Manager, Midwest Healthy Hunger Relief (Remote, Contract)

Background

The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is the premier national nonprofit transforming the food supply in pursuit of health equity. Founded in 2010 in coordination with Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative, PHA seeks partnerships that have the greatest impact on reducing health disparities and develops evidence-based, scalable approaches that drive equity-focused, systemic changes across entire sectors. Over ten years, we have partnered with more than 250 corporations, convenience store chains, hospitals, early childhood education centers, food banks, and SNAP-Ed implementing agencies, among others, in pursuit of our vision that all children grow up healthy and free from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions.

Your Role

Do you get energy from bringing people together toward big, complex goals? Are you looking to create transformational change that improves the health of low-income communities across the Midwest? PHA is looking for a passionate leader to help drive its work reimagining efforts to address hunger relief. You will use your knowledge and experience of food banks and food pantries, and your proven track record of strong relationship-building to expand and deepen PHA’s Healthy Hunger Relief program, a nationwide network of 28 food banks and networked food pantries that have committed to centering health equity in hunger relief. Your expertise in helping individuals and organizations recognize the challenges and opportunities that drive organizational transformation will propel nationwide, systemic change in the hunger relief system.

You will report to the Director, Healthy Hunger Relief, and join a highly-motivated PHA team that is based across the country, drawing from their own personal experiences as well as professional and academic expertise to drive food systems change. We value people who bring their own life experiences to their work and recognize that the ways you may have experienced economic, racial, or gender injustice drive your passion for change.

Initial Responsibilities Include:

• Promote the PHA Healthy Hunger Relief partnership program to the 58 midwestern food banks and networked pantries, with a goal of securing 25 as formal partners. 
• Facilitate convenings with midwestern food banks and network pantries to establish a shared culture of health equity that accelerates a food bank’s ability to prioritizes health and increases organizational capacity for health and hunger leadership at the local, state, and national levels.
• Support the existing food assistance partner cohort in the midwest by providing as-needed technical support, holding check-ins with a dedicated list of partners, and supporting the development of the agenda for quarterly learning conference calls.
• Implement pass-through grants with partners and capture and share learnings.
• Identify opportunities to build the evidence base to shift practices in food banks and pantries by developing case studies or white papers from the information gathered from PHA’s Healthy Hunger Relief efforts.
• Support the continued development and adoption of WellSCAN, software that enables instantaneous nutrition ranking using bar codes.   
• Monitor partner progress and trends to identify opportunities for program growth and strategies that support sector-level transformation.
• Other duties as assigned.

Desired Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree highly desired; 4-6 years of applicable experience can substitute for degree.
• At least two years’ experience in food banks or food pantries or significant knowledge of food banks and food pantries required. Personal experience utilizing food banks or food pantries can substitute for work experience.
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate with senior partner contacts, staff, and prospects.
• Results-orientation and highly developed problem-solving skills, can identify and overcome challenges independently.
• Ability to respect and value diverse stakeholders from varying racial, cultural, and regional backgrounds.
• Strong program management and organizational skills, including the ability to plan, coordinate and prioritize multiple projects autonomously under tight deadlines.
• Passion for PHA’s work reimagining hunger relief efforts and transforming the food system in pursuit of health equity.

The Partnership for a Healthier America is an Equal Opportunity Employer

PHA is committed to the principles of equal employment opportunity and to compliance with all federal, state, and local laws concerning employment discrimination, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. To this end, PHA ensures equal opportunity to all employees and applicants regardless of race, color, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, lawful alien status, physical, mental, and medical disability, veteran status or liability for service in the United States Armed Forces