The Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) is pleased to announce a national search for an executive director. We look forward to discovering a passionate, visionary leader who embodies FAIR’s values and is dedicated to building a strong organization and community that will serve our mission.
Our Current Stage of Organizational Development
FAIR is an organization launched in 2021 with a huge amount of momentum. It is one of the only nonprofits in the country dedicated to a nonpartisan, humanistic approach to cultural bridge-building. FAIR’s mission is to promote a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity in education, healthcare, the arts, and our culture at large. In the three years since its inception, FAIR has attracted tens of thousands of people from all backgrounds and political persuasions dedicated to helping the organization grow and thrive.
Even in start-up mode, FAIR has:
- Attracted millions of dollars of investment.
- Developed a robust coalition of well-respected advisors, talented employees, and impactful partners.
- Brought national attention to cases of discrimination and intolerance, including FAIR v. NYC, the cancelation of Meg Smaker’s film The Unredacted (Jihad Rehab), the firing of Tabia Lee for questioning ideological orthodoxy, various other legal cases, and legal letters sent to institutions around the country.
- Developed professional networks within medicine, education, and the arts to cultivate FAIR’s pro-human values in these critical cultural areas.
- Created literature guides, K-12 learning standards, and lesson plans teaching children an honest and optimistic view of our nation’s history, as well as fostering FAIR’s values of fairness, understanding, humanity, courage, curiosity, and compassion.
- Built a grassroots movement via nationwide chapters that empower people to make local change in their communities utilizing FAIR’s values and unique approach.
- Established FAIR Diversity corporate training into major Fortune 500 companies.
- Developed resources and messaging to aid people struggling with polarization and intolerance in their own organizations.
- Established partnerships with organizations such Braver Angels, FIRE, and others.
FAIR is currently a fiscally-sponsored project of United Charitable (UC), which has housed FAIR under its own 501c3 status as it worked to establish itself and will be a standalone nonprofit organization by November 1, 2023.
Applications Close August 31
WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ALL CANDIDATES TO READ THIS ENTIRE PACKET OF INFORMATION BEFORE APPLYING.
The candidate we seek
FAIR’s next three to five years will require a leader who can be an immediately credible and sought-after public spokesperson for our movement, a walking embodiment of FAIR’s values, and able to simultaneously build out the operational infrastructure to support FAIR’s growth and development over the long-term.
The ideal candidate is an experienced, visionary, community-minded architect and builder who:
- Lives and breathes our organizational values of fairness, understanding, and humanity, both in their professional and personal life.
- Cultivates a culture within our entire organization that comports with our stated public values and with the principles of nonviolent movement building.
- Possesses the leadership, listening skills, diplomatic acumen, and grace to bring a diverse set of energized, passionate, and vocal stakeholders together toward a common vision.
- Demonstrates and understands the importance of intellectual humility and compassion for those we disagree with.
- Understands the intellectual and institutional space in which we operate and can develop high-level networks, partnerships, and relationships.
- Develops the necessary donor network, relationships with institutional funders, and earned income opportunities to fund our important work.
- Actively works to build a high-level team of employees who have clear direction, goals, and the resources and support they need to thrive both individually and as a team.
- Surehandly navigates complicated PR and communications challenges while always adhering to and modeling our organization’s core values.
- Thrives in a start-up atmosphere and is ready to build out the operational infrastructure needed to support the growing demand for our work.
Job description
Overview:
FAIR is seeking an experienced and philosophically-aligned individual to lead our organization as Executive Director. As the leader of the organization, the Executive Director will be a public-facing example of FAIR’s core principles of fairness, understanding, and humanity. The ED will oversee implementation of FAIR’s strategic vision, developed in collaboration with the board of directors and other stakeholders, and will ensure its long term growth and success by raising and earning funds and developing a team that can carry out programming to help us reach our vision. The executive director reports to the FAIR board of directors, who will work closely with the executive director on strategy, development of budgets, fundraising, and ensuring that the organization’s communications are in line with its values.
