The Walton Family Foundation is seeking a skilled, highly motivated and entrepreneurial individual to join the foundation as a Program Officer for the Environment Program to direct the work on Mexico within our Oceans Initiative.
About the Position
The Program Officer would assist in the continued development and implementation of the Foundation’s Oceans strategy in Mexico, a country where the Walton Family Foundation has spent more than a decade working to protect some of the country’s most pristine and beautiful ocean and coastal areas. We recently completed a new strategic plan for our work between now and 2020. The goal of the Oceans Strategy is to create healthy, sustainable fisheries that provide greater social and economic security to coastal communities and contribute to healthy ocean ecosystems.
We have chosen to focus on overfishing because it is one of the greatest, yet most tractable threats to our oceans. Overfishing has a direct impact on the health of fish populations and the overall health of the marine environment. Nearly two-thirds of all fish populations for which good information exists are over fished and need to be rebuilt, and all the other fisheries for which we have little information are suspected to be even worse. On the other hand, if properly managed, fisheries could provide increased income and stability for coastal communities and at the same time improve the health of the marine environment due to resurgent fish populations.
Specific duties include the following:
• Oversee grant-making in Mexico including soliciting grant proposals, reviewing programs, developing internal grant documents and monitoring progress of grants.
• Engage with academics, NGO and industry partners from different parts of Mexico to hone strategy and solicit grant proposals.
• Conduct site visits to ongoing or potential project sites, attend public meetings and represent the foundation at conferences and other events.
• Identify potential new partnerships and opportunities, including identifying other funding partners to engage each country.
• Provide information and assistance as needed to Foundation board members.
• Work with WFF evaluation staff to implement and refine WFF’s monitoring and evaluation program.
• Execute special projects and other duties as assigned.
Who we are looking for:
The position calls for an understanding of issues related to Mexican fisheries, fisheries management, fisheries policy, illegal fishing, and a familiarity with the use of market-based tools to ensure sustainable fishing and conservation goals. The role requires self-direction and decisiveness combined with flexibility and a capacity to give and receive feedback graciously. The Foundation seeks to recruit an individual with superior interpersonal skills, a respectful attitude for the work of grantees, and a demonstrated ability to work effectively as part of a team.
Personal attributes that support your success:
• Demonstrable time-management experience and ability to manage multiple projects for deadlines
• Proven capacity to work in a team as well as independently
• Intellectual agility and the ability to analyze, think critically, and understanding emerging issues that are directly relevant to programmatic funding areas
• Unquestionable ethics and personal integrity
• Experience working in Mexico or Latin America is desired
• Willingness to travel frequently, particularly to Mexico
About the Walton Family Foundation
The Walton Family Foundation is, at its core, a family-led foundation. The children and grandchildren of our founders, Sam and Helen Walton, lead the foundation and create access to opportunity for people and communities. The Foundation’s giving is focused on three areas: improving K-12 education, protecting rivers and oceans and the communities they support, and investing in our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta. The Foundation also invests in areas of deep personal interest to individual family members.
Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, with offices in Washington, D.C., Jersey City, New Jersey and Denver, Colorado, approximately 125 staff conduct the day-to-day operations of the foundation.
About the Environment Program
We must sustain the places that sustain us. Conservation solutions that make economic sense will stand the test of time, providing opportunity to future generations.
We:
• Protect oceans and rivers and the livelihoods they support;
• Are open to ideas from farmers, fishermen, businesses and conservationists, ensuring them an active role in solutions that are good for the environment and the economy;
• Work to end overfishing and protect coastal jobs;
• Improve the quality and availability of water in our nation’s largest river basins; and
• Restore lost wetlands and the protection they provide to people and communities along the coastal Gulf of Mexico.
About the Ocean’s Initiative
The Foundation’s Ocean Initiative uses a systems approach—working on both the supply and demand side—to promote sustainable fisheries. This systems approach includes:
• Empowering fishermen and local communities through rights-based management approaches that provide them with secure tenure rights;
• Making science-based decisions about annual catch limits, habitat protection and timelines for rebuilding fish stocks;
• Building capacity for fishermen, governments and civil society;
• Reforming public policies to create positive incentives that encourage responsible fishing; and
• Harnessing the market for sustainable seafood to build demand for healthy fisheries practices.
Mexico is the 16th largest fishing nation, representing about 2 percent of the world’s total production by volume. Ninety-six percent of Mexico’s commercial fishing fleet are small scale fishing vessels—under 12 meters—representing 270,000 jobs that support an estimated one million others. Although Mexico’s seafood exports account for just 0.24% of GNP (worth roughly $1 billion), for many coastal communities fishing is the primary economic driver.
Mexico provides an ideal opportunity to bring policy reform at the national level and apply new management tools at the local level to protect jobs and communities, restore ocean health, and provide a model for other small scale fisheries around the world.
The foundation strategy in Mexico is building on a decade of work in Mexico to reform the way fisheries are managed in Mexico, ultimately creating healthy ocean ecosystems and providing greater social and economic security to communities and industries.
The Walton Family Foundation is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to building and maintaining a culturally diverse workplace. We encourage women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status of protected veteran, among other things or status as a qualified individual with a disability.
Basic Qualifications
• Graduate degree in a related field
• At least 7 years of experience in natural resource management or fisheries, in either a policy or advocacy role, ideally with experience in grant-making or project management and evaluation
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Fluency in Spanish and English
