Senior Director, Innovation

Senior Director, Innovation

Who we are

Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. As the largest national higher education association dedicated solely to higher education civic and community engagement, Campus Compact enables higher education institutions to develop students’ citizenship skills and forge effective community partnerships. Our resources support senior administrators, faculty, staff, and students as they pursue community-based teaching, scholarship, and action in the service of positive change.

Today, we stand at a defining moment: we are ready to scale our impact when the stakes for our work have never been higher. We know that higher education has a critical role to play in fostering democratic principles and culture by addressing polarization, strengthening civic participation, and ensuring students are prepared to navigate and shape our democracy. Thanks to the investment of philanthropic partners, Campus Compact is preparing for a period of significant growth and expansion, particularly in the areas of innovation, scaling, and coalition building.

About the role

The Senior Director of Innovation provides strategic leadership for Campus Compact’s innovation and scaling work, with a focus on identifying, testing, and scaling field-facing innovations that strengthen student civic engagement, democratic discourse, and higher education’s public purpose.

This is an outward-facing, field-oriented role, responsible for building and stewarding a structured innovation ecosystem that draws from Campus Compact’s national coalition of institutions, partners, and funders. This position is a builder and advances work rapidly to help us meet the moment. The Senior Director ensures that promising practices emerging across higher education are rigorously evaluated, supported through pilot and cohort-based models, and scaled in ways that are transferable across institutional contexts.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Strategy, the Senior Director works across the organization and with external partners to ensure innovation efforts are mission-aligned, evidence-informed, and positioned for national impact. The Senior Director will have the opportunity to hire and build out the innovation team, at least 1-2 staff members, over the next 6-12 months.

This is a remote, full-time, exempt role, with regular travel required. This position is funded through a mult-year philanthropic investment and contingent on continued funding.

Key Responsibilities

Innovation Strategy & Pipeline Leadership

• Design and lead Campus Compact’s innovation pipeline, including ideation, evaluation, experimentation, and scaling phases.
• Identify emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities in higher education and civic engagement that warrant innovation investment.
• Develop frameworks and criteria for assessing innovation readiness, field demand, transferability, and scaling potential.
• Convene and support an Innovation Advisory Board to inform prioritization and strategic alignment.

Field-Facing Innovation Development

• Monitor, synthesize, and translate emerging research, policy developments, and field-wide trends in higher education, civic engagement, and democracy into actionable insights that inform Campus Compact’s innovation priorities and scaling strategies.
• Surface and curate innovative practices emerging from campuses, community partners, and cross-sector collaborators.
• Lead the development of innovation pilots, cohorts, challenges, and sprints that test promising approaches in real-world settings.

Scaling & Field Impact

• Guide the transition of successful pilots into scalable models, toolkits, training programs, platforms, or cohort-based offerings.
• Partner with internal teams to integrate scaled innovations into Campus Compact’s platforms, professional development, publications, and convenings.
• Advance strategies that emphasize adaptation with integrity rather than rigid replication, ensuring relevance across diverse institutional contexts.
• Create the structures necessary for effective implementation including accountability and continuous learning.

Partnership & External Engagement

• Cultivate strategic partnerships with institutions, networks, funders, researchers, and field leaders to advance innovation priorities.
• Represent Campus Compact in innovation-focused national conversations, convenings, and collaborations.
• Collaborate closely with coalition-building staff to ensure innovations are informed by member needs and disseminated through trusted networks.

Team Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Supervise and support members of the Innovation team.
• Work closely with Monitoring & Evaluation leadership to embed learning, feedback loops, and evidence-building into all innovation efforts.
• Partner across Campus Compact teams to align innovation work with communications, development, membership, and strategy.
• Collaborate with senior leadership on funder development, engagement, communication, and reporting.

