Founding Director, Boys Leadership & Youth Development Academy (Volunteer)

Founding Director, Boys Leadership & Youth Development Academy (Volunteer)

Youth Development | Education, Character, Leadership & Civic Life

Organization: Mentor A Promise (MAP)

Program: Boys Leadership & Youth Development Academy

Location: Fully Remote — United States

Type: Volunteer Founding Leadership Role

Commitment: Approximately 5–10 hours per week

Minimum Commitment: 12 months preferred

Reports To: CEO / Executive Leadership

Works Closely With: PromiseLearning, PromisePrograms, PromiseRise, PromisePublic, PromiseMeasure, PromisePeople, educators, mentors, families, youth-development professionals, and community 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, education, literacy, social-emotional learning, creative expression, career development, advocacy, and community-centered opportunity.

MAP believes young people deserve more than programs that respond to immediate needs. They deserve sustained investment in who they are becoming.

About the Academy

MAP is developing a Boys Leadership & Youth Development Academy designed to help boys grow into confident, compassionate, capable, responsible, and community-minded young men.

The Academy will take a whole-person approach to development—bringing together education, mentorship, character, leadership, emotional intelligence, financial capability, career preparation, life skills, health and well-being, civic responsibility, and service.

Success will not be defined solely by grades, careers, income, or titles.

We want young people who can think critically, communicate effectively, take responsibility for their choices, respect themselves and others, navigate challenges, contribute to their communities, develop healthy relationships, pursue meaningful futures, and lead with integrity.

The Academy will not prescribe one narrow definition of what it means to be a boy or become a man.

It will help young people develop the knowledge, character, relationships, confidence, judgment, and opportunities necessary to determine the people they want to become.

Role Overview

MAP is seeking an exceptional Founding Director to build the Boys Leadership & Youth Development Academy from the ground up.

This is not a role for someone simply interested in managing an existing youth program.

There is no finished Academy to inherit.

The Founding Director will help create it.

The Director will develop the Academy's educational philosophy, program model, curriculum framework, developmental progression, mentorship model, staffing structure, family-engagement strategy, partnerships, traditions, measurement framework, safeguarding practices, and launch plan.

The Founding Director should be prepared to ask difficult foundational questions:

What should every young person gain from this Academy?

What should an eight-year-old experience differently from a sixteen-year-old?

What knowledge belongs in the curriculum?

What cannot be taught in a classroom?

What experiences build character?

How do we teach accountability without humiliation?

How do we develop confidence without entitlement?

How do we encourage ambition while also teaching service?

How do we help boys develop emotional strength without teaching emotional silence?

How do we involve families?

How will we know whether the Academy is actually making a difference?

And ultimately:

What kind of human being do we hope a young person becomes because this Academy existed in his life?

Founding the Academy

The Founding Director will lead the Academy through its earliest stages of development.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish the Academy's mission, vision, philosophy, and values.
• Define short- and long-term student outcomes.
• Research evidence-informed approaches to youth development, mentoring, boys' education, leadership, character development, and experiential learning.
• Determine appropriate age cohorts and developmental stages.
• Design the initial program model and calendar.
• Develop the curriculum architecture.
• Establish program and instructional standards.
• Design staffing and volunteer structures.
• Develop the mentorship model.
• Establish family-engagement practices.
• Identify external expertise and partnership needs.
• Build implementation plans and launch milestones.
• Develop systems that can support responsible growth and replication.

The goal is not to launch quickly.

The goal is to build something worth sustaining.

Whole-Person Development Framework

The Academy should develop young people across interconnected dimensions rather than treating success as a single outcome.

Scholarship & Intellectual Development

Develop curiosity, literacy, critical thinking, communication, academic habits, problem-solving, research skills, digital literacy, public speaking, and a lifelong capacity to learn.

Academic achievement matters, but intellectual development should extend beyond grades.

Character & Personal Responsibility

Help young people understand and practice integrity, honesty, discipline, accountability, perseverance, humility, courage, empathy, reliability, respect, and responsibility.

Character development should not become a system for demanding obedience.

Young people need opportunities to make decisions, experience appropriate consequences, reflect, repair mistakes, and grow.

Leadership

Teach leadership through responsibility rather than status.

Students should develop skills in communication, listening, teamwork, ethical decision-making, conflict resolution, initiative, service, accountability, and problem-solving.

