Career Day Program Director (Volunteer)

Career Day Program Director (Volunteer)

PromiseRise | Career Exploration, Professional Exposure & Youth Opportunity

Organization: Mentor A Promise (MAP)

Division: PromiseRise

Program: Career Day

Location: Hybrid — New York City

Type: Volunteer Program Leadership Role

Commitment: Approximately 5–10 hours per week

Minimum Commitment: 6-month commitment required

Works Closely With: PromiseRise Leadership, PromisePrograms, PromiseRooted, PromiseBridge, career guests, volunteers, and shelter partners

About Mentor A Promise

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit supporting children and youth ages 5–18 experiencing housing instability through mentorship, literacy, education, social-emotional learning, creative opportunity, career development, advocacy, and community-centered support.

We believe young people should have opportunities not only to imagine their futures, but to meet people who can help make those futures feel possible.

About Career Day

MAP’s Career Day program introduces children and youth to professionals from different careers, industries, backgrounds, and life experiences.

Professionals visit MAP programming to talk with students about what they do, how they found their path, what they learned along the way, and the possibilities available to young people.

Career Day is not simply a guest-speaker series.

It is an opportunity to expand what young people can see for themselves.

Leadership Opportunity

Mentor A Promise is seeking a highly organized, creative, and relationship-driven Career Day Program Director to lead and grow the program.

The Director will build a diverse pipeline of career professionals, coordinate visits, prepare guests to engage effectively with young people, collaborate with program teams, and ensure each Career Day experience is engaging, age-appropriate, and meaningful.

The Director should think beyond individual events and build Career Day into a sustainable program capable of introducing students to an increasingly broad world of possibilities.

Key Responsibilities

Program Leadership

• Lead the planning, development, and continuous improvement of Career Day.
• Develop an annual and seasonal program calendar.
• Establish clear goals, standards, and operating procedures.
• Coordinate Career Day activities with MAP’s broader youth programming.
• Develop engaging formats beyond traditional presentations, including demonstrations, activities, Q&A sessions, and hands-on career exploration.

Career Professional Recruitment

• Identify and recruit professionals from diverse careers and industries.
• Build relationships with companies, professional associations, entrepreneurs, universities, public agencies, nonprofits, and community partners.
• Maintain a strong pipeline of prospective and returning Career Day guests.
• Work with PromiseBridge on strategic external relationships.

Career exposure should extend beyond the professions children already know.

Guest Preparation & Experience

• Coordinate scheduling and logistics with participating professionals.
• Prepare guests for age-appropriate, engaging conversations with students.
• Provide guidance on MAP’s mission, student population, safeguarding expectations, professional boundaries, and program format.
• Encourage guests to share both accomplishments and the real journeys behind them.
• Ensure presentations avoid inappropriate solicitation, promises, or collection of student information.

Student Experience

• Work with PromisePrograms and PromiseRooted to understand student ages, interests, and program needs.
• Create opportunities for students to ask questions and explore their interests.
• Ensure career experiences are interactive, welcoming, and developmentally appropriate.
• Help students understand that careers rarely follow one perfect or predetermined path.

The goal is not to tell a child what they should become.

It is to expand what they know they could become.

Program Operations

• Manage schedules, confirmations, materials, run-of-show, and follow-up.
• Maintain accurate records of participating professionals and career fields represented.
• Coordinate with staff and volunteers before each session.
• Anticipate and resolve scheduling or logistical challenges.
• Develop repeatable systems so Career Day can grow without losing quality.

Safeguarding & Professional Boundaries

• Ensure participating professionals understand MAP’s youth-safeguarding expectations.
• Protect student privacy and confidentiality.
• Ensure appropriate adult-to-youth boundaries.
• Prevent unauthorized exchange of personal contact information.
• Follow MAP requirements for photography, video, media, and consent.
• Escalate concerns through established MAP procedures.
• Never pressure students to discuss housing circumstances, trauma, or sensitive personal experiences.

Impact & Continuous Improvement

• Gather appropriate feedback from students, program teams, and participating professionals.
• Track careers and industries represented.
• Identify gaps in professional representation and student exposure.
• Evaluate what formats generate the strongest student engagement.
• Use lessons from each session to improve future experiences.

Success should be measured not only by how many professionals visit, but by how much possibility students encounter.

Ideal Candidate

This opportunity is particularly well suited for someone with experience or interest in:

• Career development
• Youth development
• Education
• Workforce development
• Program management
• Community engagement
• Corporate engagement
• Partnerships
• Talent development
• Counseling or student services
• Nonprofit programming

Strong candidates will demonstrate:

• Excellent organization and follow-through
• Strong relationship-building skills
• Confidence engaging professionals across industries
• Ability to coordinate multiple guests and schedules
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Creativity in designing youth-centered experiences
• Cultural humility and sound judgment
• Ability to build systems and improve programs
• Commitment to safeguarding and professional boundaries
• Genuine commitment to MAP’s mission

What Success Looks Like

Success means:

• Students regularly encounter professionals from diverse careers and backgrounds.
• Career Day represents traditional and emerging career pathways.
• Guests arrive prepared and understand how to engage meaningfully with young people.
• Sessions are interactive, memorable, and age-appropriate.
• Strong professionals return and recommend others.
• Student interests help inform future career experiences.
• Partnerships expand the program’s reach and possibilities.
• Career Day develops into a sustainable, well-organized MAP program.

Most importantly, students leave Career Day knowing more possibilities exist than they knew when they walked in.

Why This Role Matters

Children cannot imagine every future they have never had an opportunity to see.

Sometimes possibility begins with a simple encounter: meeting a dentist, engineer, chef, filmmaker, entrepreneur, teacher, designer, scientist, musician, attorney, technologist, or someone with a career they did not even know existed.

The Career Day Program Director creates those encounters—and builds the relationships and systems that allow them to happen again and again.

Commitment

• Approximately 5–10 hours per week
• 6-month commitment required
• Hybrid participation with NYC-based program coordination
• Regular communication with MAP program leadership
• Availability around scheduled Career Day sessions
• Reliable planning, communication, and follow-through
• Completion of applicable MAP onboarding and training requirements
• Compliance with safeguarding, privacy, confidentiality, and professional-boundary standards

What You’ll Gain

• Leadership of a mission-driven youth career-exploration program
• Experience in program development and management
• Professional and corporate relationship-building experience
• Opportunity to build relationships across industries
• Cross-functional nonprofit leadership experience
• Experience designing career-readiness experiences for young people
• Professional references and letters of recommendation
• Opportunity to directly expand what young people believe is possible for their futures

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply directly through Idealist and submit:

• Resume or CV
• Cover Letter

Please highlight relevant experience in career development, education, youth development, workforce development, program management, partnerships, community engagement, or related fields.

This is an unpaid volunteer position.

At this time, MAP volunteer opportunities are limited to individuals based in the United States due to legal, safeguarding, data-privacy, compliance, and programmatic requirements.

Open the door. Bring possibility into the room. Help young people see futures they may never have imagined.