Senior Vice President & Executive Director

About City Year Detroit

City Year was founded in 1988, with the idea to unite young people, ages 17-25, from diverse ethnic, educational, and socio-economic backgrounds to engage in a year of full-time service in under-resourced schools. City Year Detroit (CYD) launched in 1999. Today, City Year Detroit places teams of AmeriCorps members in 10 schools with Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), serving as tutors and mentors and implementing City Year's Whole School, Whole Child program. This research-based program focuses on the early warning indicators which can predict a student's likelihood to graduate high school. For School Year 2022-23, City Year Detroit AmeriCorps members will provide targeted interventions to over 7,000 DPSCD students across its ABC intervention areas of Attendance, Behavior, and Course performance in English Language Arts (ELA) and math.

Position Overview

City Year is seeking an innovative, entrepreneurial, and people-focused leader to serve as the Executive Director (ED) of City Year Detroit. This position is an outstanding opportunity to play an integral role in advocating for and advancing issues around public education, workforce development, equity, and service in the Detroit area. This seasoned executive is responsible for ensuring the Detroit site meets its impact, revenue, district partnership, and external relations goals. City Year Detroit stands to further its position in the Detroit community, and key to the site’s success is a leader and collaborator who is a natural coalition-builder, people developer, relationship builder, and influencer who leads with both tenacity and humility.

Reporting to the President of Market 2, this dynamic, visionary change agent leads 26 staff members and 75-125 AmeriCorps members each year. Additionally, the Executive Director works closely with City Year Detroit’s board, comprised of civic leaders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors who care about all of Detroit’s students receiving a high-quality education. The Executive Director is accountable for a current annual revenue budget of approximately $6.5M while simultaneously securing the resources necessary to ensure the sustainability, growth, and scale to achieve City Year’s long-term impact.

Serving as the primary champion of City Year's impact locally, the Executive Director leads efforts to keep students in school and on track while also ensuring the site's sustainability and continuity. The Executive Director represents City Year Inc. and City Year Detroit in the region and state by mobilizing powerful coalitions to catalyze greater educational opportunity for underserved students. These constituencies include the site board; local alumni; DPSCD district and school leaders; Michigan Community Service Commission; elected officials; private sector investors, and other community partners.

Additionally, the Executive Director is a Senior Vice President for City Year Inc.'s national organization and, therefore, strengthens the connection between City Year's national initiatives and Detroit’s local work. As vice president, the Executive Director also participates within the City Year global network to advance the mission by managing working relationships with staff at City Year's national office and helping to lead and set organizational strategy through network-wide project teams.

Responsibilities

The Executive Director is responsible for leading and managing site staff and AmeriCorps members to ensure operational success and impact by generating resources and building support from the public and private sectors. This executive serves as a vital link between the local Detroit market, the City Year Market Group, and the City Year national office. Site supervision includes the functional areas of student impact and school partnerships, revenue generation, expense management, management and retention of AmeriCorps members and staff, site board development and relations, and community leadership.

Our Executive Directors embody our core values and must have a firm belief that education has the power to help all students reach their full potential and a passion for increasing critical student outcomes such as graduation rates and college or career readiness. To successfully execute the job’s core responsibilities, a successful Executive Director must demonstrate the following behaviors:

• Build and forge partnerships and coalitions with diverse stakeholders to advance the cause of educational equity
• Mobilize internal and external stakeholders towards a bold vision of how they can impact the lives of young people
• Build and empower teams to fully own their functions while driving accountability and take personal responsibility for their success
• Build community and foster a caring and supportive environment with a sense of connection and belonging
• Demonstrate curiosity and humility as a life-long learner who seeks out diverse perspectives and opportunities for self-improvement
• Possess a deep sense of personal accountability to ensure the success of both City Year Detroit locally and City Year, Inc. nationally
• Connect with and inspire diverse teams of AmeriCorps Members between the ages of 17 and 25

Through these lenses, the Executive Director will focus on the following primary areas of responsibility:

People and Culture: Lead, coach, and develop 26 full-time staff members contributing to high levels of satisfaction, engagement, and retention. Establish a dynamic culture that embodies our core values of inclusivity and teamwork. Further develop site human resources structures to ensure excellent and equitable hiring, performance support, and career advancement practices.

AmeriCorps Member Experience: Ensure the site delivers a transformational experience for all City Year AmeriCorps members by supporting members in feeling prepared and confident in their service and promoting member persistence from initial confirmation of acceptance to completion of service.  