As participants develop, they should receive increasingly meaningful opportunities to lead.

Emotional Intelligence

Help boys develop the ability to recognize, understand, communicate, and manage emotions.

Programming should strengthen self-awareness, empathy, resilience, communication, healthy coping, conflict resolution, boundaries, and help-seeking.

Strength should never be confused with emotional silence.

Healthy Relationships

Help participants understand friendship, respect, communication, consent, boundaries, conflict, accountability, family relationships, peer pressure, and healthy interpersonal behavior in developmentally appropriate ways.

Young people should learn that how they treat others is part of who they become.

Citizenship & Civic Life

Develop an understanding of community, civic institutions, rights, responsibilities, service, respectful disagreement, public leadership, and democratic participation.

Students should have opportunities to participate in meaningful service and community-improvement projects.

The Academy should prepare young people not merely to live in society, but to contribute to it.

Financial Capability

Introduce practical financial knowledge including saving, budgeting, banking, credit, debt, income, taxes, entrepreneurship, consumer awareness, financial scams, and long-term decision-making.

Financial education should empower young people without judging their families or economic circumstances.

Career & Future Readiness

Connect students with PromiseRise and other opportunities involving career exploration, professionals, mentorship, entrepreneurship, internships, workplace readiness, college pathways, skilled trades, and emerging careers.

The Academy should expose students to many definitions of a meaningful and successful future.

Health & Well-Being

Provide developmentally appropriate education around physical health, nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, personal care, emotional well-being, healthy decision-making, and seeking appropriate support.

Specialized topics should be led or reviewed by appropriately qualified professionals.

Practical Life Skills

Develop increasingly independent skills involving:

• Time management
• Organization
• Goal setting
• Cooking
• Personal presentation
• Communication
• Digital responsibility
• Transportation
• Household responsibilities
• Problem-solving
• Understanding basic documents
• Making appointments
• Professional etiquette
• Self-advocacy

The Academy should prepare young people for life—not simply the next grade.

Mentorship

Mentorship should become one of the Academy's defining features.

The Founding Director will establish standards for:

• Mentor recruitment
• Screening
• Training
• Matching
• Relationship expectations
• Communication
• Supervision
• Documentation
• Safeguarding
• Mentor development
• Relationship transitions and closure

Mentors are not being recruited to rescue or fix young people.

They are being asked to show up consistently, listen carefully, model integrity, encourage growth, expand possibility, challenge appropriately, and keep their promises.

Family Partnership

Families and caregivers should be treated as essential partners in the Academy.

Develop approaches for:

• Family orientation
• Regular communication
• Parent and caregiver workshops
• Feedback
• Celebrations
• Family learning opportunities
• Community events
• Resource connections
• Participation in appropriate Academy experiences

The Academy should build alongside families—not around them.

Rites of Progress & Milestones

The Academy should create meaningful developmental milestones that recognize growth rather than participation alone.

Students might demonstrate progress in areas such as:

• Scholarship
• Leadership
• Service
• Responsibility
• Communication
• Financial capability
• Career exploration
• Life skills
• Personal development

As students mature, expectations should increase.

Milestones should be earned through demonstrated learning, responsibility, contribution, and growth.

Over time, these experiences could culminate in an Academy completion or leadership distinction that carries genuine meaning for participants and their families.

Student Voice

Young people should help shape the institution being built for them.

Develop meaningful opportunities for students to:

• Provide feedback
• Recommend improvements
• Create projects
• Develop Academy traditions
• Exercise leadership
• Participate in appropriate decisions
• Represent student perspectives
• Mentor younger participants when developmentally ready

We should never build an Academy for boys without building it with boys.

Building the Team

The Founding Director will eventually help recruit and develop a multidisciplinary Academy team that may include:

• Educators
• Youth-development professionals
• Mentors
• Curriculum specialists
• Leadership facilitators
• Career professionals
• Financial-literacy educators
• Family-engagement professionals
• Program coordinators
• Coaches
• Community partners
• Volunteers

The Founding Director's job is not to personally teach everything.

It is to build an institution where the right people teach the right things exceptionally well.

Safeguarding & Ethical Leadership

Youth safety must be embedded in the Academy from its first design decision.

