Program Officer, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

About the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is a private charitable foundation based in Flint, Michigan. Through programs focused on Civil Society, the Environment, Youth Engagement, and its hometown of Flint, the Foundation supports nonprofit organizations and projects that promote a just, equitable, and sustainable society. In 2025, the Foundation made grants totalling more than $161 million and had year-end assets of over $4 billion.

As the Mott Foundation begins its second century of work, staff recently completed a strategic planning process to guide grantmaking over the next decade. The Foundation also is developing a coordinated evaluation and strategy framework to guide implementation and reporting of an anticipated $2 billion in grantmaking through 2035. About the Civil Society Program The Civil Society program’s mission is to foster engaged, empowered and equitable communities worldwide.

Its grantmaking is global in reach and reflects a sustained presence and particular interest in North America, Latin America and Africa. The program is currently organized around three initiatives, the first two of which may be directly relevant for this role: 1) The Common Ground initiative equips community foundations with the tools and resources they need to bridge divides and solve local issues together with their communities. The initiative is based on the idea that building common ground starts at the local level — where people live, work and interact every day.

The Mott Foundation has worked with community foundations for decades, both in the United States and globally. This work has shown how community foundations — grounded in place and rooted in their communities — are uniquely positioned to partner with others to address polarization and inequity from the ground up. Grant funding, primarily to intermediaries and field builders, supports increasing and enhancing the effectiveness of community foundations building common ground in their communities.

The initiative also supports capacity-development efforts of national-level organizations that provide technical assistance and other resources to help establish new community foundations and strengthen existing ones in Latin America and Africa. 2) The Protection of the Sector initiative seeks to strengthen the philanthropic ecosystem and support civil society defenders. The initiative is based on the theory that a resilient philanthropic sector and empowered civil society organizations are essential to driving meaningful, lasting change in society.

Strengthening nonprofits is vital at a time when civil society is facing attacks, including new laws that restrict nonprofit operations, negative narratives that undermine trust in institutions and the use of technology to target civil society. Grant funding supports research, monitoring and analysis to inform policies that enable the work of nonprofits and philanthropy, while also providing physical, digital, psychosocial and other forms of protection for civil society defenders. The Civil Society Program's third initiative, Access to Justice, seeks to help individuals understand, use and shape the law to protect their rights and improve their lives.

Altogether, the Civil Society program awarded grants totaling over $22 million in 2025 and expects to award a total of $190 million through these three grantmaking initiatives over the next 10 years. The Opportunity The program officer will lead and manage a Civil Society program portfolio spanning elements of its Common Ground or Protection of the Sector initiatives — or potentially of both. The Foundation is particularly interested in candidates with a record of and interest in strengthening community foundations or the philanthropic ecosystem, or in supporting civil society defenders within the United States.

Experience in Latin America also may be favorably considered.