ACCELERATE THE YOUTH REVOLUTION.
FOR GOOD.
HEAD OF IMPACT
Job DESCRIPTION
Role overview
Compensation
$150,000 - $180,000
Location
Fully remote (current team of ten works from 7 countries)
We’re looking for:
RIVET is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, age, ancestry, or disability.
RIVET is a new social purpose (NGO) brand that is leveraging the collective consumer power of Gen Z to create the world’s first micro-funding platform focused exclusively on young social innovators. Partnering with major brands (eg Nike, Apple, Adidas, Riot Games), we plan to raise half a billion dollars over the next decade to provide small, start-up grants to a million young changemakers (under 30) from every corner of the globe.
RIVET distributes these grants through a network of youth-serving Impact Partners who have already built on-the-ground relationships in communities and with youth who are ready to lead. These Impact Partners identify promising youth-led ideas, oversee grants & support, and track impact & identify promising projects for scale.
RIVET is looking for a founding Head of Impact to design and build our model, systems, and partnerships to bring this grant system to life; pilot & learn with an initial set of Impact Partners; and design a tech-enabled data system to scale it for massive impact.
Meet RIVET
hi!
RIVET is a new social enterprise bringing together brands, influencers, and Impact Partners to fund and amplify youth-led social change.
With 30+ years of experience elevating young changemakers, RIVET’s founders have seen firsthand that they don’t lack talent or imagination; they lack access to resources.
In response, we are creating the first engine to transform young people’s everyday purchases into philanthropic power for their own generation’s ideas to change the world.
Co-led and co-designed by young people, RIVET represents the largest investment in youth-led social change. Ever.
Co-Founder/Board Chair
Early Team at (RED)
Thorn Marketing Head
Founder, Entr@crash
BBC Top 100 Women
Founder/CEO Peace First
Founder, Conspiracy of Love
[Check out our 80-sec manifesto video]
Hello, we are rivet
When young people shop, game, listen or share behind the RIVET brand mark, they trigger a corporate donation that funds amazing projects envisioned and designed by young changemakers. It’s that simple.
This youth-for-youth model harnesses Gen Z’s $3T of consumer power to drive a sustainable flow of funding to youth-led innovation, funding a million new social impact projects over the next decade.
How it works
The power of the RIVET concept is we solve existing problems our partners have and no one needs to change their behavior.
Brands spend $650B each year marketing to youth and RIVET provides an authentic and accessible avenue for them to reach this coveted audience. From streaming to CPG to gaming to activewear, the possibilities for partnership are endless.
Young consumers purchase the products they love with a transparent percentage of their purchase going to fund youth-led initiatives.
Our global network of Impact Partners partners (eg Red Cross, Boys and Girls Clubs, Teach for All) distribute funds through their existing relationships with young people, capturing data and stories of impact.
Our competitive advantage
Our promise to consumers
In our digital space, consumers learn exactly where their purchase is going. They also get to discover the stories of other young changemakers, learn about the brand partnership, and deepen their engagement with RIVET.
Our business model is radically transparent, simple and sustainable: RIVET keeps 10% of what is raised to cover our costs, 10% goes to our Impact Partners to cover the cost of data tracking and project management.
This means 80% of every dollar goes into the hands of young social entrepreneurs.
we will invest millions in youth-led social change over the next decade.
Who we’re reaching
Ensuring we reach young people who most need access
IMPACT OF PROJECTS
Capturing the power of youth-led change and ideas
IMPACT ON YOUTH
Capturing how leading social change affects young people’s development
Just as micro-finance revolutionized access to start-up capital for the world’s most needy, this “micro-philanthropy” model, powered by young consumers, will fund 1 million new youth-led projects over the next decade, created by the most diverse group of young leaders ever.
Not all will scale. But among those million new youth-led projects, will be thousands of truly game-changing ideas that will revolutionize how we work, learn, love, and care for each other and our planet.
USA
Facing personal adversities and bullying stemming from alopecia, Sanah founded the Love Your Natural Self Foundation to promote positive internal dialogue and self-care. Through funding, digital tools, and mentorship from Peace First, Sanah has provided self-esteem programming to over 50,000 students and counting.
Uganda / Italy
Responding to the lack of access to medical services in developing countries, Omid and Kakooza teamed up to build an online platform that monitors heart patients, and provides affordable defibrillators and ECG monitors to areas uncovered by national health insurance.
Our impact
RAISED $3M SEED FUNDING
We’ve raised over $3M in startup funding to hire our founding team and build our core business operations.
BUSINESS PLAN
We have completed our initial business plan, focusing on the next 4 years of operations.
Successful pilots
We ran pilot partnerships with Beats and Funko that raised $350,000, funding 1,000 projects across the globe.
What we’ve accomplished:
What we’re focusing on now:
Our consumer launch is August 12, 2023 with a set of brand, impact, and influencer partners.
