Build With Berean · Executive Leadership
Help lead Berean from a built foundation into launch and operation.
Berean is recruiting two experienced executives to join Keith as a three-person executive leadership team. These are hands-on co-founder roles with defined portfolios, meaningful authority, and accountability to Berean's Board of Directors.
- Openings
- 2 executive co-founders
- Roles
-
Operations & Institutional Leadership
Fundraising & Development - Pre-launch commitment
- Approximately 10–15 hours per week
- Role type
- Executive co-founder leadership
Two Executive Portfolios
Choose the responsibility that best matches your experience.
Location
Remote. Work and meetings take place online. No routine travel or in-person attendance is required. Any exception will be stated in the opportunity and agreed before you accept. Please review any location or work-eligibility requirements listed for this particular role.
The Responsibility
Berean is not recruiting assistants to its founder.
Berean needs two senior leaders prepared to take responsibility for major parts of the organization. Each incoming co-founder will lead a defined portfolio, make ordinary decisions within that portfolio, collaborate across functions when necessary, and remain accountable with the other executives to Berean's Board of Directors.
The opportunity is to join early enough to shape how Berean operates, funds its mission, and moves into launch—without having to begin by inventing the organization from scratch.
Authority & Relationship
Centralized executive accountability. Function-driven collaboration.
Berean's executive model gives each leader meaningful authority while preserving clear organizational accountability. Collaboration matters, but collaboration does not mean that every ordinary decision requires three-person approval.
About this chart: This shows executive relationships, not Berean's complete organizational structure. Berean's launch ecosystem includes separate Board-level Institutional Operations, Fundraising, and Marketing functions, together with delegated professional authorities established within individual initiatives.
Keith does not remain the approval point for the incoming executives' portfolios. The point of adding co-founders is to place real responsibility in qualified hands.
Executive Scope
Shared leadership does not mean blurred responsibility.
The three executives work as one leadership team, but each portfolio has a distinct purpose. The incoming co-founders are expected to exercise professional judgment within their areas rather than wait for Keith to direct routine work.
Take direct responsibility for a major part of Berean's organizational work and make ordinary operating decisions within that portfolio.
Help move Berean from a substantial academic, organizational, and technical foundation into a staffed and operating organization capable of supporting its programs and public work.
Coordinate with the other executives when a decision affects more than one portfolio without turning every decision into a committee process.
Review inherited plans, systems, documents, and work product. Retain what is sound and revise, replace, or further develop what your professional judgment says should change.
Exercise meaningful executive authority while remaining accountable to Berean's governing Board and the responsibilities of the office.
Executive Role One
Operations & Institutional Leadership Co-Founder
This co-founder will take primary responsibility for the operating organization around Berean's academic and technical systems: management, administration, compliance coordination, HR, institution-wide finance, and the practical institutional work required to operate responsibly.
Build and manage the operating practices that allow Berean's people, systems, and institutional responsibilities to function together reliably.
Lead the administrative organization surrounding Berean's nonprofit operations and help translate existing plans into durable institutional practice.
Help ensure that institutional obligations are identified, coordinated, documented, and handled through appropriate operating processes.
Provide executive leadership for HR and the internal administrative work needed as Berean moves from founder-built systems toward a staffed organization.
Carry executive responsibility for institution-wide financial and management work while maintaining the distinction between executive finance leadership and the School Finance Department Head's school-level responsibilities.
- Pre-launch commitment
- Approximately 10–15 hours per week.
Executive Role Two
Fundraising & Development Co-Founder
This co-founder will lead Berean's Fundraising division and take executive responsibility for the funding system that supports Berean's mission. The portfolio includes fundraising programs, grants, donor development and sponsorships, campaigns, external funding relationships, and Board liaison for the division.
You would not be arriving after fundraising has been placed on hold. Berean is beginning its initial funding campaign now, and the incoming co-founder will inherit that work and take it forward.
Take executive responsibility for Berean's Board-level Fundraising branch, including fundraising programs, grants, donor development and sponsorships, campaigns, and external funding relationships.
Set and lead the professional strategy for building Berean's operating support and longer-term fundraising capacity.