Take on other responsibilities as needed and appropriate.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree preferred
• 7+ years experience in roles with similar level of capacity & responsibilities
• Significant senior-level experience in higher education, democracy, civic engagement, social innovation, or a related field.
• Demonstrated success leading complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives with a national or field-wide scope.
• Experience working in or closely with non-profits and/or a diverse set of organizational structures and working towards both impact-driven and entrepreneurial-focused success measures.
• Experience designing or managing innovation, pilot, or scaling initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience supervising professional staff and leading complex initiatives that engage volunteer leaders, advisors, and partners across institutions and organizations.
• Demonstrated success working effectively in a fast paced environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience identifying, analyzing, and communicating complex data sets, metrics, and success measures, including clear experience working with and achieving both individual work and organizational KPIs.

Expectations:

• Strong strategic thinking skills, with the ability to balance experimentation, evidence, and impact. Additionally, the ability to connect program/project specific work goals to broader organizational goals.
• Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills across diverse audiences with demonstrated ability to collaborate with a diverse set of stakeholders.
• Ability to and comfortable navigating change, experience with and can learn from failure, a high-degree of flexibility, and a tolerance for risk without compromising the integrity and overall success and effectiveness of the work and organization.
• Skilled at identifying, lifting up, nurturing and centering the ideas of others.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in a relevant field.
• Experience working with coalitions, networks, or membership-based organizations.
• Familiarity with evaluation, learning frameworks, or evidence-building for social or educational innovation.
• Experience working with philanthropic funders and advisory boards.

As an employee of Campus Compact you strive to represent & live Campus Compact’s Shared Values & Commitments in both how you show up for and work with your colleagues as well as Compact’s partners and communities:

• Equity: We prioritize full participation and diversity of thought, experience, and background. We center equity in our actions, processes, and practices to uplift diverse voices and perspectives.
• Growth mindset: We consistently push ourselves and each other to do and be better. We are motivated by growth—embracing new ideas, prioritizing continuous learning, and meeting challenges head-on.
• Accountability: We recognize that long-term change requires individual and shared ownership of personal and organizational actions. We own our mistakes, give each other grace, collaborate openly, and hold ourselves to high standards of integrity.
• Responsiveness: We ensure our offerings, resources, and approaches are flexible, grounded in feedback, and responsive to the challenges of our time.
• Transparency: We are direct and authentic within our team, with our members, and with our partners. We know that building trust starts with consistent, honest, and transparent communication.

Internal & External Relationship Management:

• Works cross-functionally with strategy, communications, advancement, and operations teams
• Maintains regular communication with funders and national partners

Primary Internal & External Contacts Associated with this Position

• Campus Compact, Senior Manager for Strategic Initiatives
• Campus Compact, Senior Vice President for Strategy
• Campus Compact, Grants Specialist
• Campus Compact, Events Manager
• Campus Compact, Communications Manager
• Innovator-in-Residence
• Fellow, design teams, and work groups
• Monitoring and Evaluation
• Campus leaders, faculty, and staff
• Leaders from partner organizations

Qualification Requirements: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function in a satisfactory manner. The requirements listed above are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Physical requirements:

• This is primarily a sedentary position requiring the ability to sit at a desk and use a computer and phone most of the day.
• Minor bending and lifting periodically (mostly related to help with events and office management needs)
• The physical demands described are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Additional Information:

• Position Type: This is a full-time, exempt role. This position is funded through a multi-year philanthropic investment and contingent on continued funding.
• Location: This is a remote position with regular travel required for events and meetings, staff gatherings, and Compact Events.
• Reporting Structure: Senior Vice President, Strategy
• Compensation Band: $95,000 - $110,000
• Benefits: Campus Compact provides a competitive benefits package, including national healthcare coverage, generous paid time off, and an employer retirement contribution. The organization prioritizes employee well-being and professional development and lives out those values through a flexible work environment, an inclusive and caring culture, and dedication to professional development.
  • Organizational Breaks:
    • Winter Break: Dec. 24th - Jan. 1st
    • Summer Reset: Week of July 4th