Growing our YOUTH COMMUNITY
RIVET’s success will be driven by young people. We are focused on activating an initial community of 10,000 RIVETERS: youth supporters who will bolster RIVET’s legitimacy and urgency in the marketplace.
Securing founding partners
After 250 initial conversations with potential partners, we are now filtering to select our initial set of brand, impact, and influencers partners.
Building our tech platform
Core to our success is tracking and reporting financial and impact data in real time. After an initial scoping process, building our MVP is a focus for launch.
Where we are
Our advisors
Meta
Erika wykes-sneyd�adidas Originals
eos
Stephanie Davis�Benefit Cosmetics
Apple, Paypal, �Enphase
MARC PATRICk�Nike
SHANNON SINUNU�Apple
Isis ARIAS�Netflix
SUZANNe Klahr�BUILD
ANDRE PINARD�adidas
Our thought partners come from the world’s leading innovators; below is a sample of the brands that have contributed to RIVET’s design.
Equity
Equity is not just something we live by, but commit to create. �We prioritize those who are historically overlooked, and work to lower access barriers.
RIVET lives and operates by these core values:
youth-centered
We are created for young people, by young people. Youth shape and sign off on every decision we make.
trust
We see the best in people, and work from a place of empowerment rather than control. We trust others, and honor the trust put in us through kindness, communication, and transparency.
belonging
Our movement is designed to unite. We actively celebrate our collective diversity, and consider it our superpower. Anyone who shares our values is welcome to join.
our values
Organizational chart
About the role
Role description
This is a full-time, founding, leadership role.
We’re looking for candidates who want to make RIVET their ongoing home, who are comfortable in early-stage startups defined by ambiguity and opportunity, and can operate in their lane while holding responsibility for the entire enterprise.
Compensation: $150,000 - $180,000
Future salary adjustments are based on the success of the business and all senior leaders are compensated consistently. For non-US candidates, salary will be calculated according to local cost of living, purchasing power, and tax rate.
Start Date: ASAP
Location: Fully Remote
Candidates can be based anywhere in the world as long as they can work at least 4 hours of overlap with Eastern Time zone (9am-5pm).
We encourage candidates with lived experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, LATAM, and South Asia, since we expect these are areas where we will be investing most heavily.
The Head of Impact will translate a compelling vision into a scalable model for distributing small start-up grants to passionate young people, with a focus on youth living in “capital deserts” where they have little access to funding to bring their ideas to life. As a start-up leader, you will hold a full and ever-changing portfolio of projects ranging from the strategic to the day-to-day: designing, building and testing models in partnership with a global community of grant-distribution partners.
The role focuses on two threads:
The Head of Impact will join a dedicated, passionate, low-ego team of founders in launching a first-of-its-kind social movement led by young people. This new role reports into the CEO, working across the organization with all team members.
focus areas
The Head of Impact is responsible for designing & building our model, systems, and network for investing in young changemakers.
Key focus areas you will lead & contribute to are:
Data & Technology:
Define and build models for measuring impact through partners at scale that meets the capacities/needs of a diverse group of stakeholders, including youth, Impact Partners, and brands.
Organization & Culture Building:
Serve as a senior leader at RIVET, contributing to our overall vision, organizational culture, and management.
Youth Social Impact:
Design and test a framework for RIVET’s impact strategy, including understanding the broader landscape of young social innovators, microfinance models, safeguarding, and scaling.
Partnerships:
Define, build, and maintain partnerships with RIVET Grant distribution partners (thinking of this group as co-designers).
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPACT
The Head of Impact is responsible for the following work streams within RIVET:
Who we’re looking for
We recognize that no one candidate will possess every qualification and we welcome candidates from different professional paths who bring many of these qualifications and key attributes:
Bonus. These aren’t requirements but areas of interest: lived experience in multiple cultural contexts; grant-making or micro-finance experience, your own story of being a young changemaker, and experience as a member or leader of a collective action network.
FAQs
This is an ever-growing list based on questions that come in from applicants:
Q: I am passionate about youth but haven’t worked in the youth space before. Should I still apply? Yes! While we would love to have candidates with deep experience in youth development, even MORE important is someone who knows how to design and lead dynamic, global networks to achieve big goals. We have tons of youth expertise (and amazing youth) on our team who can fill in the gaps.
Q: There is a lot in this role. What is the focus for the first year? 2024 will be a pilot year where you will work closely with a set of co-designers (Impact Partners, experts, youth leaders, funders) to build out our grant model (amounts, criteria, tracking and reporting structures) and test it through a few cycles. Your first 3 - 4 months will involve defining and building this cohort of partners, some of which we have queued up.
Q: Can candidates really be based anywhere? Absolutely. Our global team is a key strength.
