Coastal Partnerships and Projects Manager

What We Can Achieve Together:
Building nature-based solutions (NBS) for coastal resilience in Massachusetts and beyond. The Nature Conservancy envisions a future where people and nature thrive together. It is one where communities protect and restore the coastal ecosystems that shield them from flooding and erosion while creating habitat for fish and wildlife and protecting biodiversity. Oyster reefs, once nearly gone, return as natural powerhouses that clean the water, shelter marine life, and buffer shorelines.

Towns that once spent millions on emergency flood response find their marshes and dunes doing that work for free. Reaching this future means helping how coastal communities respond to climate change and its impacts. We work with communities and partners across habitat types, restoration and nature-based design approaches (NBS), operating at system scale for meaningful results. In Massachusetts, our coastal resilience initiative rests on two intertwined pillars — Climate-Prepared Communities and Protected & Restored Coastal Habitats — delivered by combining expert capacity, on-the-ground projects at scale, and strong partnerships.

We are working to protect and restore nature so that systems become self-sustaining: when oysters clean the water, eelgrass returns; when shorelines are naturally protected, marsh erosion slows. We're Looking for You:
The Coastal Partnerships & Projects Manager is a key team member who will help create enabling conditions, advance and accelerate saltmarsh migration corridor land protection and coastal nature-based solutions to achieve TNC’s mission and 2030 goals addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. An example workstream will likely include connecting prioritized salt marsh migration corridor parcel owners with protection/conservation partners, creating efficiencies in processes to accelerate and scale project delivery, and identifying and securing funding for land acquisition and marsh restoration.

Additionally, a part of this role will be to support effective coordination and information sharing among the active saltmarsh restoration community in MA, across TNC’s Northeast Division, and beyond. The Coastal Partnerships & Projects Manager will also offer project support to multi-intervention estuary scale NBS deployment. This newly created interdisciplinary position will work in close collaboration with MA TNC teams including Oceans and Coasts, Rivers and Lands, and Policy and Partnerships and other internal staff and external stakeholders at the nexus of coastal land protection, saltmarsh restoration, and NBS that result in system scale coastal recovery and function.

The Massachusetts Chapter believes in flexibility and as such, team members are working in a hybrid model: splitting workdays between home and utilizing TNC offices as needed. Our work has proven successful with a deliberate blend of virtual and in-person connections, as well as independent and collaborative work. This is considered a hybrid position and may work out of the Boston office or a home office.

This position is initially offered for a term of three years with the possibility to transition to a permanent staff role. The majority of the work will take place in Eastern Massachusetts with travel expected for meeting attendance, partner engagements, and field visits. Occasional regional or national travel may be necessary/appropriate. This position may work in variable weather conditions, at remote locations, in difficult and hazardous terrain and under physically demanding circumstances.

The ideal candidate should be a strategic systems thinker who has exceptional communication and project management skills as well as experience building meaningful professional relationships and convening and a variety of cross-functional colleagues and partners. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to The Nature Conservancy’s mission by accelerating coastal land protection and nature-based solutions! Specific responsibilities include:
Coordination and Facilitation:
Build and manage relationships and complex partnerships including municipal, state, and…