To solve the world’s most pressing issues, we need to empower those closest to inequity to be drivers of liberatory innovation. trubel&co (pronounced "trouble and co") is a tech-justice nonprofit that mobilizes youth and communities to leverage local data to tackle the challenges that matter most. Bridging technical skills to civic action, we provide data civics curricula, workforce training, and digital learning platforms to drive socio-environmental advocacy. Democratizing access to data, design, and tech, our programs equip learners, educators, and nonprofits with mapping tools and spatial analysis skills to investigate local problems, craft data-driven stories, and spark good trouble. Whether modeling flood risk, mapping health disparities, or documenting food deserts, advocates make local problems visible and design community-driven interventions. See more.
In our approach to democratizing access to technical education, trubel&co grounds career technical education and experiential learning with liberatory design and abolitionist frameworks. Our STEM curricula and curated spaces of civic discourse center identity & place while mobilizing students as agents of change in their own communities, resulting in trubel&co diversifying the fields of STEM and innovation, building critical consciousness, and instilling self-efficacy as the next generation reimagines society for the better.
Our services fall under three core pillars: Learn, Build, and Connect.
trubel&co was founded in 2022, and currently operates at a $1M annual budget. This role is to help extend our pedagogy to new communities through our workshops, products, and capacity building. trubel&co has impacted 6000+ students and practitioners across the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii, Michigan, Missouri, and Colorado, with strong aspirations for scale. We are a team of ambitious, motivated, creative doers who have a strong passion in data civics, liberatory innovation, educational equity, and startup culture, supporting a growing community of diverse tech-enabled trubelmakers. trubel&co is backed by National Geographic, National Science Foundation, Echoing Green, Fast Forward, NewSchools Venture Fund, Walking Softer, Camelback Ventures, 4.0 Schools, CIV:Lab, Society for Science, and other institutional and individual donors.
Learn more about our mission through this pitch video. The team is 100% remote.
Learn more about our workshop offerings, Mapping Justice, and CivicScape.
trubel&co is looking for a Director of Growth and External Relations to lead our sales and revenue strategy, partner with our Executive Director on foundation and funder cultivation, and drive the storytelling and branding that connects our work to the many audiences we serve. This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who has run a team and a sales pipeline before, who can move fluidly between a room of teachers, a corporate sponsor, and a foundation program officer, and who is energized by pace and by closing. You will manage our Growth Manager and a part-time grant writer/communications support, and you will be the person most responsible for building the systems and follow-through that turn our existing relationships and early wins into sustained, growing revenue.
The Director will own the strategic vision for our growth, and the role involves a mix of sales generation, relationship cultivation, storytelling (written, verbal, visual), and being a core representative of our mission across virtual and in-person settings. You'll own the workshop sales pipeline from prospecting through close, design and execute corporate engagement strategies, lead marketing efforts to promote our programs, and represent trubel&co at conferences and partner meetings. You'll make strategic decisions about where to focus outreach, how to price and package offerings, and which partnership models to pursue based on market data and organizational goals.
This is a new role, built to meet the demands of a growing portfolio of programs and products centering data civics, geospatial storytelling, and responsible tech education. The role will report directly to the Executive Director. As with many start-up organizations, there may be additional ad-hoc support needed across the organization, including partnership development, communications, and client sourcing. You will build systems and manage people, and you will also be in the room, closing deals and cultivating relationships yourself, modeling the hustle you're asking others to deliver. The ideal candidate is a closer who has grown into strategy — someone who can pitch a climate nonprofit on a training package on a Tuesday, sit across from a foundation program officer making the case for a multi-year gift on a Wednesday, and then turn around and sharpen the language in a grant narrative before it goes out the door.
What the First 6 Months Looks Like
By 3 months, you will have audited our current sales pipeline, funder relationships, and communications output, and identified the biggest points of friction and opportunity. You will have refined our CRM and pipeline tracking system, weekly KPIs defined with the Growth Manager, and a clear read on which existing relationships (network intros, corporate sponsors, foundation contacts) need immediate follow-through versus longer-term cultivation. You will have started building trust with the Executive Director as a true partner on foundation cultivation and early prospects to celebrate.
By 6 months, you will have stood up the core infrastructure: a rigorous, visible sales pipeline, a repeatable grant and foundation prospecting process, and a consistent content and communications cadence across our channels. You will be actively closing deals and converting warm introductions independently, managing our contracted grant writer/communications support with clear feedback on voice and brand, and representing trubel&co at conferences and partner events. Corporate sponsors and foundation funders will see you as a trusted, consistent point of contact, and the Executive Director will feel confident handing off relationship follow-through. You will be identifying where new revenue opportunities and partnerships should go next, and the Executive Director will be coming to you with strategy questions on revenue and partnerships.