Acterra.
- Other duties as necessary.
- Inputs donor and volunteer information into Bloomerang (Acterra’s CRM).
- Gathers and shares insights to support the Executive Director’s donor and volunteer engagement.
- Generates lapsed lists and donor segments for Executive Director.
- Organizes and schedules the Executive Director’s donor meetings. Coordinates schedules on behalf of the Executive Director. Compiles and prepares agendas, briefings, case for support materials, and proposals, as requested.
- Coordinate the preparation of printed and digital materials for meetings and publications.
- Participate and assist in planning Acterra’s fundraising activities including galas, individual donor fundraising events and site visits.
- Support Acterra’s grant writing activities, as needed.
- Manages and facilitates volunteer opportunities across Acterra programming, creating a volunteer engagement strategy that is implemented across the organization.
- Identifies systems, tools and processes for improvement and makes recommendations for change.
- Continually enhances personal productivity by learning and using the latest software tools.
- Maintains positive working relationships with staff at all levels of the organization
- Provides administrative and logistical support to the Board of Directors, including scheduling meetings and retreats, gathering and distributing board materials, taking minutes as needed, tracking deliverables, updating the board website, and maintaining records for the full board and all the board committees.
- Understands, supports and models Acterra’ s values at all times.
- Takes responsibility for own career development and seeks opportunities to enhance skills and knowledge.
- Shows initiative to take on additional tasks, duties and assignments to ensure Acterra fulfills its responsibilities.
- Recommends new approaches, procedures and processes to effect continual improvements in efficiency of department and services performed.
- Lead event planning needs, such as Harvest Brunch (Acterra’s donor thank you event) and other donor events.
- Performs other related duties as assigned.
- Regular and predictable attendance is required.
- 2 years of relevant experience in a support position
- Ability to exercise sound judgement in handling sensitive and confidential information with discretion while maintaining the highest level of confidentiality
- Skilled at balancing competing priorities; demonstrated ability to anticipate and prioritize tasks, organize and maintain workflow, and adhere to or create processes
- Highly organized with meticulous attention to detail
- High level of integrity, productivity, and initiative
- Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced environment
- Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively with staff at all levels of the organization
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including ability to communicate directly and effectively with others
- Tactfulness, flexibility and willingness to collaborate with others
- Ability to work independently as well as part of a team environment
- Ability to compose correspondence and utilize communication tools
- Ability to use relevant data to analyze trends and elicit insights
- Skilled as a resourceful problem-solver
- Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint, Asana, and Slack are beneficial.
- Demonstrated ability to utilize and master technical tools that further and enhance productivity
- Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work with staff at all levels of the organization.
- Ability and willingness to work evenings and weekends, as needed
- Ability to travel locally
- Ability to exercise good judgment and independent thinking in decision-making
- Demonstrated commitment to a diverse and inclusive work environment
This is a full-time, non-exempt position. Your schedule may vary based on need and may include evening and weekend hours on a regular basis. The annual rate for this associate level role will be $60,000, annually. Acterra strives to provide equitable and competitive compensation for all of its employees, including health, vision, and dental insurance for staff and dependents, generous PTO, and a retirement match. Acterra offers a highly collegial work environment. This role offers the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on climate change. Professional growth opportunities are available. Acterra offers a flexible work-from-home policy; however, this position requires frequent work from our Palo Alto office, travel to a San Francisco partner location, and other SF Bay Area locations.
Applicants should submit a substantive and thoughtful cover letter describing their interest in the position and making the case for the relevance of their experience. The cover letter should be submitted together with a current resume to jobs@acterra.org. Applications missing a cover letter or resume will not be considered. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. If selected for the process, expect a phone screen, a one-on-one, and a group interview.