Executive Director, Kansas City

Executive Director, Kansas City

About GreenLight Fund

Founded in Boston in 2004, GreenLight Fund addresses barriers to economic mobility for children, youth and families in high-poverty urban areas by creating local infrastructure and a consistent annual process to:

• Identify critical needs and barriers for people experiencing poverty.
• Import innovative, entrepreneurial programs that can have a significant, measurable impact.
• Galvanize local support to help programs reach and sustain impact in the city.

In addition to funding, GreenLight Fund provides ongoing support to the organizations it brings to a city (portfolio organizations) through access to a national network of partners and city-specific relationships and knowledge, as well as expertise developed through GreenLight Fund's experience in other cities, which helps ensure their success and impact.Currently, in addition to the founding site in Boston, GreenLight Fund has sites in Atlanta, the Bay Area, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Newark, Philadelphia, and the Twin Cities. Nashville, our newest site, will launch in 2026. Since our founding, GreenLight has launched and supported 62 innovative organizations across these sites that reached 1.3M children and families last year.GreenLight Fund is poised for continued growth, with a focus on deepening community impact, growing to new cities, building our learning capacity, building strategic partnerships, and centering equity in all that we do. To learn more about GreenLight Fund's work, please visit http://greenlightfund.org/. GreenLight Kansas City has philanthropically invested $3M to bring 5 organizations to the city and leveraged an additional $4.8M to drive measurable outcomes for residents navigating poverty and working to overcome barriers to inclusive economic opportunity. In 2025, GreenLight reached more than 61,028 Kansas City residents and families through their portfolio organizations: Food Connect, mRelief, All Our Kin, Becoming a Man (BAM), and Working on Womanhood (WOW).

The Opportunity

GreenLight Fund is currently seeking a dynamic, passionate, and collaborative Executive Director to lead GreenLight Kansas City forward. The Executive Director will work with a Selection Advisory Council – that includes private sector entrepreneurs and investors, nonprofit leaders, philanthropic leaders, social entrepreneurs, issue experts, and Kansas City residents with lived experience navigating poverty – to identify critical needs in Kansas City and vet, select, fund, and launch the highest-performing national solutions that directly fit the needs of the community. This entrepreneurial leader will continue to build GreenLight Fund's visibility and network, including building a strong, diverse coalition to support GreenLight Kansas City and its portfolio organizations and cultivating and expanding its donor base.This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced, results-oriented, and inspiring leader to work collaboratively to deliver a proven model of growing high-performing nonprofits in Kansas City and to engage individuals, funders, and companies to create meaningful community impact in this GreenLight Fund site. Reporting to a Vice President, Site Success, the Executive Director will lead implementation of GreenLight's Method of Impact in Kansas City, partner with peers across the country to find and spread what works, and support the national GreenLight network.Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Programmatic Leadership

• Lead a diverse community-wide Selection Advisory Council to advise on identifying Kansas City's high priority community needs and the vetting and selection of portfolio organizations that can powerfully address them.
• Run an annual selection process to identify organizations with potential to have a significant impact on community needs, including conducting rigorous diligence and deep landscape analysis to understand organizations' potential for impact and community fit.
• Engage the voice of community members with lived experience navigating poverty in determining priority needs and solutions.
• Serve as an active local board member for portfolio organizations.
• Act as a strategic thought partner to and connector for local portfolio organization Executive Directors and boards on a broad range of strategic and operational issues.
• Continue to support the success of legacy portfolio organizations as needed.

External Relations and Fundraising

• Represent GreenLight Kansas City externally and cultivate a network of relationships with community leaders, entrepreneurs, the private-sector investor community, philanthropic partners, government officials, nonprofit and business leaders, and prospective partner organizations.
• Actively steward current GreenLight Kansas City investors and continue to build the investor base, leading all stages of the fundraising cycle.
• Secure critical resources, financial and otherwise, for GreenLight Kansas City and portfolio organizations, and actively and thoughtfully steward these relationships over time.
• Provide support to a growing portfolio of organizations GreenLight Kansas City has brought to the city.