Student Impact: In partnership with senior site staff and regional support staff, the ED will ensure high quality and commitment to the nationally developed Whole School, Whole Child service delivery model implemented by City Year AmeriCorps members in partner elementary, middle, and high schools.

Private Sector Fundraising, Cultivation, and Stewardship: Serve as the chief fundraiser leading site staff and local advisory board to motivate key influencers to generate the resources necessary to meet annual and long-term goals leveraging national revenue and stewardship strategies. Develop a strategy to maintain a healthy, diversified, and growing revenue mix from private and public sources. Identify, cultivate, solicit, and manage strategic relationships with corporations, foundations, family foundations, and individuals to build a sustainable private revenue portfolio resulting in annual revenues reaching toward or surpassing $3.5M.

School/District Investments: Sustain transformational partnerships with existing district and school leadership and, when necessary, cultivate new transformational partnerships with future school partners.

Financial Management: Ensure City Year Detroit raises three percent more than it spends annually by managing a fiscally-sound budget, forecasting, expense management, and cash flow for a current site expense budget of $6.5M.

Board Member Engagement: Recruit, develop, and manage a diverse, dynamic, and deeply engaged local advisory board to build and execute a multi-year site strategic plan focused on deepening the evidence of our impact with students and in schools, facilitating a rewarding AmeriCorps Member experience, local fundraising efforts, community engagement, and brand awareness while also contributing to the success of the national organization. Ensure cultivation and engagement of future board leadership.

Government Relations and Public Policy: Engage local and national elected officials – Governor, Mayor, City Council, local and state school board representatives, State Legislature, and members of U.S. Congress - to support funding and policies for City Year and the national service movement. Maintain an effective and collaborative relationship with AmeriCorps state commission, the Michigan Community Service Commission; oversee the preparation of AmeriCorps grant applications and progress reports and meet performance and compliance requirements associated therein.

AmeriCorps Member Recruitment: Collaborate with City Year’s national recruitment and admissions team to ensure site recruits, selects, and admits AmeriCorps members within the regional framework, meeting quality, quantity, and inclusivity goals. Partner with site staff and local partners to ensure a strong cohort returns annually for a second year of service.

Alumni Engagement: Ensure the local alumni board's engagement to leverage alumni to support AmeriCorps members in service and continue their lifetime of service.

Marketing and Communications: Lead the site in increasing visibility and brand awareness of City Year’s work in local and national media, social media, and marketing channels by developing and leveraging local relationships.

In Detroit, the top priorities include:

• Leading the City Year Detroit Staff and AmeriCorps members through modeling a deep commitment to collaboration, the cause of educational equity, and producing impactful results.
• Maintain and deepen strategic partnership with Detroit Public Schools Community District to maximize City Year’s impact with students and schools in Detroit.
• Further advance the site’s commitment to Diversity, Belonging, Inclusivity, and Equity (DBIE) by investing in people, culture, community, and partnerships while prioritizing inclusive and equitable systems, policies, processes, and practices.
• Coordinate the annual recruitment and admission of City Year AmeriCorps Members through a partnership with the National Recruitment and Admissions team and local partners.  Increase size of Detroit corps to market capacity.  
• Ensuring City Year Detroit's financial sustainability by growing the current community of champions and financial investors to meet existing revenue goals promoting the longevity of our work in Detroit.
• Supporting local site board and recruiting diverse talent to the board to support future financial sustainability and growth while increasing brand awareness and recognition of City Year in the local community.

Qualifications

• Strong ability and experience in the behaviors listed above
• Commitment to educational equity and belief in the potential of all students
• Emotional intelligence and competencies in Diversity, Belonging, Inclusivity, and Equity work
• Demonstrated success managing effective and engaged teams, including managing through multiple layers of leadership
• Proven skills in influencing and motivating stakeholders; track record in fundraising from corporations, foundations, and major gifts and/or sales
• Ability to connect programs to funding, creatively generating other resources, and building collaborative and strategic partnerships
• Strong communication, listening, and public speaking skills needed to represent City Year's mission and vision powerfully
• Ability to attend evening and weekend events; ability to travel to in-person meetings in various cities quarterly (when safe to do so)
• Significant local non-profit, volunteer, or multi-sector experience preferred
• An established cross-sector, local network a plus
• Knowledge of Detroit, Michigan and local/state educational landscape preferred
• Content knowledge of K-12 education, youth development, and/or community or national service a strong plus