Q: How much travel will this role entail? Honestly? Unsure. We try to bring the team together once a year. Beyond that, travel will be dictated by you and the needs of partners.
Q: The term “start-up” can mean a lot of different things. Where is RIVET in its growth? Still early stage. We have strong frameworks and models and now need to begin implementing and testing. We’ve invested significant time and resources into building the brand partnership side of RIVET and nurture our youth community. This is our first hire on the impact partnership side. Everything that is awesome about a start-up (opportunity to create, move quickly, iterate, and make an impact) is especially true at RIVET. Same for everything that is hard (lack of systems, creating from scratch, the need to pivot and re-prioritize with new data). Gut-check if this environment is right for you.
Q: What is the culture really like at RIVET? We are a fun and committed team. We invest a great deal in relationships and we lead with gratitude. We are accountable to, and supportive of, each other. As a global and remote team, we create opportunities to bond, while respecting each others’ times zones and boundaries.
Q: Do you offer benefits? If so, what kinds? We are in the process of defining and securing benefits for the team through a PEO and articulating key policies and procedures for the team. We hope to have these in place by the end of the year. As a senior member of the team, you will help define these for RIVET.
Q: Will I have a team or be able to hire one? What is my budget? We are actively raising funds for this next stage of growth (and you will be involved in defining needs). Right now your team will consist of a youth Design Fellow (about 30 hours a week) and the CEO (about 5 hours a week).
How to apply
Join us!
Our hiring process*
Come on, give it a try!
An intro interview where we’ll get to know more about your background.�
We value your time and energy.
Look, we know applying for a job can be a terrible, soul-crushing experience. Some of this we can fix and some of it is the nature of trying to vet thousands of candidates as fairly and quickly as possible. We aim to create a humane process by providing as much clarity as possible. We will always be available to answer questions about the status of your application and next steps.
As you will see (⇨), we run intensive job processes that are not for everyone. We move quickly but thoroughly and the multiple steps allow for candidates to deepen their clarity about the role while giving members of our team an opportunity to meet and connect with potential collaborators.
* Our process may adapt as interviews unfold. It will get shaped by the candidate pool, ongoing learning, and the needs of the candidates as well.
Ready to apply?
We can’t wait to meet you!
The priority deadline for applications is August 25th and application closes on September 11th. We plan to make a decision by mid-October.
Impact model
(in case you want to learn more)
We prioritize access.�Impact starts with access. RIVET aims to radically increase access to capital and resources to young people who are least likely to be served through traditional channels. We work with Impact Partners to broaden access to as many young people as possible, especially in underserved communities.
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We’re invested in a young person’s journey. �RIVET partners with organizations which provide financial capital, mentorship, networking, and ongoing support and opportunities to young people to be truly invested in their journey and success.
We invest in the storytelling of impact.�RIVET tells the micro and macro story of impact through local stories on a global scale. We leverage the power of media, brand platforms, and influencers to amplify the stories of young changemakers in a way that inspires new projects and further investment in youth-led social change.
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We are co-led by youth. �RIVET is an organization designed by youth, for youth. Young people co-design our strategy, sign off on major decisions, vote on our board, and own their narratives.
Impact principles
Diversity & inclusion
education
Poverty reduction
Health & wellness
Environmental sustainability
RIVET follows behind young people’s visions and insights for change. We support projects that fall into 5 broad issue areas (sub-categories are included as reference points):
Impact areas
SCALE
> $10,000
�Scale Grants are large grants to help established youth-led projects expand and scale their operations.
BOOST
$1,000 - $9,999
�Boost Grants are mid-sized grants to help young people that have a proven concept to accelerate their project’s development.
LAUNCH
< $1000
�Launch Grants are small startup grants that help young people test their idea for social change and get their project off the ground.
RIVET works with Impact Partners to set up tailored RIVET Grant programs based on factors like the amount of funding and the Partner’s existing infrastructure. We make three types of grants, described below.
The following criteria applies to all RIVET Grantees:
Rivet grant model
Impact Partners are youth-serving organizations who are mission-aligned and have the capacity to disburse grants & resources to young people.
RIVET’s Impact Partnerships are based on a shared set of values & goals to provide critical funds to young changemakers, track data and impact, and share powerful stories.
Values & Goals we seek in our Impact Partners:
MISSION ALIGNMENT
INFRASTRUCTURE
REACH
Impact partners & PartnerSHIP structure
IMPACT PARTNERS
Impact Partners manage youth programming, and track & report back to RIVET on the status and impact of the projects being funded.
RIVET
RIVET provides resources, tools, and training to increase the capacity of Impact Partners to support young people.
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How does participating in social change impact young people and their efficacy?
RIVET defines impact quantitatively through the following metrics:
1. DEMOGRAPHICS
AGGREGATE METRICS�
2. IMPACT OF PROJECTS
3. IMPACT ON YOUNG PEOPLE
Measuring impact