Policy Director

Job Description

The mission of the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights (the Initiative) is to address real property issues that impact poor and disadvantaged communities. Many of the activities the Initiative undertakes assist disadvantaged communities that have been harmed as a result of lacking adequate land, housing, and other property rights. The Initiative’s core activities include training law students and other students to develop legal and other technical expertise that can be used by these students when they are in school and after they graduate to help disadvantaged people and communities address their land and housing issues; catalyzing both theoretical and applied, policy-relevant research on various land and housing issues that have been understudied and undertheorized; proactively working to develop impactful legal reform and policy solutions to address property problems disadvantaged communities experience; and sponsoring both continuing legal education programs for lawyers and community legal education and other outreach programs for disadvantaged communities. The Initiative hopes to collaborate with other stakeholders in a true spirit of partnership to more effectively address land and housing issues that disadvantaged communities experience, specifically communities that are disproportionately though not exclusively communities of color.

Position Summary

The ILHPR seeks an ambitious, entrepreneurial, and thoughtful Policy Director to help build up the Initiative’s Legal Reform and Policy Laboratory so that it can substantially increase the Initiative’s ability to develop legal reform and policy proposals to address critical land and housing issues at the local, state, and federal level and, in addition, to assist other stakeholders doing such work. A model of the type of legal reform and policy proposals the Initiative would like to help develop is the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), a groundbreaking model state property statute, which was principally drafted by Professor Thomas W. Mitchell, the Initiative’s founder and Director and a MacArthur Fellow. Thus far, the UPHPA has been enacted into law in 24 states/jurisdictions that are located in every region of the country, and it has helped thousands of disadvantaged families across the country maintain ownership of their family-owned properties and their generational wealth. Initiative staff have advised stakeholders in several states who have been interested in having their states enact the UPHPA into law. In addition, Initiative staff have helped a select number of other stakeholders at the state and federal level develop legal reform and policy proposals addressing critical land and housing issues. The Initiative is committed to playing leading and supporting roles in developing additional bold yet pragmatic legal reform and policy proposals to address a range of land, housing, and other real property issues disadvantaged communities face.

The Policy Director will manage and support members of the policy team, including the Post-Graduate Policy Fellow and the Ph.D. Fellow for Policy and will work with members of the Policy Team to ensure the quality of policy projects at each stage of every project.

The Policy Director will serve as a member of the ILHPR’s leadership team, which includes the Initiative’s Director, the Faculty Director of Housing and Property Rights Programs, the Senior Associate Director of Operations, the Research Director, and the Assistant Director of Special Projects. The Policy Director will consult with other members of the leadership team, the Post-Graduate Policy Fellow, and certain external stakeholders to develop the Initiative’s policy agenda. To make the policy work sustainable, the Policy Director will help identify funding opportunities for policy projects and will then assist in developing funding proposals and in other development efforts with other Initiative staff and/or external stakeholders.

The Policy Director also will serve as the Initiative’s representative for policy-related media relations and for other stakeholders interested in various aspects of the Initiative’s policy program. The Initiative seeks candidates whose experience has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to diversity and inclusion, both in our internal management practices as well as in shaping our Initiative’s policy agenda.

This is a hybrid position. There will be some travel, primarily in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region, though there also will be some travel required to other parts of the United States.

Duties include:

Strategy & Planning (30%)

• Collaborate with the leadership team and internal and external stakeholders on developing an initial 3-year agenda for the policy program that ensures a mix of legal reform and policy work is undertaken at the local, state, and federal level.
• Monitor strategic direction of policy program to ensure program fulfills its mission of producing high quality, impactful legal reform and policy proposals and to ensure alignment with the Initiative’s research and community engagement programs.
• Ensure that the Initiative sponsors an appropriate number of policy-related convenings on an annual basis to help develop the legal reform and policy program and helps plan and develop the Initiative’s signature annual national conference (planned collectively by all of the members of the leadership team).
• Identify and cultivate partnerships with other organizations that work on legal reform and policy work on housing, property, and community development matters.
• Identify possible people with relevant, outstanding legal reform and policy backgrounds who would be excellent candidates to serve on a possible Initiative advisory board and as fellows and affiliates of the Initiative.

