LawZero is seeking a Director of Development to help scale and operationalize its international philanthropic strategy. Reporting to the VP of Development & Operations, this person will manage and advance relationships with major institutional foundations and high-net-worth individuals globally.

Positioned at the intersection of relationship management, donor stewardship, and executive support, this highly collaborative role serves as a strategic partner to senior leadership. The Director will drive structured pipeline growth, coordinate high-stakes fundraising initiatives, and equip executive and scientific stakeholders to engage effectively with leading philanthropic and technology ecosystems.

Key Responsibilities

Donor Pipeline & Opportunity Management

• Identify, research, and track prospective philanthropic partners, foundations, institutional funders, and high-net-worth individuals aligned with LawZero’s mission and strategic priorities.
• Maintain a structured and highly organized donor pipeline, ensuring visibility into relationship status, next steps, timelines, and strategic priorities.
• Proactively surface opportunities, gaps, and follow-up needs to senior leadership.

Executive Partnership Support & Coordination

• Prepare briefing documents, presentations, tailored outreach materials, and strategic engagement assets for donor meetings and executive conversations.
• Coordinate follow-ups and ongoing communication with prospective and existing philanthropic partners.
• Support leadership in managing complex, high-touch stakeholder relationships with professionalism, discretion, and strong attention to detail.

Donor & Foundation Relationship Stewardship

• Help design and execute a thoughtful donor stewardship and cultivation strategy tailored to a small portfolio of high-value international partners.
• Develop engagement plans to maintain strong long-term relationships and encourage continued philanthropic support.
• Ensure donors receive timely, personalized, and high-quality communication throughout the relationship lifecycle.

Impact Reporting & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Coordinate with Finance, Operations, and Scientific teams to gather relevant information and prepare compelling donor reports and updates.
• Translate complex organizational initiatives into clear and accessible communication materials for external stakeholders.
• Ensure reporting requirements and partnership deliverables are consistently met.

CRM & Operational Excellence

• Maintain the CRM as the central source of truth for donor activity, relationship history, engagement tracking, and forecasting.
• Establish rigorous processes to ensure information accuracy, transparency, and operational continuity across fundraising activities.
• Help bring structure and scalability to a rapidly evolving development function.

What We’re Looking For

• Around 10+ years of relevant experience with at least 7+ years in fundraising, philanthropy, partnerships, donor relations, account management, strategic relationship management, or related functions.
• Experience supporting executive stakeholders and managing high-touch external relationships in fast-paced or high-stakes environments.
• Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and ensure consistent execution.
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with strong emotional intelligence and professional maturity.
• Ability to build authentic, trust-based relationships with sophisticated external stakeholders across philanthropy, academia, policy, or technology ecosystems.
• Strong written communication and presentation skills, including experience preparing executive-facing or donor-facing materials.
• High level of discretion, ownership, reliability, and follow-through.
• Comfort operating in a fast-growing, highly collaborative, and evolving organization.
• Professional fluency in English and French is required.
• International and cross-cultural communication experience is strongly preferred.

Candidates may come from nonprofit, philanthropic, academic, public-interest technology, partnership development, or relationship-driven commercial environments.

What we offer

• The chance to contribute meaningfully to a globally critical initiative
• Comprehensive health benefits (including mental health and wellness management account)
• 20 days of vacation per year upon start
• Employer contribution of 4% to your retirement savings, with no required employee match
• Additional compensation totaling 8% of your salary to apply towards additional retirement savings or bonuses (independent of group and individual performance)
• A team of passionate world-class experts in their field
• A collaborative and inclusive work environment in our vibrant office space in the heart of Little Italy, in the trendy Mile-Ex district, close to public transportation

About LawZero

LawZero is a non-profit organization committed to advancing research and creating technical solutions that enable safe-by-design AI systems. Its scientific direction is based on new research and methods proposed by Professor Yoshua Bengio, the most cited AI researcher in the world. Based in Montreal, LawZero’s research aims to build non-agentic AI that learns primarily to understand the world rather than to act in it, giving truthful answers to questions based on transparent and externalized probabilistic reasoning. Such AI systems could be used to accelerate scientific discovery, to provide oversight for agentic AI systems, and to advance the understanding of AI risks and how to avoid them. LawZero believes that AI should be cultivated as a global public good—developed and used safely towards human flourishing. For more information, visit www.lawzero.org

You belong here

At LawZero, diversity is important to us. We value a work environment that is fair, open and respectful of differences. We welcome applications from highly qualified individuals interested in working towards our mission in a respectful, inclusive and collaborative setting.

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