Primary job duties/responsibilities:
- Collaborate with the board of directors to create and implement a strategic plan that includes priority programmatic aspects of the organization.
- Secure resources, with the support of directors and advisors, sufficient to ensure the financial health of FAIR and to meet its growth objectives.
- Identify, recruit, train, develop, and support a talented team of employees
- Develop and maintain a healthy organizational culture that values transparency and collaboration throughout the organization.
- Monitor organizational operations and ensure employees and practices comply with regulatory and legal requirements.
- Serve as chief spokesperson for FAIR: maintain and enhance FAIR’s image by being active and visible at all appropriate opportunities to promote FAIR, and by working closely with other organizations as appropriate.
- Develop partnerships with stakeholders, donors, allied organizations, and other relevant parties.
- Represent the organization at social and professional events in ways that promote FAIR’s work and its pro-human philosophy.
Qualifications:
- Strong understanding of and dedication to FAIR’s mission, philosophy, and approach to issues.
- Proven experience as an executive director, chief executive officer, or similar managerial position (Preference is for someone who has built or worked with an organization with a similar budget).
- Experience in donor relations, fundraising, and generating earned income (We anticipate an initial general operating budget of $2M-5M).
- Experience in developing and executing long-term organizational strategies via strong operational plans accompanied by measurable tactics that have clear outcomes.
- Understanding of best principles and practices for nonprofit governance and relevant statutory requirements.
- Outstanding oral and written communication skills.
- Understanding of and a desire to embody the core tenets of conflict resolution, mediation, and the principles of nonviolent movement building.
How to apply
Interested candidates should fill out this application form before August 31 and upload the required documents. You will receive a copy of your application as confirmation that we’ve received your submission. We regret that we will not be able to respond to individual candidates; we’ll be in touch with those candidates who we wish to interview.
Thank you in advance for your interest in serving as the leader of our organization.
More about our organization
FAIR is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity.
In a time of rampant hostility and polarization, being reasonable and even-handed is a revolutionary act.
Our culture is roiling with intolerance, antagonism, polarization, and enmity. So much of that comes not from our differences on any given issue, but our unwillingness or inability to communicate about those differences. This is grounded in a warped perspective about one another as people due to those differences. We tend to believe, and are encouraged to believe, that those who disagree with us are not just wrong, but evil.
This perspective is what FAIR is committed to changing. We are taking inspiration from the great successful nonviolent movements of the past in advocating for a truly radical idea: We are far more alike than we are different, and our political and ideological opponents are human beings worthy of compassion, dignity, and respect—even if their ideas or their arguments are not. Making that clear to people, even as we oppose them, is our challenge and our duty. It is only through this approach that we can truly make progress, and bridge the cultural and ideological divides that threaten our republic.
Values - Our Pro-Human Pledge
Pro-Human
Being pro-human means advocating for one human race, individual civil rights and liberties, and compassionate opposition to racism and intolerance that is rooted in dignity and our common humanity.
Fairness
I seek to treat everyone equally without regard to skin color or other immutable characteristics. I believe in applying the same rules to everyone, and reject disparagement of individuals based on the circumstances of their birth.
Understanding
I am open-minded. I seek to understand opinions or behavior that I do not necessarily agree with. I pursue the objective truth through honest inquiry. I am tolerant and consider points of view that are in conflict with my convictions.
Humanity
I recognize that every person has a unique identity, that our shared humanity is precious, and that it is up to all of us to defend and protect the civic culture that unites us.
What we do
- We defend civil rights and liberties guaranteed to each individual, including freedom of speech and expression, equal protection under the law, and the right to personal privacy.
- We advocate for individuals who are threatened or persecuted for speech, or who are held to a different set of rules for language or conduct based on their skin color, ancestry, or other immutable characteristics.
- We support respectful disagreement. We believe bad ideas are best confronted with good ideas—and never with dehumanization, deplatforming, or blacklisting.
- We believe that objective truth exists, that it is discoverable, and that scientific research must be untainted by any political agenda.
- We are pro-human and promote compassionate opposition to intolerance and racism rooted in dignity and our common humanity.
