LabStart Seeks High Impact Operations Associate

About LabStart

LabStart is a 501c3 nonprofit deep climate technology venture studio backing climate solutions that are too early, too hard, and too important to ignore.

We work hands-on with seasoned entrepreneurs, first-time founders, and industry experts to launch fundable, high-impact ventures. From lab to launch, we provide the earliest support—bridging the gap between breakthrough innovation and investable startup.

Our lean, mission-driven team is backed by private and public funders who believe in moving faster, funding smarter, and building a more inclusive climate future.

The Role

LabStart is hiring an Operations Associate to take on the day-to-day engine of a lean nonprofit: the systems, workflows, tools, and recurring mechanics that keep a small team running well. You will work directly with our Operations Manager and absorb a substantial share of the operational execution that role carries today.

You will own the most ground in three areas: daily operations management, technology and systems management, and fundraising and development support. You will also pick up the recurring mechanics of finance, HR, and compliance: the coding, tracking, filing, and calendars. 

We are looking for someone highly organized, proactive, and genuinely energized by making things run. LabStart is a small, entrepreneurial team, which means work is sometimes unstructured, priorities shift, and everyone wears many hats. The person in this seat will be trusted to spot what is broken, fix it, and write down how it works so that it stays fixed. 

Key Responsibilities

Daily Operations Management

• Keep the team's project management and task systems current and trustworthy—adding what is new, closing what is done, and chasing what has stalled.
• Coordinate recurring team rhythms: agendas, notes, and follow-through on action items.
• Own complex scheduling and rescheduling across multiple busy internal and external calendars.
• Run logistics for LabStart events and team travel—venues, vendors, price quotes, hotel blocks, catering, RSVPs, and the tracking that keeps everyone's details straight.
• Document operational workflows as SOPs and keep the SOP repository accurate as processes change.
• Track deliverables and deadlines across the team, surface roadblocks early, and maintain day-to-day office and operational resources.

Technology & Systems Management

• Own day-to-day administration of our CRM and donor management system—data hygiene, field structure, imports, and reporting.
• Administer our core tool stack, including access provisioning for new hires and removal at offboarding.
• Hunt down manual, repetitive work and automate it.

Fundraising & Development Support

• Maintain the funder and donor pipeline in the CRM—engagement tracking, follow-up timelines, and data hygiene—so that leadership always has an accurate picture.
• Research and qualify prospective foundations and individual donors.
• Build and maintain a database of impact metrics for reporting and grant applications, and keep fundraising decks and collateral current.

Finance, HR & Compliance Support

• Code expenses, process reimbursements, and track invoices and vendor payments.
• Run onboarding and offboarding logistics—accounts, equipment, paperwork, and first-week scheduling. 

Qualifications

• 2–3 years of professional experience in operations, administration, program support, or a similar role where you were responsible for keeping systems and processes running. 
• Hands-on CRM administration experience (Monday.com, Salesforce, HubSpot, or similar), including building automations, sequences, or reports.
• Exceptional organization and attention to detail. 
• Event and travel logistics experience, including vendor negotiation and multi-person trip coordination.
• Proactive and self-managing. 
• Comfort with numbers and process—coding expenses, tracking against a budget, reconciling lists, and noticing when something does not add up.
• Strong written and verbal communication, and the judgment to know what to escalate and what to simply handle.
• Fluency with everyday web tools and eagerness to learn new ones quickly. 
• Skilled in using AI tools to take manual operational work off a small team, but comfortable coming up with and executing on original ideas.
• Genuine enthusiasm for climate action and for supporting entrepreneurs. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a small nonprofit or early-stage startup, where you have seen what it takes to operate with a lean team.
• Exposure to nonprofit finance—expense coding, grant budgets, reimbursements, or supporting an audit.
• Familiarity with grant reporting or development operations.
• Experience writing SOPs or building process documentation from scratch.
• Excited about a hybrid work environment; ready to work in person at our Oakland, CA or Salida, CO office on average 2 days/week.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation Philosophy
LabStart offers competitive base compensation, robust benefits, and quarterly performance bonuses (determined by personal and company performance) to attract and celebrate people aligned with our mission and values. Our compensation program reflects our commitment to fairness, transparency, and excellence in nonprofit management.

• Salary: The base salary for this role is $70,000 - 80,000/yr. This reflects the good faith minimum and maximum range LabStart reasonably expects to pay for this position at the time of posting. If offered, the salary will be determined based on the candidate's specific skills, experience, and geographic location.
  
  • Note: In accordance with the California Fair Pay Act, LabStart does not request salary history from applicants.
• Flexible time off, 5% retirement matching, QSHERA (healthcare) reimbursement, 12 paid company holidays, home office reimbursement, paid parental leave, etc.