Director of Philanthropy

Free Law Project is a nonprofit that works to provide access to the law for everyone. Our CourtListener and RECAP tools give millions of people free access to court records. Through our Justice Initiatives division, we build tools for those who face the courts with the fewest resources: self-represented litigants, public defenders, and legal aid organizations. We believe open, transparent courts are essential to democracy and justice.

Free Law Project is a growing organization that is looking for a strategic, hands-on development director. The successful candidate for this role will be responsible for synthesizing the many fundraising opportunities available to the organization and will develop a plan for optimizing and executing them, including the opportunity to recruit and hire support, if needed.

Free Law Project has a growing membership and small donor base, strong institutional support, reliable program services revenue, and many opportunities to develop large donors. The organization had three million in revenue in 2025, around 2.5 million through program services and about 0.5 million through donations. The new director of fundraising will work closely with our executive director to increase that donation stream in the coming years.

Free Law Project is a particularly technical non-profit, with a large audience via its web properties, an email list of over 100,000, browser extension, and social channels. An understanding of basic Web technologies and the technology zeitgeist — what an API is, what extensions can do, how AI impacts society for good and ill, etc — are a plus but not required for this job.

The top priorities of this position are to:

• Work with our executive director to develop and execute short, medium, and long term fundraising plans.
• Develop and execute a communications plan to support our fundraising efforts
• Act as a frontline fundraiser with small and large donors to establish a pipeline of donors and grants.
• Continue to build the systems, processes, and infrastructure needed to create a sustainable and scalable fundraising program.
• Identify and hire any necessary support.

As this role grows, responsibilities will be guided by the fundraising strategy the Director develops and may include:

• Lead annual giving efforts and pursue opportunities across major gifts, online fundraising, planned giving, corporate partnerships, and foundation grants.
• Build the systems and processes needed to support and scale the development program, including improving our existing donor data management, prospect tracking, gift acknowledgment and stewardship, revenue forecasting, and reporting.
• Evaluate opportunities to establish and fund an endowment or pseudo-endowment.
• Manage our fundraising platforms and tools directly or, as the program grows, through additional development staff.
• Develop compelling and accurate proposals, donor correspondence, and other fundraising and stewardship materials.
• Represent Free Law Project with donors, funders, partners, and other key constituencies.

Qualifications

We recognize that strong candidates may bring different combinations of experience. We encourage you to apply even if you do not meet every qualification.

• Five or more years of progressively challenging experience with quantifiable results in fundraising.
• A record of achieving measurable results in one or more areas such as major gifts, individual giving, institutional fundraising, digital fundraising, or corporate partnerships.
• Experience with online fundraising and digital communication.
• Interest in and readiness to build, lead, and develop a small fundraising team as the program grows.
• Ability to work independently and be highly organized, efficient, and effective in task and time management
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with peers, board members, and volunteers
• Exceptional written and verbal communications skills
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent lived experience

Benefits (U.S. specific)

• Fully remote organization; working hours must be within three hours of Pacific Standard Time (PST, UTC-8)
• Health coverage: FLP reimburses 100% of premiums, up to your state's median gold-tier marketplace plan, and 75% for partners and dependents.
• Retirement: a 401(k) with an employer match of up to 3.5% of salary.
• Insurance: short-term disability, long-term disability and life insurance fully covered.
• Paid time off: 12 days (96 hours) in your first year, rising by one day each year up to 15 days. Unused PTO rolls over, up to 240 hours.
• Sick leave: up to 10 days (80 hours), earned at one hour for every 30 hours worked.
• Professional development: $2,000 a year for conferences, courses, certifications, books and memberships.
• Paid parental leave.
• Flexible spending accounts: for health care and dependent care, available on request.

Our Recent Successes

• We won an AWS Imagine Grant to fund our litigant portal.
• We successfully launched a membership platform that grows month over month.
• Our executive director won the Paul H. Chapman award, and FLP won the American Legal Technology award for AI.
• Our tools and data supported a huge art installation at UC Law SF.
• In 2025, we served more than 800,000,000 downloads, sent more than five million email alerts, and averaged two million visitors per month.
• Our five-star browser extension, RECAP, has over 35,000 users, many of whom are journalists.
• Our databases are some of the largest in the world, with more than half a billion records — enough to circle the planet twice if printed.

If you are passionate about our work and believe it is an important element of the democratic system, we invite you to submit your application.

Free Law Project is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or pregnancy, or any other characteristic protected by law. Our policy of equal employment opportunity applies to all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, promotions, transfers, discipline, terminations, wage and salary administration, benefits, and training. We are committed to fostering a fair and merit-based workplace where every employee feels valued and respected.