Job Description

Career Opportunity 

Balsam Mountain Trust seeks a relational, strategic, and mission-centered leader to serve as its next Executive Director. The ideal candidate will bring conservation and natural-resource fluency, strong relationship-based fundraising experience, excellent communication and storytelling skills, sound nonprofit management judgment, and the ability to build trust across a distinctive residential, philanthropic, educational, and conservation ecosystem. 

Mission: To inspire people to be responsible stewards of the natural and cultural resources of the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains through education and conservation leadership. 

Reporting Structure: The Executive Director reports to the Board of Directors and leads a small staff team responsible for conservation education, animal ambassador care, community programming, volunteer engagement, administration, development support, partnerships, and day-to-day operations.  

Total Staff and Budget: Balsam Mountain Trust operates with an annual budget of approximately $500,000 and a staff of three core staff members, a part-time administrative/development coordinator, seasonal interns, and an AmeriCorps service member. 

Compensation: The salary range for this position is $90,000-$105,000, commensurate with experience and qualifications, plus flexible total compensation elements, including stipend, IRA contribution, and possible relocation support. 

Working Environment/Location: This is a highly visible, place-based leadership role located at Balsam Mountain Preserve in Western North Carolina. The Executive Director should expect a strong on-site presence at the Nature Center and throughout the Preserve, with regular external meetings across the region and appropriate flexibility for administrative work. 

Key Responsibilities of the Executive Director 

Strategic and Mission Leadership 

• Honor the Trust's conservation and education legacy while helping the organization clarify its next-stage priorities, focus, and operating model. 
• Work with the Board to define realistic first-year and long-term priorities, including what should be advanced, paused, narrowed, or sequenced. 
• Translate the Trust's mission into compelling strategies that connect land stewardship, resident engagement, community education, and public benefit. 
• Use sound judgment to balance many worthy opportunities against available staff capacity, funding, and partner support. 

Fundraising, Donor Engagement, and Sustainability 

• Lead a relationship-based development program that moves residents, donors, volunteers, and friends from awareness to meaningful investment. 
• Cultivate, solicit, and steward major donors in partnership with the Board, Resource Development Committee, and volunteer leaders. 
• Develop a clear and compelling case for support that explains what the Trust does, why it matters, how it is funded, and how donors can make a difference. 
• Strengthen fundraising systems, donor stewardship practices, event strategy, gift tracking, grant opportunities, and long-term resource planning. 

Communication, Storytelling, and Resident Engagement 

• Make the Trust's purpose, structure, funding model, and value to Balsam Mountain Preserve simple, memorable, and repeatable. 
• Build intentional pathways for new and long-time residents to learn about the Trust, participate in programs, volunteer, and give. 
• Serve as a visible, approachable ambassador through tours, hikes, talks, donor conversations, resident orientations, and community gatherings. 
• Communicate with warmth, clarity, responsiveness, and follow-through across residents, donors, staff, volunteers, partners, and Balsam entities. 

• Guide a balanced program strategy that supports resident-facing experiences, external education, land stewardship, conservation leadership, and community outreach. 
• Assess the scope and sustainability of external programming with schools, libraries, youth, universities, conservation partners, and regional organizations. 
• Ensure the Nature Center, animal ambassadors, trails, biodiversity, habitat work, and interpretive experiences reflect the Trust's mission and quality. 
• Support staff and partners in translating science, ecology, and stewardship into accessible learning experiences that inspire action. 

Organizational Management and Partnership Leadership 

• Lead, supervise, and support a small staff team with clear roles, priorities, accountability, communication norms, and realistic workloads. 
• Manage financial resources responsibly, including budgeting, revenue planning, expense oversight, reporting, and resource allocation. 
• Partner effectively with the Board of Directors, committees, volunteers, Club, Community Association, developer, NALT, and other entities that shape the broader Balsam ecosystem. 

The Ideal Candidate Profile 

The ideal candidate will possess the following qualifications: 

• Environmental, conservation, natural resources, outdoor education, ecology, land stewardship, or related mission fluency; deep technical expertise is welcome but must be paired with executive leadership capacity. 
• Nonprofit leadership experience, preferably in a small or mid-sized organization where the executive must lead across strategy, operations, fundraising, staff, board, and external relationships. 
• Demonstrated relationship-based fundraising experience, including donor cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, case-making, and comfort engaging high-capacity donors. 
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, including the ability to explain complex organizational structures, conservation concepts, and funding needs in accessible ways. 
• Experience partnering with and supporting a Board of Directors, including helping board members serve as strategic leaders, ambassadors, fundraisers, and fiduciaries. 
• Staff leadership and supervision experience, including role clarity, accountability, team communication, morale, and performance support. 
• Financial literacy, including budget management, revenue planning, forecasting, and resource allocation. 
• Experience building partnerships with schools, universities, libraries, conservation organizations, public agencies, community organizations, or similar partners. 
• Comfort working in a relational, hospitality-oriented community environment with sophisticated stakeholders, varied perspectives, high expectations, and differing opinions. 
• Alignment with the mission of Balsam Mountain Trust and genuine inspiration for conservation, education, stewardship, and the natural and cultural resources of the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains. 

About Balsam Mountain Trust 

Balsam Mountain Trust is a distinctive nonprofit organization embedded within the larger Balsam Mountain Preserve community in the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains. The Trust inspires stewardship through conservation education, land stewardship, nature-based programming, resident engagement, school and community outreach, animal ambassador care, volunteer engagement, and partnerships across the region. 

The Trust is part of the founding fabric of Balsam Mountain Preserve and is charged with stewarding approximately 3,200 acres of conservation land held in a land trust. Its work helps keep the forest healthy, protect clean water, manage invasive species, maintain habitat for native wildlife, and sustain the conservation ethos, biodiversity, trails, Nature Center, and community character that make the Preserve different from other mountain communities. These conservation lands also serve as a living laboratory for local and regional students and their professors, connecting education and research directly to the land. 

Through its animal ambassador program, the Trust introduces local schoolchildren and community members to non-releasable vertebrate and invertebrate animals, creating moments of wonder, curiosity, and connection with the natural world. The next Executive Director will help the Trust tell its story more clearly, focus its priorities, professionalize fundraising, strengthen resident engagement, support staff, and expand its impact in a sustainable way. 

Want to know more? Visit https://bmtrust.org/.  

About Sylva and Western North Carolina 

Balsam Mountain Preserve is located near Sylva in the mountains of Western North Carolina, a region known for extraordinary biodiversity, outdoor recreation, cultural heritage, and strong connections to land and place. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Sylva offers access to hiking, fishing, waterfalls, scenic trails, local shops and restaurants, arts and music, and the broader cultural and natural resources of Jackson County and the surrounding region. The Executive Director role offers a rare opportunity to lead in a setting where conservation, education, community, philanthropy, and stewardship intersect every day. 

Want to know more? Visit https://townofsylva.org/.  

Benefits

Benefits include a flexible total compensation package designed to support the needs of the selected candidate. Balsam Mountain Trust currently provides a benefits stipend, an IRA contribution, and may consider relocation support as part of the overall compensation package.  

How To Apply 

Join Balsam Mountain Trust and play a critical role in shaping its future while driving impactful change in the community.

To apply, scroll to the bottom of this page.  You will see instructions for uploading your compelling cover letter, resume, and salary requirements. Please provide all requested information to be considered. Cover letters should be responsive to the mission of UMRH as well as the stated responsibilities and qualifications.

In case of any technical problems, contact talent@armstrongmcguire.com. No phone calls, please, and no applications will be accepted by email or directly from third-party posting sites.