Development Director

About Open Lunar Foundation

Open Lunar Foundation is a US 501(c)3 nonprofit stewarding humanity’s return to the Moon with transparency, cooperation, and shared benefit at its core. We develop practical governance frameworks and shared infrastructure — including the Lunar Ledger — that enable peaceful, equitable, and collaborative lunar activity from the start.

As lunar activity accelerates and coordination challenges grow, Open Lunar plays a unique role at the intersection of governance, policy, and technology — translating shared values into systems that shape how the Moon is explored and used.

Open Lunar has long term donor relationships and a significant network. Our fundraising goals are to steadily increase the resilience and abundance of our programs.

Role Overview

Open Lunar is seeking an experienced, entrepreneurial Development Director to lead all fundraising strategy and execution for the organization. This role will be driving the action, owning the processes, and managing up.

The Development Director is the point person for fundraising, responsible for facilitating our approach, identifying and pursuing funding pathways, crafting and pitching compelling opportunities, and closing significant gifts and partnerships.

You will work in close partnership with the Executive Director and Board — mobilizing senior leadership — and translating Open Lunar’s governance, policy, and technical work into fundable, high-impact opportunities. As our inaugural Development Director, you will also be creating the foundation for our development operations and strategy as you go.

This role is ideal for someone with proven fundraising or sales experience who is excited to operate in an emerging field and comfortable opening new markets that may not yet be thinking about lunar activity.

While this position is in a department of one, we envision support for this role can be built up in time. Additionally, our team is highly collaborative, and you will work closely with and receive support on key tasks from our programs, operations, and communications teams.

What You'll Step Into

• An established portfolio of major donors with documented giving histories

• A well-connected board committed to opening doors and making introductions

• Dedicated budget for development tools, software subscriptions, and travel

• Collaborative colleagues across programs, communications, and operations ready to amplify your work

• A hands‑on Executive Director invested in your success

If this role intrigues you, but your background doesn't align perfectly, we still encourage you to apply. Open Lunar is a multidisciplinary team, and we recognize that impactful fundraising and partnership leadership can come from a variety of professional paths. We are open to discussing scope and title with exceptional candidates whose experience strongly aligns with Open Lunar’s needs.

Core Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

• Own Open Lunar’s fundraising strategy, targets, and pipelines across individual, institutional, and partnership funding.

• Manage annual and multi‑year fundraising plans, forecasts, and progress reporting.

• Proactively guide and support staff and board members to be effective fundraising champions.

• Design and execute special campaigns such as year‑end giving, planned giving, and anniversary year fundraising pushes.

• Work closely with the communications team to ensure organizational outputs are aligned with our audience and fundraising strategy.

Fundraising and Donor Engagement

• Identify, pursue, and close major gifts, multi‑year commitments, sponsor ships, and strategic partnerships.

• Identify new funder communities and markets not traditionally engaged in lunar or space work.

• Serve as the lead on all grant writing, pulling in other team members as needed.

• Strategically deploy the Executive Director and Board into fundraising conversations where their involvement is most impactful.

• Maintain key funder relationships including stewarding future renewals.

• Develop compelling funding narratives for Open Lunar’s core initiatives, including the Lunar Ledger, Fellowship programs, and governance frameworks.

• Equip leadership with pitches,…