Job Description
Interested candidates are invited to visit the Russell Reynolds Engage platform at Engage.RussellReynolds.com . Candidates will be asked to register and create a profile. From the home page, navigate to “Job Post”, click “Apply for Position”, and enter the following career code: 2609-162NA to submit materials for consideration. NOTE: Applying to the MacArthur career site may cause delays in review of your application.
The Opportunity
Philanthropy has long operated with fragmented data, duplicative processes, and systems that do not easily speak to one another. The Philanthropy Data Commons (PDC) was created to change that.
By enabling information to move securely across the systems that organizations already use, the PDC can reduce the repetitive administrative burden on nonprofits, help changemakers gain greater visibility to aligned funders, and give them greater control over how their information is shared, while giving funders a clearer view of organizations, needs, and funding flows.
The PDC has moved well beyond an idea. With significant foundational work completed, including a live Exchange application, an evolving governance framework, a growing network of funders and ecosystem participants, and more than 20 organizations committed to sharing data, PDC is entering an important period of transition and growth.
The focus now is on expanding participation, demonstrating the value of shared data at greater scale, and building the coalition that can make PDC an enduring part of how philanthropy works.
The inaugural Executive Director will have a rare chance to help shape the next stage of the initiative and a broader shift in the field. They will build on significant investment and momentum while helping the PDC grow its reach, deepen its partnerships, strengthen its financial sustainability, and establish its long-term organizational home.
At a time when advances in AI are making access to trusted, well-governed data increasingly important, the PDC has the potential to become essential infrastructure for a more connected, informed, and effective philanthropic sector. For an entrepreneurial leader energized by building in ambiguity, this is a chance to take years of investment and a powerful sector-wide idea and turn it into something enduring, shaping not only the future of the PDC but how philanthropy shares and uses data.
About the Philanthropy Data Commons
Conceptualized in 2021, the Philanthropy Data Commons is a collaborative initiative temporarily hosted by Mac Services, Inc. that connects the systems, organizations, and data that philanthropy runs on. It provides a shared infrastructure that allows funders, changemakers, and the ecosystem partners they already use to share information on their own terms.
At its core, the PDC provides an interoperable data model so information about organizations, grants, and funding flows can be understood across different systems; a consent-based framework that allows organizations to share their data securely, only with the parties they choose and for the purposes they approve; and shared feedback mechanisms so the infrastructure serves the field rather than any single platform or vendor.
The PDC is not a new platform to adopt. It is the connective layer that makes the tools organizations already use work together.
Exchange is the PDC’s first live application, a web-based tool designed to support more informed and coordinated funding decisions. Through Exchange, funders can explore standardized grant proposal data, identify potential cofunding opportunities, and coordinate responses to emerging needs, while nonprofits gain greater visibility to aligned funders.
Over the past five years, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has supported the PDC’s steady evolution from ideation to early implementation. The work is now hosted by Mac Services, a separate 501c3 organization created by MacArthur years ago to temporarily house and oversee charitable…