About the role
Base Pay: $214,871 - $248,194
About Protocol Labs
Protocol Labs is an innovation network of 760+ teams, projects, and movements with a common mission: to drive breakthroughs in computing to push humanity forward. For us, decentralization is more than just a rallying cry; it's an operational ethos and a belief system baked into the products we develop.
Founded in 2014 by Juan Benet, PL spent its first decade building the decentralized web, where IPFS, Filecoin, and libp2p established content addressing as a standard and hardened cryptographic infrastructure through production use at scale. Today the network helps breakthrough technologies cross the gap from bold R&D to real-world adoption through funding, mentorship, and deep network support.
The network works through connected arms: PL R&D (plrd.org) builds and accelerates entire fields, PL Capital (plcapital.xyz) invests in the ventures that emerge from them, and PL Platform (plnetwork.io) helps teams reach users, contributors, and markets. Learn more at protocol.ai.
Our current focus areas include digital human rights, upgrading economies and governance systems, AI and robotics, and neurotech. We advance digital human rights by building open, decentralized infrastructure that protects privacy and agency; upgrade economies and governance by enabling more transparent, resilient, and programmable coordination systems; shape safe AI and robotics through research and platforms that prioritize alignment, accountability, and human values; and unlock neurotech breakthroughs by supporting responsible interfaces between minds and machines.
For more information on Protocol Labs and our focus areas, please review plrd.org, watch Juan Benet's talk from PL Summit 2023 and the 2024 PL Summit Video (Remote Update).
About Protocol Labs R&D
Protocol Labs R&D is the field-building engine of the Protocol Labs network, working across four Focus Areas: Digital Human Rights, Economies & Governance, AI & Robotics, and Neurotech. Our mission is to accelerate computing breakthroughs that expand human freedom, coordination, intelligence, and cognition, with each Focus Area owning one of those four dimensions.
Our mandate is ambitious: We want to move entire fields forward by mapping frontier opportunities, identifying the bottlenecks blocking progress, and coordinating the research, funding, infrastructure, talent, and deployment pathways that help breakthroughs reach the world. PL R&D exists for the stage between fundamental research and venture creation, where breakthroughs do not yet have a market, a field, or an institutional home.
The Role
The Philanthropic Fundraising Lead is responsible for financing the field-building work of PL R&D. You will build the organization's philanthropic funding engine from the ground up and then run it: the funding thesis and materials, the funder map and pipeline, the receiving structures, the closed commitments, and the stewardship that turns first gifts into standing relationships.
We aim to finance PL R&D programs by a mix of PL capital, philanthropic funding, and co-funding from aligned institutions. Many of those funder relationships already exist today in informal connections. Your mandate is to turn them into an institutional function with a managed pipeline and a growing base of committed capital.
What are the core responsibilities?
- Own the Philanthropic Funding Engine
- Design the funding strategy: target funder segments, the case for support for each Focus Area, and a funding thesis that holds up in front of sophisticated science funders
- Build the infrastructure: funder pipeline and CRM discipline, briefing materials, proposal templates, and a reporting cadence funders can rely on
- Evaluate and stand up the right receiving structure for philanthropic capital with our strong in-house legal team: a dedicated 501(c)(3), or fiscal sponsorship that rents an existing public charity's legal wrapper and back office, with donations held in a restricted fund and spent at our direction
- Widen the base with new funding rails where they fit: run crowd co-funding built on mechanisms PL helped pioneer, such as hypercerts (verifiable records of funded impact work), so hundreds of smaller co-funders amplify the PL R&D brand and pull larger funders in behind them
- Raise the Money
- Map, qualify, and prioritize aligned funders: science philanthropies, foundations, family offices with philanthropic arms, and individual major donors
- Run cultivation through close with the rigor of an investor relations process: sharp briefs, prepped meetings, timely follow-ups, proposals, diligence, and agreements
- Carry the number: you personally own cultivating and closing commitments, at 6- and 7-figure scale and above
- Sequence funder conversations against program timelines and coordinate with PL Capital so philanthropic outreach and fund outreach reinforce each other
- Activate the Protocol Labs Network
- Map who knows whom across PL leadership, Focus Area Leads, Scientific Advisory Boards, and the 760+ teams in the network, and turn those relationships into warm paths to funders
- Prepare and deploy leadership: put the R&D Lead, Focus Area Leads, and PL founders in front of the right funders with clear asks and owned follow-through
- Turn convenings into cultivation: use summits, retreats, and workshops as moments where funders see the work and the people up close
- Steward Funders and Grow Commitments
- Own funder reporting and the annual funding report, with impact narratives grounded in the field-level metrics PL R&D publishes
- Earn renewals and expanded commitments through stewardship that makes the return on each funded dollar visible
- Develop co-funding partnerships that bring aligned institutions in alongside PL capital on specific programs, from grant pools to fellowships to prizes
- Be the Fundraising Partner to R&D Leadership
- Act as the primary fundraising counterpart to the R&D Lead and the R&D Operations Lead
- Partner closely with each Focus Area Lead to stand up specific fundable programs: a field is blocked on a named bottleneck, so we design a fellowship, grant pool, or prize size to unblock it.
- Surface funding risk early: pipeline gaps, concentration in too few funders, and timing collisions with other PL fundraising efforts
- Step in to directly run complex, multi-party funder processes when needed
What are the core competencies needed to do this job?
- Experience running a raise end-to-end yourself, from sourcing through close
- Bonus points if your raises were philanthropic
- Standing in the frontier-science philanthropy ecosystem: known to and credible with organizations like Foresight Institute, Wellcome, and Renaissance Philanthropy, and the funder communities around them
- Experience building something on your own.
- A funder network of your own, and the skill to work through other people's: brokering introductions, prepping principals, and converting warm paths into commitments
- The ability to translate deep technical R&D across decentralized infrastructure, programmable governance, AI, and neurotech into cases that funders act on
- An AI-first working style: you reach for AI-enabled workflows before adding headcount or manual process
- Excitement about new funding technology like hypercerts and crowd co-funding, paired with the judgment to know when it fits
- Proven ability to operate in high-ambiguity, high-autonomy environments, standing up a function from scratch
- Exceptional written clarity and follow-through