Director of Fundraising / Development

Type: Full-time contractor (hours negotiable)

Location: Remote, based in the SF Bay Area, Seattle, New York, or Washington, DC (US time zones)

Travel: Expectation of 20-40% travel time between US, EU and India.

OpenFn is the Digital Public Good for public service automation & AI orchestration. Our platform automates data exchange and digital workflows so that governments and NGOs can deliver public services more efficiently, achieve interoperability across fragmented systems, and scale critical public services across health, humanitarian, and government programs.

Our team, Open Function Group , the primary steward of this open-source platform, is a lean, fully-remote team of integration specialists, solution architects, and implementation consultants working across 15+ countries.

We are not making marginal improvements to already comfortable lives. We are building the digital public infrastructure that allows governments to function, clinics to operate, and vulnerable populations to access services they depend on.

Supporting document (with ideas for fundraising against): https://www.openfn.org/blog/dpi-ai  

The role

We're hiring OpenFn's first Director of Fundraising to lead our organization’s fundraising efforts with major donors, foundations, and mission-aligned funders who invest in Digital Public Goods, Digital Public Infrastructure, and social-impact technology. We will always act in the public interest, never for private profit. We want investment which is aligned as such.

To date, OpenFn's growth has come from delivering complex digital transformation and implementation projects, and from fundraising efforts our CEO has largely driven himself. As we invest more deliberately in philanthropic and institutional funding to complement our subscription revenue, we're looking for an experienced fundraiser to build this function from the ground up: developing a fundraising strategy, cultivating and stewarding relationships with foundations and major donors, and helping OpenFn secure the multi-year support it needs to keep expanding access to public service automation.

You already have a network of relationships with foundations, funders, and philanthropists active in international development, Digital Public Goods, and technology for social good, and you know how to translate a mission into a compelling case for support. You're comfortable being both the strategist and the one making the ask: this is a foundational hire, so you'll build the playbook as you go rather than inherit one.

We believe some of OpenFn's biggest fundraising opportunities sit at the intersection of philanthropy and policy, for instance helping governments understand why workflow and AI orchestration are essential to resilient digital public infrastructure or articulating the influence that open platforms have on the concentration of power in a market. Prior experience in policy conversations around Digital Public Goods or ICT for Development, and a passion for understanding and addressing the macroeconomic forces that shape wealth inequality is a requirement.

What you'll be doing

Build our fundraising strategy 
- Develop and lead OpenFn's fundraising strategy across major donors, foundations, and other mission-aligned funders
- Establish the processes, systems, and reporting cadence a growing fundraising function needs, since you will be OpenFn's first dedicated fundraising hire (see helpful pointers from Wayan Vota !)
- Set and track fundraising priorities in partnership with the CEO and leadership team

Cultivate & grow major donor and foundation relationships
- Identify, cultivate, and steward relationships with foundations, family offices, and individual major donors aligned with OpenFn's mission
- Build and maintain a pipeline of prospective funders, from first conversation through multi-year commitment
- Represent OpenFn credibly and persuasively with senior funder audiences, translating our technical work into a compelling