Co-President - Germany - The Fairness Project

Description

Catholics for Choice (CFC) seeks a Co‑President to serve as a collaborative organizational leader alongside the current Co‑President. This role offers a unique opportunity to practice values‑driven, shared leadership of an influential reproductive‑rights organization grounded in Catholic moral tradition, conscience, and social justice. The new Co‑President will bring an outward‑facing presence, including engagement with media, donors, and external stakeholders, while also embracing the disciplines and responsibilities of co‑leadership. This leader will model a deeply collaborative approach, supporting and empowering staff, to guide programs, fundraising, and communications across the organization.

Reporting to the Board of Directors, the Co‑Presidents will partner in providing executive leadership, vision, and management of Catholics for Choice. This is an opportunity to join an established and influential organization at a moment of profound political and religious complexity surrounding reproductive health, rights, and justice.

The Co‑President model is new for Catholics for Choice, and there is enthusiasm for finding a leader who will bring a synergistic spirit and help realize full organizational impact.

Co‑President Responsibilities

• Share executive leadership responsibility for CFC's vision, strategy, culture, and impact, including a new strategic plan.
• Lead and grow fundraising, communications, and programmatic initiatives.
• Serve as a visible public voice for the organization through press, media, and external engagements.
• Steward a collaborative leadership model rooted in trust, transparency, and shared accountability.
• Advance and promote CFC's mission within faith‑based, policy, human rights, and advocacy spaces.

Few leadership roles allow an individual to credibly engage theological arguments, public policy, human rights frameworks, and grassroots advocacy simultaneously. This role is well suited for a leader who is energized by compassionate engagement in polarized environments. Few leadership roles allow an individual to credibly engage theological arguments, public policy, human rights frameworks, and grassroots advocacy simultaneously.

Leading CFC requires comfort with controversy, resilience under criticism, and a deep commitment to conscience. It offers the chance to evolve how Catholic authority is understood and promote the value of lived experience, social justice, and moral agency.

Core Leadership Domains

• Co‑Lead Strategic Direction: Develop, articulate, and execute organizational strategies.
• Shape long‑term vision and near‑term priorities.
• Steward CFC's role as a moral and intellectual leader at the intersection of faith, human rights, and reproductive justice.
• Sustain and grow donor trust by consistently demonstrating impact and integrity in an inspiring and compelling way.
• Model collaborative leadership practices that centre trust, transparency, active listening, and shared accountability.
• Establish Catholics for Choice as the best place to work in reproductive rights.
• Be a true partner in shared executive leadership.
• Consistently communicate and align in joint decision‑making with the Co‑President.
• Build a leadership culture grounded in mutual respect and institutional integrity.
• Foster an organizational culture that supports, engages, and empowers staff.
• Streamline, simplify, and focus CFC's work.

Lead Fundraising

• Take primary leadership role in major donor engagement and external relationship‑building.
• Develop a comprehensive fundraising strategy for effective donor stewardship and foundation relationships.
• Sustain and grow donor trust by consistently demonstrating impact and integrity in an inspiring and compelling way.
• Inspire philanthropic support with tenacity, innovation, outcomes, and perseverance.

Lead Program Strategy

• Lead high‑level programmatic direction and mission alignment.
• Partner with senior staff to ensure coherence across advocacy, theology, communications, and engagement.
• Bring a theological and moral lens to program development where relevant.
• Be a confident, dynamic, and engaged advocate for reproductive rights and understand the power and importance of the religious narrative in this effort.

Lead Communications

• Develop CFC's platform and serve as a visible external spokesperson for CFC.
• Engage with press, media, and public forums as a skilled and dynamic spokesperson.
• Build messaging strategy and storytelling to strengthen CFC's niche of supporting and changing hearts and minds.
• Counter narratives that weaponize religion in public life.

This is the first time the organization will be led by Co‑Presidents. As such, there is an expectation that the roles will evolve to meet organizational needs and best leverage skill sets and expertise. That said, the skills most required of the incoming candidate are related to exceptional leadership in the areas of program, fundraising, and communications.

Skills and Experiences

• Strong understanding of Catholicism, most likely from lived experience and/or strong ties to the Catholic tradition.
• Deep commitment to reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, religious liberty, and moral agency and the ability to advocate and organize for these issues with empathy, authenticity, and understanding.
• Demonstrated alignment with CFC's mission and values.
• Comfort serving as a public‑facing leader and experience engaging with press and media.
• Fundraising experience, including developing revenue through strategy and soliciting, stewarding, and growing philanthropic support.
• Team‑driven orientation and enthusiasm related to shared leadership and collaborative governance.
• Demonstrated people‑centered leadership style and commitment to supporting a multigenerational staff.
• Comfort operating in polarized and contested public environments.
• Expertise in Catholic theology, moral theology, and social teaching is preferred but not required. Lived experience as it relates to both reproductive health and Catholicism will be deeply valued.