Program Officer, Clean Energy; BF

The Barr Foundation’s mission is to invest in human, natural, and creative potential, serving as thoughtful stewards and catalysts. As stewards, Barr nurtures and enhances vital community assets. As catalysts, the Foundation cultivates and advances the breakthrough ideas that will shape our collective future. Barr focuses on achieving impact as a constructive partner, willing to exercise leadership.

Based in Boston, the Foundation focuses regionally, and selectively engages nationally, working in partnership with nonprofits, foundations, the public sector, and civic and business leaders to elevate the arts and creative expression, advance solutions for climate change, and expand educational opportunity. Barr is one of the largest private foundations in New England with assets of more than $1.7 billion and a 2018 grantmaking budget of $85 million.

A set of core values defined by the Barr Foundation’s founding trustees expresses beliefs about what constitutes effective philanthropy and guides how the Foundation carries out its philanthropic mission. The Foundation is committed to strive for excellence, act with humility, adopt a long-term perspective, and embrace risk. Additionally, while each program is guided by distinct priorities and goals, Barr embraces a common set of approaches in all aspects of its work, namely flexibility and nimbleness, a broad range of tools, knowledge and learning, openness and transparency, and active collaboration.

Since its inception, the Barr Foundation has prioritized the environment as a principal area of funding, and in 2010 focused its efforts on the monumental problem of climate change. Our Climate Program works on mitigation and resiliency solutions. We focus our mitigation efforts on the two areas that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions:
1) how we generate and use energy (Clean Energy); and
2) how we move around (Mobility). In addition, we acknowledge that even with concerted efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change, they are inevitable. Our Climate Resilience focus area aims to increase the capacity of Metro Boston communities to prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change. We believe that while climate change is a global challenge, cities and states have become vital agents of change, and by focusing on these three areas, we can play an important role in helping to catalyze and advance solutions.

Our principal geographic focus is the U.S. Northeast and on occasion, we engage in targeted national or global efforts with significant opportunities to contribute to impact.

The Barr Foundation is seeking a program officer to work within the Climate Program’s Clean Energy Focus Area. The goal of the Clean Energy Focus Area is to reduce the energy sector’s emissions by building the path to a clean, efficient, and modern energy system. A primary objective of the strategy is to expand energy efficiency and renewable energy across the Northeast region through new and improved policies and regulations.

To achieve this objective, our grants have focused on:

• Mobilizing supportive constituencies:
  We invest in building leaders in key sectors as well as community organizations and grassroots groups to champion policies that drive investment in clean energy. By engaging multiple stakeholders and developing their leadership in support of climate and clean energy, we protect the gains achieved to date while moving the dial forward on the clean energy economy.
• Policy analysis and advocacy:
  We support the development of credible, objective information and analysis to inform public and policy discourse on clean energy choices, solutions, and policy pathways.
• Promoting sharing of effective clean energy practices, policies, and communication strategies across the U.S.

This program officer will report to the Co-Director of Climate who leads the clean energy strategy.

Planning and strategy

• Collaborate with the Co-Directors and Climate team members in developing grantmaking strategies that will have a strong impact in areas important to the Foundation.
• Contribute to assessment and modifications of strategy in…