Executive Director

About Charity & Security Network

The Charity & Security Network (C&SN) is a resource, legal, policy, and advocacy center for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) focused on defending the civil society space from overreaching national security measures. We work to promote and protect the ability of NPOs to conduct effective programs that support human rights, peacebuilding, and aid civilians in areas of disaster and armed conflict.

In late 2008, C&SN was created to respond to the closing of nonprofit and civil society space and obstacles created by the expansion of counterterrorism laws and policies. C&SN’s more than 200 global members include a cross-section of humanitarian, development, peacebuilding, and faith-based organizations, as well as human rights defenders, civic space activists, lawyers and policy experts.

Our work includes:

• Coalition Building and Collaboration: C&SN reaches out to a range of civil society groups to get input and provide opportunities for participation and collaboration through working groups, email lists, briefings and more.
• Research and Education: C&SN acts as a hub for information generation and sharing among a wide group of civil society professionals domestically and internationally. C&SN hosts events, monitors and reports on new policy and legal developments, and produces informational and analytical publications documenting and proposing solutions to issues faced by our membership.
• Engaging with Policymakers: C&SN regularly engages with executive branch agencies, Congressional offices and committees, UN agencies and Member States, and other multilateral bodies to educate policymakers on the barriers faced by civil society and offer evidence-based policy solutions.
• Advocacy: C&SN leads and participates in advocacy campaigns to advance policies and frameworks that protect and enable civil society.

C&SN is a fiscally sponsored project of NEO Philanthropy, which accepts and administers funds, provides financial oversight, and supports human resources and legal elements as needed. The substantive work of C&SN is informed by an Advisory Board, with an Executive Committee providing strategic oversight, including annual reviews of the Executive Director position. The organization currently includes four full-time staff members, two of which are on fixed-term contracts (one project-based and one externally sponsored Fellowship), and a part-time communications consultant.

The Opportunity:

The Executive Director will lead C&SN during an exciting period of growth and development. The organization’s work is expanding to “meet the moment” and respond to new challenges and constraints facing non-profit organizations globally. C&SN has a particular focus on how the enabling environment for civil society organizations is shrinking, including constraints on the effective delivery of programs and services to people in need and how security policy and practices are abused to target human rights defenders, chill public discourse, and constrain humanitarian, peacebuilding and human rights operations. C&SN’s core thematic portfolios include:

1. Financial Access: Improving NPOs access to financial services and relationships that are necessary to conduct international transactions and operations, and addressing banking challenges like de-risking to remove current disincentives for banks to provide services to international, national, and local NPOs.
2. Sanctions: Ensuring humanitarian safeguards in sanctions regimes imposed by the United Nations, the U.S., and the EU, among others, which otherwise inhibit the delivery of lifesaving aid to many countries and assessing the impacts of sanctions on NPO operations.
3. Material Support: Safeguarding humanitarian assistance and peacebuilding programs to allow aid and peacebuilding work to continue without undue consequences linked to material support provisions, which were designed to prevent material support to designated terrorist entities.
4. Lawfare: Responding to lawfare attacks on civil society designed to impede their valuable work through lawsuits, deplatforming campaigns, disinformation attacks, false allegations, challenges to organizations’ tax-exempt status, and other means; and
5. Human Rights & Counter-terrorism: Ensuring human rights are integrated into counter-terrorism measures, whether implemented by States, the United Nations, or other multilateral organizations, and monitoring and highlighting these measures’ impacts on civil society actors.

To meet the challenges of a period of anticipated growth, C&SN seeks to recruit an Executive Director to lead us to the next stage of its development amid a rapidly changing external environment. The Executive Director will aid the organization in anticipating new challenges to the field with visionary strategic planning and robust organizational management. Additionally, the Executive Director will secure sustainable funding to continue to build on C&SN's track record of impact. The Executive Director will develop a staffing strategy necessary to ensure mission-centric growth and position C&SN for success by nurturing a strong organizational culture and further developing its management systems.

As a membership network, C&SN’s core function is to serve as a resource hub for its members, facilitate meaningful cross-network exchanges, and coordinate advocacy campaigns to push for legal and policy reform in coordination with the Advisory Board. An early objective for the Executive Director is to nurture and deepen this network, with a focus on ensuring C&SN provides meaningful value to its membership.

