Associate General Counsel, Nonprofit Compliance

Tides is a nonprofit and philanthropic organization committed to advancing social justice. We work across the social sector to shift power to communities of color and other groups historically denied power.

Centering equity and justice in everything we do, we collaborate in deep partnership with movement leaders, nonprofits, donors, foundations, and corporations to amplify the impact of their work by providing services like fiscal sponsorship, donor advised funds, grant making, and a variety of innovative solutions. Learn more at tides.org.

The Associate General Counsel (AGC), Nonprofit Compliance advances Tides' most fundamental legal and regulatory work across its core activities — grantmaking, fiscal sponsorship, and advocacy — translating nonprofit legal and regulatory frameworks into robust, well-calibrated compliance and risk mitigation systems and practices. Reporting to the Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, the AGC serves as an expert and internal resource on nonprofit 501(c)(3) and corporate legal and regulatory requirements, supplementing and deepening the Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) Team’s existing expertise, including on matters involving charitability, nonprofit tax law and UBIT, lobbying regulations including disclosure and reporting requirements, advocacy and partisan activities, and ballot measure and campaign compliance matters.

The AGC oversees and leads the legal compliance team and program, ensuring policies and systems for 501(c)(3) and general corporate compliance are rigorous, calibrated for effectiveness and efficiency, and operationally sound. The role directs the internal assessment and audit function, corporate compliance and reporting obligations across jurisdictions, and the organization’s legal policy development. This is a supervisory position, managing a team that includes the Compliance Manager, the Senior Compliance Associate, and the Sr. Paralegal & Operations Analyst.

As a people leader and member of the Senior Leadership Team operating under executive direction, the AGC builds and develops a high-performing legal compliance function and partners across LRC, finance, and partner-facing functions to embed compliance into daily workstreams thereby protecting Tides and its partners while enabling mission impact. The AGC role is an exempt position. Exempt employees are expected to work the appropriate and necessary time to complete key assignments and related tasks on schedule.

As a Senior Leadership Team member and People Leader, the AGC is responsible for modeling and demonstrating Tides’ core competencies.

Legal Compliance Program

• Oversees, maintains and advances organizational compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including those specifically applicable to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, and ensures robust, effective, efficient and well-calibrated policies and systems covering relevant non profit and corporate legal corporate compliance matters. This includes:

• Leading Tides Legal Compliance and directing the Internal Assessment Program, including setting annual internal audit priorities, planning and execution.

• Overseeing federal and state corporate registration and reporting obligations including those involving charitable fundraising, lobbying, gifts to public officials, campaign finance rules, and others as relevant.

• Leading the development and maintenance of legal policies and practices for managing key risks associated with operations, businesses and programs, such as OFAC and anti-corruption and bribery processes and other payment and KYC functions, in each case ensuring policies remain current and compliance with evolving legal and regulatory requirements.

• Overseeing Tides’ insurance program including renewals, claims coverage and disputes, and exploring alternative and complementary risk mitigation strategies.

• Overseeing the development of training and capacity-building resources to strengthen compliance literacy across the organization and its fiscally sponsored projects.

• Driving adoption of technology solutions including automation tools to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Legal Compliance Program.

• Setting short-term priorities and long-term compliance strategy to ensure the organization’s program is effective in identifying and mitigating compliance risks.

Nonprofit Legal Expertise

• Serves as an expert and internal resource on nonprofit 501(c)(3) and corporate legal and regulatory requirements as an integral member of LRC, working closely with other inhouse legal team members responsible for other legal areas including philanthropy and fiscal sponsorship. Representative responsibilities include:

• Providing exempt organizational tax advice, such as assisting with charitability determinations, expenditure responsibility reviews, and solving complicated issues involving partisan and advocacy-related activities.

• Responding to federal, state and local inquiries and investigations, such as inquiries from the IRS and other agencies and legislative bodies.

• Advising on compliance with lobbying reporting and disclosure requirements, including the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and state lobbying, ethics and gift laws as well as ballot measure and election-related laws.

• Contract drafting and advising, such as negotiating vendor agreements relating to compliance-focused systems, as well as drafting and reviewing legal policies and procedures.

• Counsels senior leadership and other Tides’ teams on novel and complex legal compliance questions arising from new program models, partnerships, and advocacy strategies.

• Monitors legislative, regulatory, and enforcement developments affecting the nonprofit sector and translates them into actionable organizational guidance.

People Leadership

• Leads, develops, and supervises the legal compliance team, including hiring, performance management, coaching, and professional development.

• Sets team priorities, allocates resources, and builds team skills aligned to LRC departmental goals and organizational strategy.

• Manages functional and team efficiency, effectiveness, and alignment, and models Tides' values in fostering an inclusive, accountable, high-performing team culture.

• Strong alignment with Tides' values, mission, and impact goal. The AGC must embody Tides' JEDI values and demonstrate the organization's core values: future focus, accountability, transparency, respect, and collaboration in all aspects of their work.

• Deep expertise in laws and regulations governing 501(c)(3) public charities, and an understanding of relationships among affiliated tax-exempt organizations such as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) non profits.

• Authoritative command of federal and state lobbying, political activity, and campaign finance rules as applied to (c)(3) organizations, including ballot measure activity and issue advocacy at the federal, state and local levels.

• Experience translating complex legal requirements into well-calibrated, effective and efficient policies, practices and systems, and building robust compliance systems.

• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop teams, including people leaders, and to manage a function's outcomes and alignment.

• Effective and creative problem solving skills that result in solution-oriented, business-forward, actionable advice and guidance. Ability to distinguish material risk from theoretical risk and advise accordingly.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to counsel executives, senior leaders and non lawyers on complex topics.

• Exercises excellent judgment in handling confidential and sensitive information.

• Proficiency with Salesforce and MS Office suite of products a plus.

• Juris Doctor and active California law license or registered in-house counsel required.

• Practicing attorney with 8 years of experience advising nonprofit tax-exempt organizations, at least 3 of which includes supervising or leading compliance teams and full-time staff.

• Experienced advising nonprofits on federal and state tax laws and regulations including charitability; inurement and private benefit; political, advocacy and partisan activities; state and federal lobbying limits and related lobbying reporting, disclosures and registrations.

• Adept at advising clients on legally complex and high-profile activities, such as compliance with federal and state laws regarding voter registration and ballot measures.

• Proficient advising on general corporate legal compliance matters such as conflicts of interest, OFAC, anti-bribery and other payment-related regulations, and foreign agent registration act obligations.

• Hands-on experience designing, maintaining and/or overseeing compliance programs and systems for non profit organizations.

• Experience with fiscal sponsorship, grantmaking, and multi-entity nonprofit structures is strongly preferred.

We look forward to reviewing applications from all qualified job seekers. We strongly encourage applications from women, people of color, and bilingual and bicultural individuals, as well as members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. No applicant will be discriminated against because of their race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status, or medical condition including acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related conditions. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we encourage and will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Where required by state law, we utilize E-Verify as a part of our employment authorization process.

Reasonable accommodation will be made so that all who are interested may participate in our interview process. If you are in need of an accommodation, please advise in writing at the time you apply.