Inherit Berean's initial campaign, materials, research, relationships, and work product; evaluate them professionally; and complete, revise, replace, or redirect the work as appropriate.
Lead the fundraising work associated with Berean's Programs branch, including Berean Institutes and the Bookstore.
Build, cultivate, and manage relationships with donors, sponsors, foundations, institutional supporters, and other prospective funding partners.
Own the strategic direction of grant development while working with Berean's separately recruited Grant Writer, who provides specialized grant research, proposal-development, and application capacity.
Develop and strengthen the relationships and funding channels required to support Berean's mission, programs, and launch-stage operating needs.
Provide the executive connection between Berean's Fundraising division and the Board on matters requiring Board awareness, oversight, or action.
- Pre-launch commitment
- Approximately 10–15 hours per week.
What You Inherit
You begin with years of completed work instead of an empty desk.
Berean is still pre-launch, but it is not a blank-page startup. Incoming executives will inherit substantial academic, organizational, technical, planning, governance, and fundraising work that has already been developed.
Existing work is a starting point, not a protected artifact. Incoming executives are expected to use their professional judgment to retain, revise, replace, or further develop work that falls within their authority.
Candidate Fit
Berean needs senior leaders who can own the work.
These roles require more than enthusiasm for the mission. Berean is seeking experienced executives who can exercise judgment, accept accountability, and take meaningful responsibility for an organization approaching launch.
Operations & Institutional Leadership
Required
- Substantial senior-level management experience.
- Demonstrated competence leading complex professional or organizational work.
- Ability to exercise independent judgment and take ownership of a defined executive portfolio.
Preferred
- Nonprofit management experience.
- Educational administration experience.
- HR, compliance, or finance experience.
- Governance-support experience.
- Experience helping move an organization from startup or formation into stable operations.
Fundraising & Development
Required
- Substantial senior-level fundraising, development, or closely related leadership experience.
- Demonstrated ability to secure, develop, or materially advance institutional funding.
- Evidence of meaningful professional competence through fundraising results, grant development, donor or sponsor development, established funding relationships, or comparable accomplishments.
- Ability to exercise independent judgment and take ownership of Berean's Fundraising division.
Particularly Valuable
- Grant-writing and grant-development experience.
- An established network of donors, sponsors, foundations, corporate partners, nonprofit or institutional relationships, or other prospective funding relationships.
- Demonstrated ability to turn professional relationships into meaningful institutional support.
- Donor cultivation and stewardship experience.
- Sponsorship development.
- Major campaign experience.
- External partnerships and community relationships.
Professional Service
Berean values professional work according to the work itself.
Berean applies the same compensation philosophy across eligible professional roles. Strong market compensation is not reserved only for executives; each position is valued according to the market for that work using the same general standard across the organization.
- Operations & Institutional Leadership
- $74.51/hour
- Fundraising & Development
- $77.45/hour
- Market standard
- Berean currently values eligible professional service at approximately the 70th percentile of comparable national U.S. compensation. In practical terms, the benchmark is intended to be higher than the compensation received by approximately 70% of people performing comparable work.
- Part-time service
- Because these launch roles are part-time, Berean expresses that professional value as an hourly benchmark applied to documented professional-service hours.
- Actual compensation
- The benchmark represents the professional value of the service performed. Actual compensation is determined through Berean's established nonprofit compensation process based on available uncommitted funds after operating expenses and other obligations have been met.
What this means for an early-stage candidate: these benchmarks should not be read as guaranteed wages or guaranteed payment schedules. Berean is still preparing for launch, and actual compensation remains dependent on available funding and financial capacity. Before service begins, your agreement records how the role is lawfully engaged and any guaranteed amount or rate. Any payment dependent on available funds is distinguished from a guaranteed payment, and no provision waives legally required wages or other mandatory protections.
Next Step
Start with an Executive Leadership Expression of Interest.
If one of these portfolios fits your experience, the first step is to introduce yourself and the responsibility you are interested in discussing. Berean's initial submission asks for your contact information, résumé, CV, or professional profile, the role you are considering, a short statement of interest, significant leadership or fundraising accomplishments relevant to that role, and your general availability.
An expression of interest begins the conversation. It is not a commitment to accept a co-founder role.
Express Interest in Executive Leadership