The Executive Director is envisaged to focus primarily on the health and stability of C&SN as a member-driven organization, supported by a team of technical experts who lead and execute C&SN’s substantive programming and policy advocacy. Relevant technical expertise with two or more of C&SN’s thematic portfolios is required. The Executive Director must demonstrate a strong passion for promoting and protecting civic space and the ability and eagerness to learn about diverse and highly technical subject matters, enabling them to serve as a credible and compelling spokesperson and leader for C&SN and its membership.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate will be a strategic, entrepreneurial leader with a deep commitment to C&SN’s mission. While no single candidate may embody every qualification, we are seeking candidates who bring a combination of the following competencies and qualities:

• Strategic Foresight and Horizon Scanning: Demonstrates the ability to anticipate emerging trends, identify potential challenges, and proactively position an organization within a shifting political, technical, and funding landscape. Understands how to assess member needs and broader environmental signals to inform strategy.
• Fundraising and Pipeline Cultivation: Skilled in developing long-term, relationship-based fundraising strategies that go beyond proposal writing to include cultivation, positioning, and building trust with institutional funders. Brings senior-level credibility to open doors and represent the organization effectively in high-level philanthropic spaces.
• People-Centered Management: Demonstrates a commitment to building inclusive, supportive team culture through mentorship, performance management, equitable compensation practices, and collaborative leadership.
• Network Engagement: Brings a collaborative mindset and proven ability to engage, activate, and align diverse stakeholders within a network or coalition. Skilled at designing and delivering experiences, communications, and opportunities that clearly reflect and reinforce the value of participating and contributing to a network.
• Risk Awareness and Mitigation: Brings a nuanced understanding of operating in politically or socially hostile environments, with a strong grasp of risk management related to organizational security, staff safety, and information protection.
• Financial Stewardship: Brings sound financial judgment and experience managing budgets, overseeing cash flow, and working with fiscal sponsors (e.g., NEO Philanthropy) to ensure transparency, compliance, and financial sustainability.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership, Vision, and Strategic Planning

• Position the organization to grow and deepen its impact by establishing an organizational strategy that reflects, responds to, and anticipates the operating environment.
• Work with the staff, Executive Committee and Advisory Board to set annual goals, develop annual work plans, and monitor progress milestones in line with the organizational mission, vision, and strategy.
• Assess, mitigate, and monitor risks to C&SN’s operations, programs, and staff, including continued development and implementation of internal policies and procedures for risk management.
• Evaluate and prioritize advocacy and engagement opportunities to optimize resources, capacities, and staffing, in line with the organizational strategy and annual work plan.
• Keep the Advisory Board informed about trends, issues, problems, and activities. Collect inputs and recommend policy positions to the Advisory Board.

Fundraising and Financial Management

• Establish and execute a sustainable resourcing strategy, focused on deepening the organization’s financial resiliency and growing programmatic operations.
• Lead donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship efforts, including grant writing and reporting.
• Maintain and grow membership financial contributions to C&SN.
• Serve as the primary liaison with NEO Philanthropy, including to develop the annual budget and monitor spending.
• Provide regular financial reports for the Executive Committee, including fundraising projections and budget management.

Membership Engagement

• Develop and implement a network engagement strategy that ensures effective and impactful cross-network exchanges and demonstrates C&SN’s value to members.
• Gather and analyze feedback to understand member needs, improve engagement strategies, and measure satisfaction.
• Identify new members and maintain strong, meaningful relationships with members to foster engagement, collaboration, and a sense of community.
• Diversify and expand the Advisory Board and Executive Committee and cultivate a robust recruitment pipeline.

Representation and Advocacy

• Increase the organization’s visibility through public speaking, media engagement, and participation in high-profile events and forums.
• Support and collaborate with staff to initiate, develop, and maintain cooperative and productive relationships with key constituencies, including policymakers, elected officials, government agencies, multilateral bodies, private sector partners, and civil society.
• Oversee and advise the team to optimize C&SN’s contributions to coalitions, working groups, and other advocacy initiatives, in alignment with the missions and strategic plan.
• Assess C&SN outcomes to identify successful advocacy and messaging tactics, in collaboration with staff and Advisory Board.
• Ensure that the organization’s advocacy work is grounded in equity, informed by those most affected, and aligned with its values.

Culture and Team Leadership

• Foster a positive, inclusive, and collaborative organizational culture rooted in results, equity, transparency, and accountability.
• Provide supportive, values-aligned leadership to staff, encouraging professional growth, continuous learning, and open communication.
• Supervise and mentor team members, ensuring clear roles, responsibilities, and accountability while promoting ownership and creativity.
• Update human resource policies and procedures to ensure equity, consistency, and transparency across recruitment, onboarding, compensation, and performance management.
• Facilitate regular team meetings, goal-setting processes, and performance evaluations to align work with organizational priorities and individual development.
• Model and promote a healthy work-life balance, supporting staff well-being and sustainability in a mission-driven environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a management position at a non-profit or comparable mission-based organization.
• Technical expertise relevant to two or more of C&SN’s core thematic portfolios and a demonstrated willingness and capacity to learn additional subject matter
• Demonstrated success in coordinating effective networks, membership engagement, and coalition building, preferably with civil society actors in the U.S. and abroad.
• Direct management experience of two or more staff, with a focus on organizational culture, teambuilding, and equitable human resource practices.
• Ability to serve as a trusted, credible, and engaging organizational representative with donors, policymakers and partner organizations.
• Legal degree or expertise strongly preferred.
• Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States.