Administrative Responsibilities (50%)

• Play a leading role in hiring other members of the policy team. Once hired, the Policy Director will have primary responsibility for managing these staff members.
• Develop policies and procedures to ensure that established timelines and milestones are met and that the policy team produces high quality work in a timely way.
• Makes recommendations and implements decisions on issues (operational, budget processes, and human resources, for example) that have program-wide impact.
• Facilitates collaboration and communication with relevant stakeholders – including but not limited to civic leaders and policymakers, nonprofit organizations, academics, and private sector leaders – to help enable the Initiative to provide thought leadership on various housing, land, and other real property policy matters.
• Actively assist in securing financial resources to support the policy program.
• Interfaces with the media in strategic ways to promote the policy program.

Policy Work Responsibilities (20%):

• In partnership other members of the policy team, draft and publish policy scans and analyses of critical land and housing issues impacting disadvantaged communities, especially with respect to issues that have been insufficiently analyzed to date. Such policy scans and analyses will be published in the form of papers, briefs, blog posts, etc.
• In partnership with other members of the policy team, develop a manageable set of legal reform and policy proposals that can be implemented at the local, state, and/or federal level and helps support other organizations develop a manageable number of their legal reform and policy proposals.
• Together with other members of the policy team and, at times, certain members of the leadership team, presents work of the policy team at conferences, seminars, workshops, panels, meetings, and other venues.

Full-Time Equivalent Hiring Range: $92,300 to $115,400; salary commensurate with relevant experience.

Requirements

Education

• Bachelor's degree in related area and/or equivalent experience/training. [Required]
• Advanced professional or graduate degree in a related field (e.g., Planning, Urban Economics, Architecture, Sociology, Agricultural Economics, Public Policy/Administration, Law). [Required]

Basic qualifications (at the time of application):

• Minimum of 5-7 years of relevant policy experience of increasing responsibility working for a nonprofit or governmental organization; in the office of an elected official; or in some other relevant public or private organization. Policy experience must be in the areas of rural or urban policy, affordable housing, heirs’ property, land use, land conservation and stewardship, or another related area.
• Significant management and supervisory experience.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with information dissemination, including written and oral presentations of complex legal reform and policy matters to diverse audiences.
• Significant knowledge of both rural and urban land, housing, and other property issues.
• In depth knowledge of a wide range of heirs’ property and other fractionated property ownership issues.
• Working knowledge of federal, state, and municipal rural and urban housing programs or land use regulations.
• Experience in a start-up environment managing junior staff and working as part of a fast-paced, dynamic team.

Skills

• Experience in working to address issues disadvantaged communities face in one or more of the following policy domains: affordable housing, heirs’ property, land use planning, land conservation/ stewardship, and real estate development.
• Strong working knowledge of a range of policy debates about various housing, land, or other real property issues at the state and national level and a demonstrated interest in the development of legal reform measures and policy solutions.
• Experience with the legislative process at the local, state, and/or federal level.
• Existing relationships with policymakers, advocates, and other housing, property preservation, and/or community development organizations that do anti-poverty or asset preservation and asset building work for socially and economically disadvantaged people.
• The ability to organize and otherwise work with a complex and diverse group of stakeholders in developing legal reform and policy proposals.
• Strong interpersonal, communications, writing, and public speaking skills, including the ability to work well with a diverse group of internal and external stakeholders.
• Critical thinking, including the ability to understand and communicate the implications of research for the development of legal reform and policy solutions and the ability to identify what kind of new research may be needed to better inform policy development.
• Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to creatively problem solve, prioritize, create actionable plans, manage, and deliver tangible outcomes in a growing organization.
• Excellent administrative, budgetary, human resources, and financial skills and practices.
• Ability to manage multiple simultaneous projects and deadlines.

Boston College offers a broad and competitive range of benefits depending on your job classification eligibility:

• Tuition remission for Employees
• Tuition remission for Spouses and Children who meet eligibility requirements
• Generous Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Low-Cost Life Insurance
• Eligibility for both University-Funded 401k and Employer-Sponsored 403b Retirement Plans
• Paid Holidays Annually
• Generous Sick and Vacation Pay
• Additional benefits can be found on https://www.bc.edu/employeehandbook

Boston College conducts pre-employment background checks as part of the hiring process.

Boston College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. In concert with our Jesuit, Catholic mission, Boston College is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic faculty and staff committed to teaching and working in a multicultural environment and strongly encourages applications for women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, and covered veterans. To learn more about how BC supports diversity and inclusion throughout the university please visit the Office for Institutional Diversity at https://www.bc.edu/diversity.

Boston College's Notice of Nondiscrimination can be viewed at https://www.bc.edu/nondiscrimination.