Executive Director

Overview

The DCTP Executive Director provides strategic vision and leadership to the organization, ensuring that the core programs and operations advance the mission, vision, and purpose of DCTP. The Director manages the many moving parts of the DCTP team, ensuring that people have the support and resources they need to do their best work. They coordinate organizational evaluation efforts and support program and project design, training, and communications. They consistently deepen their knowledge of Detroit’s digital ecosystem and strategize around DCTP’s role within it. The Director reports to the Advisory Board, and receives direct support from the DCTP leadership team.

The primary focus of this role initially will be fund development and organizational capacity-building. The Director serves as the primary point of contact with DCTP’s fiscal sponsor, Allied Media Projects (AMP), working closely with AMP staff on budgeting and fund management. They manage and support all major organizational partnerships, and cultivate and manage funder relationships.

Scope of Responsibilities

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the duties required.

Strategic vision and leadership

• Continue to refine the focus of DCTP’s work in response to ongoing learning and reflection with program staff, community members, and partners
• Facilitate meaningful engagement with DCTP staff in decisions regarding the strategic direction of the organization
• Ensure alignment of program goals with DCTP’s mission and vision
• Ensure organizational funding, resources and capacity match programmatic demands
• Ensure clarity and capacity for collaboration as the Community Technology Collective (CTC), the stewarding partnership between DCTP and Community Tech New York (CTNY), including the Community Internet Trust (CIT)

Fundraising

• Develop a fundraising strategy that ensures long-term organizational health and sustainability
• Lead in the creation of grant narratives, budgets, and reports, with support from leadership team as needed
• Lead determinations around programmatic regranting and collective fundraising
• Lead individual donor cultivation and sponsorships, in collaboration with communications contractors/staff
• Plan and participate in earned revenue strategies, including one-off speaking, training, and consulting contracts
• Cultivate and maintain positive, engaged relationships with philanthropic program officers
• Plan or participate in occasional funder briefings or working groups

Team Management

• Hold one-on-one meetings with DCTP program/departmental directors as needed, with the purpose of tracking progress towards goals, making strategic decisions, and providing support
• Develop and hire for additional staff roles as needed
• In collaboration with operations support, develop agendas for bi-weekly DCTP team meetings. Full staff rotates facilitation duties for staff meetings.
• Collaborate with CTNY directors to facilitate bi-weekly CTC meetings
• Contribute to, inform, or stay abreast of program team/partner meetings
• Provide support with conflict mediation and individual staff concerns, with process support from Director of UX and Accessibility as needed
• Collaborate with communications staff to ensure the sharing of pertinent information across teams, supporting on documentation, presentation/replication, and distribution of information as needed
• Support collaborative decision-making with tools like PCCI and documented meeting philosophy (tools/processes managed by People and Platforms team)

Partnerships Management

• Act as primary liaison with AMP Sponsored Projects team
• Proactively seek out partnerships (funders, collaborators, consultants, vendors, etc.) that will advance the work of DCTP
• Maintain existing partnerships; serve as the primary point of contact with 123NET, Community Tech New York, and all funders
• Support Program Directors in securing and maintaining partnerships as needed
• Include DCTP leadership team in funder meetings when relevant to their area of work, to maintain redundancy of knowledge and relationships across the organization

Evaluation

• Support DCTP programs to develop and manage annual programmatic evaluation cycles
• Collaborate with operations support to ensure that lessons distilled from evaluations inform improvements to DCTP’s programming and operations, increasing its ability to advance the mission and vision

Financial Management & Human Resources

• Working closely with AMP Finance team and with input from DCTP leadership team, create fiscally sound annual and program budgets, and track spending against those budgets throughout the year
• Review monthly and weekly finance reports prepared by AMP Accounting
• Act as a conduit between DCTP staff and contractors and AMP’s accounting staff to ensure timely payment, receipt of benefits owed, and resolution of any other HR matters
• Periodically examine and update pay bands and policy when needed, in collaboration with DCTP leadership team
• Continue the development of leadership pathway planning tool for individual staff role development
• Collaborate with operations support to identify coaches, trainings, consultations, and other personnel development resources

Communications

• Oversee the development and implementation of a communications strategy that makes the work of DCTP visible, accessible, and compelling
• Support departmental/program work, ensuring that work and goals are aligned across the organization, and that projects are adequately resourced and supported
• Make public presentations about DCTP’s work in the media, and at conferences or other venues
• Represent DCTP at municipal, state, and federal levels of government

Contribute to a healthy organizational culture

• Continually work to build skills in giving constructive feedback, direct communication, conflict resolution, and self-reflection.
• Develop time-balancing and wellness proposals, with support from People and Platforms team, including development of related policies and budgets
• Support the maintenance of open lines of communications across DCTP departments and programs
• Strive to ensure that racial equity and accessibility is practiced throughout DCTP’s work and culture

Perform other duties and activities as identified or assigned

Qualifications

Required

• At least 5 years grant writing and fundraising experience
• At least 3 years experience in senior management, preferably with nonprofit organizations
• Proven expertise in organizational strategic planning and budgeting
• Experience with public speaking on behalf of an organization
• Experience in community organizing and community engagement
• Deep understanding of Detroit’s digital divide
• Capacity and competency for cross-cultural communication and working with diverse groups of people
• A positive mindset and dedication to the organization’s core values.
• A commitment to the Detroit Digital Justice Principles
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work with a diverse and busy staff and partners

Good to have

• Multilingual
• Experience facilitating virtual conferencing and collaboration tools like Zoom, etc.

About DCTP

The Detroit Community Technology Project’s mission is to use and develop technology rooted in community needs that strengthens human connections to each other and the planet. DCTP works towards a future where people who have been marginalized from political and economic power have the ability to leverage Internet technologies to shape the future of their neighborhoods and regions.

The Team

The Operations Manager is a hybrid position based at the LOVE Building in Detroit. The Operations Manager will report directly to the DCTP Leadership Team and will work in frequent collaboration with the entire DCTP team, the Community Tech New York team, and leaders from the Equitable Internet Initiative, Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, and beyond.