We are seeking an Executive Director with a deep desire to take on a consequential challenge and opportunity in pursuing and extending our vision of excellence in the California Capital Valley, thereby maximizing Teach For America’s impact inside the organization and outside in our communities. You as the Executive Director will inspire and motivate your team while creating a culture of excellence, urgency, and core values alignment – balancing our short-term work and long-term efforts.
To realize the vision of growing and deepening our impact, you will maximize our funding base of nearly two million dollars annually, set the vision and direction for a corps of 45, an alumni base of over 300, and a staff of 12, serve as a model cultural leader within the organization and outside of it, play a critical role in the education movement across the region, play a critical role in the education movement across the region, and manage state government relations for all TFA regions within California.
Teach For America’s Executive Directors are part of the national senior leadership team at Teach For America and are at the forefront of improving the state of education in this country, impacting the future of thousands of children. You would report directly to the Senior Vice President of Regional Engagement and will partner with a dedicated local board to work within Teach For America’s evolving operating model.
Areas of Responsibility:
As the Executive Director of Teach For America-California Capital Valley, you will be someone who:
- Leads in a way that quickly builds trust, credibility, and attracts followers; has experience in transitioning onto teams and leading teams through this transitional change; and is unfettered, courageous, and empowered through change and leads through change in a way that causes others to feel this same boldness
- Finds purpose and motivation in leading the region towards groundbreaking, dynamic results in just three years’ time and draws energy from doing difficult, impactful work
- Recognizes and appreciates the different cultures and identities of both the Northern (Sacramento and Stockton) and Southern (Greater Fresno and Greater Bakersfield) parts of the California Capital Valley and creates conditions that ensure that the California Capital Valley feels united in its similarities and common goal while also proud of its unique contexts
- Leverages political and educational savviness to increase opportunities – not only in the Capital Valley, but across all of California – in a smart, savvy, and connected manner
- Understands the motivations and mechanics of state-level leadership while anticipating and navigating complex, charged social and political local networks, threats, and opportunities that have the potential to impact regions across the state
- Partners successfully with individuals with different perspectives and accomplishes goals amidst a highly-polarized environment; achieves success when working in contentious or unpredictable landscapes; is highly adaptable and unflappable in the face of change and gray spaces; and exercises good judgment when facing new challenges and viewing situations through multiple lenses to weigh options and consequences
- Assumes responsibility for statewide policy work and state government affairs; manages strong partnerships and communications between state government officials, lobbyists, TFA National External Affairs, other California Executive Directors, and regional external affairs staff
- Builds a compelling narrative around the problem and the vision ahead with clarity, precision, and logic that compels the understanding and engagement of diverse audiences across the state
- Seeks and listens to discerning and diverse perspectives in order to synthesize and make meaning of dynamic educational context to inform regional vision and direction
- Identifies diverse critical partners to maximize impact; builds diverse relationships at multiple levels; and convenes diverse groups of people – bridging opposing ideas and ideologies to move towards consensus (especially in the political realm and at the statewide level)
- Has a proven track record of or a strategic plan for significantly growing and diversifying a sustainable funding base that will include gifts from individuals, corporations, foundations, and districts in order to ensure strong financial stability for the years to come
- Tenaciously runs after vision and outcomes while influencing the sense of urgency in others; codifies and aptly expresses the local vision to all stakeholders so that everyone is speaking the same language and working on the same timeline with the same metrics to accomplish a shared goal; and articulates our vision and theory of change compellingly to the alumni in the area, as well as to the broader community (many of whom may not be as aware of the compelling changes that our young alumni in the area are effecting)
- Leads from a courageous, clear, and compelling vision that regionally contextualizes the TFA Foundations for all stakeholders; invests all stakeholders and is reflective of the context of the local community; distills bold ideas into actionable strategies; articulates TFA’s clear value add to the local and state educational communities; facilitates a city-wide stirring of the educational inequities in the Capital Valley and across the state and the local community’s positional power to change this in partnership with TFA
- Conceptualizes systemic change in a thoughtful way that takes into account the various needs and contexts of the various communities within the region
- Deeply understands the mechanics of executive-level work; has a track record of executing the fundamentals of not-for-profit management, people management, complex board management, and massive fundraising and fiscal management (including a two million dollar fundraising goal that must be met); has experience leading a regional board to maximize impact, narrative, funding, and sustainability; and develops a comprehensive multi-year strategic plan to reach an ambitious regional vision that financially stabilizes the region
- Achieves strong performance across the team through thoughtful, timely, and diverse hiring, management, staff development, and maximization of systems/structures/partnerships and holds leaders accountable for their work and results by managing through layers
- Crafts and executes a board vision and strategy which creates the right conditions for finding a board chair, expanding the current board, and catalyzing the current board members
Educational Background:
Undergraduate degree from an accredited college or university
Skills/Experience:
- Significant leadership experience (minimum of 5-10 years) managing a high-performing team toward ambitious outcomes with financial accountability in a complex, mission-driven organization
- Demonstrated achievement in fundraising or ensuring financial sustainability of an organization quickly (must achieve our fundraising goal within three years)
- Experience building and/or working in partnership with a Board of Directors, in addition to possessing a strong understanding of the roles of the Executive Director and the board and a successful record of supporting the board and leveraging talents and contributions
- Outstanding interpersonal skills and an ability and desire to develop and maintain deep relationships with variety of diverse constituents
- Understanding of the complexity of the local political climate that impacts TFA-California Capital Valley
- Experience navigating the political process as it pertains to elected officials, legislators, school district officials, and school board members
- Excellent strategic thinking skills to understand and lead in a complex environment
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
Personal Characteristics
- Extraordinary cultural leadership and credibility (including a demonstrated ability to build trust and rapport instantly with corps and staff members, establishing a positive culture for everyone in order to build and maintain strong corps and staff satisfaction)
- Demonstrated commitment to the health and sustainability of their people through modeling strong work-life balance and DEI values and creating productive environments and policies to ensure this for staff members
- Ability to coach and develop others (regional staff members, corps members, alumni, etc.) to exhibit strong cultural leadership skills and orientations
- Clarity of vision and the ability to invest others within the organization and in the broader California Capital Valley community in that vision
- Strong sense of self-awareness and understanding of one’s strengths and areas for development
- Commitment to exploring issues of race, class, and privilege
- Willingness and ability to learn about the California Capital Valley education landscape and establish oneself as a key partner in the local movement to fight educational inequity
- Ability to work some evenings and weekends
- Ability to travel within the region daily and ability to travel to in-person meetings in various U.S. cities quarterly
Job Function:
Organization Info
Listing Stats
Post Date:
Sep 14 2018
Active Until:
Oct 15 2018
Hiring Organization:
Teach For America
industry:
Nonprofit