Director, Local Impact

Team: External Relationships Team

Location: Strong preference for applicants located in the San Francisco Bay Area or TX (Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth). For applicants not located in one of these locations, they must have strong relationships / knowledge of one of these geographies.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND POSITION OVERVIEW

Education Pioneers (EP) Local Impact Team is responsible for leading and managing EP’s strategy for EP’s success and impact in our local communities . Over the next 3 years, the Local Impact Team will lead EP’s geographic presence and impact, growing our local champions and creating the conditions that enable strong fundraising and Fellow placements.

EP’s Director, Local Impact (DLI) will accelerate this charge by managing a portfolio of geographies, building, strengthening, and broadening our champions and partnerships in the Bay Area and Texas (Houston, Dallas Fort-Worth, Central Texas). The Director of Local Impact sits on the External Relationships Team and will report to EP’s Chief External Affairs Officer (CXO).

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE GOALS

The Director of Local Impact will be charged with achieving the following outcomes:

• Lead and manage local strategy in the Bay Area and Texas (Houston, DFW, Central Texas), creating conditions for long-term success
  • Establish and support effective regional boards
  • Evaluate and identify action plans to improve local strategy
  • Monitor and meet local outcomes
• Grow EP’s presence, impact, and influence in the Bay Area and Texas, ensuring EP meets its local goals for placements, philanthropy, and alumni engagement
  • Increase # of placements in target geographies - measured by # of fellows placed and % of earned revenue
  • Strength of local relationships - Increase the # and quality of mutually beneficial relationships in the ecosystem.
  • Ecosystem / footprint health - the extent to which EP’s footprint is inclusive and in the “right” places
• Contribute to building and maintaining alignment between EP’s partnership, fundraising, and local impact strategies.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

The following roles and responsibilities represent broadly what the Director of Local Impact is responsible for and specific responsibilities that are aligned with our organizational objectives over the next 2-3 years. As our organization evolves, these roles and responsibilities could change or expand.

Lead and Execute Local Strategy to Grow Earned Revenue and Placement Targets and create conditions for long-term success and sustainability (40%)

• Rely on personal expertise and leverage external parties and resources to create a coherent and comprehensive strategy towards building local champions and securing Fellow placements through influence.
• Take direction from EP’s CXO to define and evolve local strategies for your portfolio of geographies.
• Cultivate and manage a portfolio of partners (placement partners, backbone organizations, funders, alumni, and other local champions) to stabilize and strengthen relationships with EP, investing them in our work, and securing Fellow projects/placements.
• Contribute to fundraising efforts, including but not limited to: attending donor meetings, leading local cultivation efforts, participating in events, and stewarding relationships that are important to EP’s local strategies.
• Cultivate a strong local presence through regular travel within the Bay Area and Texas for meetings, hosting events, and building relationships with stakeholders, partners, and community members to advance outcomes and goals.

Build and Manage Local Regional Advisory Boards (30%)

• Build a team of local advisors, in partnership with EP’s CXO, CEO, and national Board, capable of providing oversight, direction, and support of EP’s local strategy
• In collaboration with other Local Impact staff and the CXO, create, institutionalize, implement, and improve a standard “regional board cadence and playbook” that ensures effectiveness and consistency across regions and over time in the core practices necessary for successful regional boards
• Create conditions for effective collaboration and matrixing through regional boards, ensuring productive collaboration between boards and EP leaders in other critical functions like fundraising, recruitment, partnerships, alumni, and learning
• Collaborate with EP’s Alumni Impact and Development teams to support appropriate committee structures to support essential outcomes like fundraising and alumni engagement.

Build Local Relationships and Champions (25%)

• Identify and build mutually beneficial relationships with local actors in your geography.
• Understand and communicate via various mediums about EPs mission, value proposition, and opportunity for impact.
• Design and execute activities that build awareness of EP’s work and value proposition
• Engage in local activities that raise EP’s awareness, profile, and precedence in local communities
• Support EP’s most important external priorities, including alumni, impact, relevance, and thought leadership

Support Program Continuum Execution (5%)

• Support EP’s Placement Partnership Team by contributing to the execution of tactical onboarding, matching and placement plans in order to ensure a strong fellow and partner experience optimize placement targets.

CORE COMPETENCIES TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ROLE

What is outlined below is an articulation of the most important competencies you’d need to excel in to be successful in your role. It’s not necessarily an articulation of all the skills you’ll lean into or even a reflection of your “superpowers,” but we want to transparently communicate the areas we feel are most important.

• Make Sound Decisions and Demonstrate Strong Judgment - You use the appropriate breadth and depth of context and data to make decisions, and display sound judgment when faced with opportunities and challenges. You are able to do this with sometimes limited and/or competing information and gather relevant perspectives and context to inform your decisions.
• Organizing Planning & Executing - You are highly effective at organizing, prioritizing, tracking, and managing workflow and resources to project level priorities. You create effective prioritized work and contingency plans that are aligned to clear milestones. You consistently follow through with these plans.
• Influencing and Motivating Others to Achieve Outcomes - You inspire committed action towards accomplishing individual and collective organizational work/goals through shaping beliefs and behaviors of others. You are able to draw on your understanding of others to take action.
• Building Relationships and Networks - You develop and cultivate beneficial internal and external relationships and networks in order to achieve results. You consistently take actions that cultivate and strengthen relationships with individuals and institutions.
• Understanding the Perspective of Others - You demonstrate a depth of awareness of the beliefs and contexts of others and their organizations to tailor actions appropriately. You are able to balance competing perspectives and use what you learn to inform your strategies, decisions, and plans.
• Defining the Opportunity and Problem - You are able to make connections between previously unrelated notions and integrate findings into meaningful and actionable strategies or solutions. You Identify relationships from multiple forms of data, leveraging interconnections and patterns across multiple scenarios.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s Degree required
• 8+ years of professional experience, with previous experience developing and managing external relationships (business development, recruitment, fundraising, new site development, etc.)
• Demonstrated excellence in written, interpersonal and verbal communication skills, as well as project management, organizational and managerial skills
• Experience building and managing systems for relationship management
• Knowledge of Salesforce
• Demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in beliefs and actions
• Location / travel requirements
  • Strong preference for applicants based in the San Francisco Bay Area or Texas (Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth).
  • For applicants outside these locations, they must demonstrate strong relationships and knowledge of one of these geographies.
  • Travel anticipated once per month, on average, to other geographies that the candidate manages

Note: Education Pioneers reserves the right to add additional duties, as needed. All Education Pioneers employees are encouraged to be flexible and responsive to changes in scope of duties.

Education Pioneers believes in compensating staff members fairly and equitably in relation to their relevant experience, competencies, and geographic location. The applicable salary range for EP’s roles is based on where the employee lives / works and is aligned to one of 3 tiers according to a cost of labor index in that geographic area. Given our commitment to equity, EP does not negotiate salary offers. You will have an opportunity to discuss salary in more detail if you progress in the hiring process.

The expected salary range for this role are set forth below. For details on which cities fall into each tier, see this list:

• Tier I (largest geo markets i.e. San Francisco, NYC, DC): $97,020 - $117,600
• Tier II (mid market cities i.e. Chicago): $87,318.40- $105,840
• Tier III (smaller markets i.e. Memphis) : $77,616 - $94,080

Education Pioneers offers competitive compensation based on the market for nonprofits of our size. Our benefits include a flexible PTO policy that is not limited in days; paid medical or parental leaves should you need them; medical, dental, vision, short-term and long-term disability, and life insurance; a flexible spending account (FSA), as well as a 403b.