The Founding Director will work with appropriate MAP leaders to establish:

• Background-screening requirements
• Training standards
• Adult-youth boundaries
• Approved communication channels
• Privacy protections
• Appropriate supervision
• Media and consent protocols
• Incident-reporting procedures
• Escalation pathways
• Safe virtual and in-person environments

No mentor, educator, volunteer, partner, donor, or organizational leader receives privileged access to a young person because of professional status, influence, or contribution.

Safeguarding applies equally to everyone.

Measurement & Long-Term Outcomes

Partner with PromiseMeasure to establish meaningful indicators related to:

• Academic engagement
• Confidence
• Belonging
• Leadership
• Communication
• Social-emotional development
• Financial knowledge
• Career awareness
• Civic participation
• Attendance
• Retention
• Mentor relationships
• Goal attainment
• Student feedback
• Family feedback
• Program progression

The Academy should be willing to ask whether its model is working—and change when the evidence says it should.

Success cannot simply mean that a student attended.

The question is whether something meaningful developed because he did.

Ideal Candidate

Strong candidates may have backgrounds in:

• Youth development
• Education
• School or academy leadership
• Boys' education
• Mentoring
• After-school programming
• Leadership development
• Curriculum development
• Community-based education
• Student success
• Social-emotional learning
• College and career readiness
• Nonprofit program development

Candidates should demonstrate:

• Significant experience working with or designing programs for young people
• Experience building programs, schools, academies, or educational initiatives
• Strong understanding of youth development
• Ability to translate educational philosophy into practical programming
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams
• Strong curriculum and program-development skills
• Ability to recruit and develop educators, mentors, and volunteers
• Strong communication and relationship-building skills
• Excellent judgment concerning youth safety and adult boundaries
• Ability to build from ambiguity rather than requiring an established structure
• Deep respect for young people and their families
• Commitment to developing the whole person

Experience founding or significantly expanding a youth-serving initiative is especially valuable.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first stage of leadership, MAP has a clearly articulated Academy model rather than simply an idea.

The Academy has a philosophy, developmental framework, curriculum architecture, mentorship model, family-engagement strategy, safeguarding framework, staffing plan, measurement approach, and realistic launch roadmap.

Over time, young people remain engaged because the Academy challenges them while giving them a genuine sense of belonging.

Families understand what the Academy stands for.

Mentors understand their responsibilities.

Students progress into leadership.

Graduates leave with more than memories of a program.

They leave with knowledge, relationships, experiences, habits, confidence, and a stronger understanding of who they are and what they can contribute.

Why This Role Matters

There are moments in a young person's life when one relationship, one expectation, one opportunity, or one person who refuses to give up on them can change the direction of everything that follows.

But we should not leave those moments to chance.

The Academy is an opportunity to create an intentional environment where boys are consistently surrounded by people who believe in their potential while expecting integrity, responsibility, curiosity, compassion, effort, and growth.

We are not trying to manufacture one kind of man.

We are trying to give young people the foundation to become thoughtful, capable, responsible people who can determine their own paths and contribute meaningfully to the world around them.

What You'll Gain

• Opportunity to found and shape a new youth-development academy
• Direct collaboration with MAP executive leadership
• Experience developing an educational model from concept through implementation
• Opportunity to recruit and develop a multidisciplinary founding team
• Experience designing curriculum, mentorship, leadership, and family-engagement systems
• Ability to create traditions and institutional practices from the beginning
• Professional references and recommendations based on demonstrated contribution
• Opportunity to build something capable of influencing young people's lives for years to come

Commitment

• Approximately 5–10 hours per week during the development phase
• 12-month commitment preferred
• Position is fully remote during initial Academy development
• Participate in regular planning and leadership meetings
• Maintain consistent communication with MAP leadership
• Recruit and develop the Academy's founding team
• Own agreed development milestones through completion
• Maintain MAP's safeguarding, privacy, ethical, and organizational standards

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply directly through Idealist and submit:

• Resume or CV
• Cover Letter

Applicants should describe relevant experience in youth development, educational leadership, mentoring, curriculum development, academy or program creation, leadership development, or related fields and explain what draws them to building an initiative specifically focused on the development and future success of boys.

This is an unpaid volunteer founding leadership 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.

Build more than a program. Build the environment, relationships, expectations, and opportunities that help a generation of boys become thoughtful leaders, responsible citizens, and young men prepared to shape their own futures.