Who We Are

Co-Impact brings together local changemakers and funders from around the world to make health, education, and economic systems stronger and more inclusive – creating impact that lasts. Our commitment to advancing gender equality and women’s leadership is central to this goal. By focusing on systems, we work at the scale of the problem – dismantling the root causes of inequality that disadvantage hundreds of millions of women, girls and marginalized communities. Spanning five continents, our team identifies partners that will create lasting progress when supported with the resources to work at scale. Pooling funding allows us to provide large, flexible grants and strategic support to locally-rooted partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America who know their systems best. Our partners’ initiatives will benefit more than 750 million people, and we can go even further together. We aim to deploy over $1 billion by 2030 and achieve a world where everyone can lead fulfilling lives. For more information, please visit co-impact.org.

Co-Impact partners in hiring in the U.S. with Justworks as the Professional Employment Organization for purposes of payroll and benefits.

Where You Fit

We are seeking an experienced attorney to provide legal guidance across the organization, ensuring compliance with U.S. and international laws while supporting our philanthropic initiatives. This will be our first in-house legal role, so it represents an exciting opportunity to build the function. You will report to and work closely with our Chief Operating Officer, who serves as the organization’s Corporate Secretary. Applicants should be both excited to work collaboratively with colleagues across the organization, especially with our grants management team and our program team, and able to work independently on a wide range of matters given this will be a team of one.

A major focus of the role will be our global grants and contracts – ensuring that they are designed to meet our programmatic objectives and reflect our policies while remaining compliant with law. Managing specialized outside counsel as needed, particularly in the regions in which we work, you will also advise the COO and other senior leaders on other matters as they arise, such as employment law as well as other corporate matters.

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in tax-exempt organizations law, with experience in complex cross-border grantmaking. You will need to demonstrate excellent organizational ability, strong legal and analytical skills, robust problem-solving skills, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, a high level of personal initiative, a kind and collaborative spirit, and a supportive approach, including the ability to work well in a distributed, diverse, deep-thinking, and fast-paced environment. You bring an abiding curiosity and humility and desire to learn. You are motivated by working in an environment that is focused on gender equality and solving social problems at the systems level and at scale.

The Role

Core responsibilities will include, but not be limited to, the following:

• Provide legal counsel on a wide range of issues, with a particular focus on international grantmaking and global operations.
• Ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations across multiple jurisdictions, including nonprofit and tax-exempt organization laws.
• Develop, review, and maintain compliance frameworks, policies, procedural documents, and templates for the organization’s contracts (including grant agreements, vendor contracts, donor agreements, memoranda of understanding (MOUs), and other partnership agreements), ensuring compliance with law, donor requirements, and internal policies. Review and negotiate bespoke agreements (especially agreements with vendors and donors).
• Review complex agreements and supporting documents related to grantmaking, contracts, incoming contributions, intellectual property and other issues; work with staff to minimize risks, troubleshoot issues, find and implement proper solutions that are in compliance with law and reflective of the organization’s values; monitor as needed.
• Build and manage a high-performing legal support function, including managing outside counsel, as required, to provide timely and specialized legal expertise, particularly in specific countries/regions in which Co-Impact works and in areas such as employment law.
• Proactively monitor and assess emerging legal and regulatory trends that may impact the organization’s activities; identify and mitigate risks.
• Develop and provide trainings for staff on a range of compliance issues related to day-to-day operations as a public charity, grants, contracts, conflicts of interest, and other related topics.
• Support the COO with governance matters, including policy development and best practices.
• Ensure ethical and legal integrity by advising on conflicts of interest, whistleblower policies, and codes of conduct.
• Foster a collaborative environment  as it relates to legal function and its work across the organization, working effectively with teams across the organization and especially with grantmaking staff.
• Provide other legal services and work on special projects as requested.