Organizational Leadership

• Participate actively in the GreenLight network of site Executive Directors and local and national staff to share best practices, knowledge of promising social innovation, and strategies to build the network and collaborate to find and support GreenLight organizations.
• Help execute the organization's Strategic Plan to deepen community impact, grow to new cities, build our learning capacity, build strategic partnerships, and center equity in all that we do.
• Effectively lead the local team, which will include an Associate hired by the Executive Director, and plan for future staffing needs.

Candidate Profile

• The Kansas City Executive Director will be an experienced, innovative, and collaborative leader with compelling presence and exceptional communication, fundraising, and relationship-building skills. While no one candidate will possess every quality outlined for this position, the successful candidate will bring many of the following professional qualifications and personal attributes:
• Authentic passion for GreenLight's mission, deep commitment to the Kansas City community, and strong existing relationships across sectors.
• Proven commitment to bringing a racial equity lens to their work and deep understanding of how systems of oppression have affected communities experiencing poverty.
• A successful track record in entrepreneurial environments holding positions of increasing complexity and responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience developing effective working relationships with people from a wide array of backgrounds, leading groups and developing talent, all with a collegial and team-building approach that puts others at ease, engenders trust, and is grounded in community needs.
• Experience and relationships in the Kansas City philanthropic, nonprofit, government, and business sectors in both Kansas and Missouri, as well as knowledge of the critical social issues affecting low-income residents in the area.
• Familiarity with nonprofit and/or philanthropy sectors, ideally with knowledge of the social innovation world and results-oriented, evidence-based program design; passion for and demonstrated commitment to social entrepreneurship and social change.
• Strong analytical skills and experience with due diligence and/or grant-making processes.
• Superb verbal and written communication skills and the ability to represent GreenLight Kansas City and portfolio organizations in a professional, engaging and dynamic manner.
• A track record of securing financial resources from a variety of sources, building awareness of and support for important endeavors, and successfully cultivating and stewarding donors over time.
• Experience building and managing pipelines, especially with donors and/or programs.
• Creative, collaborative, entrepreneurial, and action-oriented with an eagerness to roll up one's sleeves and work hands-on to grow organizations.
• Bachelor's degree is strongly preferred but not required.

Compensation & Benefits

The salary for this position is $135,000. The compensation package includes:

• Health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield (80% paid by GreenLight)
• Dental and Vision insurance through Guardian (80% paid by GreenLight)
• Full coverage of all mental health visits through Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Safe Harbor 401k: GreenLight will match 100% of the first 3% of salary and 50% of the next 2%
• Short and long-term disability and life insurance fully paid by GreenLight
• 11 company-wide holiday closings and 3 floating holidays
• Generous PTO and parental leave
• Up to $75 per month of cell phone reimbursement
• Up to $100 per month of WiFi reimbursement
• Up to $1,500 per year for professional development
• Access to Holisticly (40 Holisticly credits per month)

Candidates must be based in the Kansas City area. This position offers flexibility to work from home or hybrid with the expectation of in-person engagements, including meetings, events, and travel.

GreenLight Fund is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages applications from people of color, persons with disabilities, women, and LGBT applicants.

Contact

DSG | Koya has been exclusively retained for this engagement, which is being led by Cassie Scarano and Ariella Pasackow. To apply, please submit a compelling cover letter and resume by filling out our Talent Profile no later than March 20, 2026. We will begin screening applications as soon as materials are received and will begin the interview process. All inquiries are strictly confidential.

DSG | Koya is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals living with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual living with a disability and need assistance expressing interest online, please email NonprofitSearchOps@divsearch.com. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.

About DSG | Koya

DSG | Koya, a DSG Global company, is the nation's premier search firm dedicated to mission-driven leadership. Since its founding in 2004, DSG | Koya has had an exclusive focus on mission-driven clients and was founded on the belief that the right leader can transform an organization and have a deep and measurable impact on our world. DSG | Koya works with nonprofits & NGOs, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.

DSG Global is consistently recognized by Forbes on its top 10 list of "America's Best Executive Recruiting Firms" and is an industry leader in recruiting transformational leaders for a changing world. The firm is deliberately different in its approach, with best-in-class teams who have decades of experience in cultivating inclusive leaders, understanding the dimensions of diversity, and building equitable teams.
Learn more about DSG | Koya via the firm's website.

To apply, visit: https://www.dsgco.com/search/22888-greenlightfundkansascity/

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