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Juris Doctorate degree from an accredited institution.
• Admission in good standing to the Bar of at least one state in the U.S.
• 12+ years of relevant experience, with 5+ years as a lawyer.
• Experience will ideally include 2+ years of in-house legal experience in a nonprofit organization, with preference for experience in a grantmaking organization.
• Demonstrated experience advising tax-exempt entities on legal issues related to cross-border grantmaking, including understanding of the legal context in the regions where we work.
• Experience advising on employment matters a plus.
• Experience on corporate governance including working with a board of directors also a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to operate on two levels: doing the practical day-to-day work and thinking strategically.
• Track record of increasing responsibility.
• Prior exposure to an array of different working contexts, stakeholders, etc.
• Fluency in English; knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to work flexible hours to accommodate global team collaboration across diverse time zones.

Required competencies and qualities

• Strategic Agility: Ability to spot high-potential opportunities and facilitate the design of strategic approaches backed by evidence-informed analysis.
• Work Maturity: Ability to collaborate and work effectively with line manager, peers, and other colleagues. Strong emotional intelligence. Willingness to be proactive and independent, seeking assistance when appropriate.
• Decision Making: Ability to listen well, see perspectives from different sides, making good judgments based on values and principles balancing data, experience, and risk.
• Solution-Oriented: Demonstrated ability and keen willingness to find workable solutions to difficult challenges.
• Working with People: Experience with motivating, contributing to, and managing collaborative teams to work productively, effectively, and inclusively.
• Prioritization: Ability to set priorities and anticipate information needed by others as projects and situations develop; ability to juggle multiple demands, organize time and identify resources for projects.
• Results Orientation: Evidence of delivering results through developing strategic coherence, project management skills, strong leadership, and the ability to manage multiple responsibilities and work effectively, remotely and independently.
• Interpersonal Savvy: Great at making and fostering relationships inside and outside the organization, keen intercultural appreciation, inclusive style, comfortable around senior leaders. Can represent Co-Impact well.
• Dealing with Ambiguity: Ability to shift gears comfortably; decide and act without having the total picture; can comfortably evaluate and handle risk and uncertainty.
• Learning Orientation: Intellectually curious; demonstrated openness to new ideas and a diversity of perspectives; unafraid to admit and learn from failure.
• Strong Moral Compass: Impeccable personal ethics and integrity.
• Communications: Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to interface effectively in a professional, courteous, culturally sensitive, and tactful manner.
• Global Flexibility: Given the global nature of the organization working across time zones, a willingness to be flexible with working hours and periodic international travel.
• Language Proficiency: Fluency in English.
• Perspective: Sense of humor and ability not to take oneself too seriously.
• Independent: Administratively self-sufficient. Demonstrated skill with standard office software.

Benefits

Co-Impact’s compensation philosophy is guided by the following three principles:

• Equity and Fairness: Our approach to compensation and benefits are designed to ensure that our global team is treated equitably regardless of location and without regard to gender, race, or nationality.
• Transparency: We aim to provide clarity to Co-Impact’s employees about our salary structure so that they feel confident that they are paid equitably, and potential job applicants understand how roles are compensated.
• Accountability: As stewards of the philanthropic resources entrusted to us so that we can support our program partners, we are accountable to our donors, board, staff, and to the public for how we allocate compensation.

In accordance with that philosophy, we include the salary range in our job postings. To maintain equity within the organization and for all candidates, we do not negotiate salary or benefits. This position is full time with an annual salary of US $200,000 plus a comprehensive benefits package including allowance for paid time off.

Application Details

Please apply online by submitting a resume and a cover letter by 5.00 pm ET 9th April 2025. In your cover letter, please confirm that you are authorized to live and work in the U.S. and specify where you are licensed to practice law. Please note that Co-Impact cannot cover relocation costs.

As we are a small team, we regret that we can only respond to applicants selected for an interview and we are unable to participate in informational calls prior to interviews. Thank you for your understanding.

We will begin reviewing applications after the deadline. Shortlisted candidates can expect to hear from the recruitment team within six – eight weeks of the deadline.

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