If Teach For America is successful in pursuing its mission, our alumni will believe that educational inequity is solvable and will have a grounded understanding of how to solve it. Our alumni will bring strong leadership to all levels of education and to every professional sector to address the extra challenges facing children growing up in low-income communities, building the capacity of schools and districts, and changing the prevailing ideology through their examples and advocacy.
Teach For America - Chicago-Northwest Indiana seeks a Coordinator, Alumni Leadership Operations to play a critical role supporting the overall Alumni Leadership team. The Coordinator, Alumni Leadership Operations leads logistics and planning for alumni facing events that will ignite and fuel a diverse and inclusive alumni movement. They will provide customer service focused responses to alumni inquiries for support and connections which will allow them maximize their impact in pursuit of educational equity and manages alumni data to best inform and support our alumni work. The Coordinator will also work closely with the SMD, Alumni Leadership to identify support tasks and responsibilities for the full alumni leadership team (credit card coding, ordering, scheduling, etc.).The Coordinator is someone who is fulfilled by the day to day work of behind-the-scenes operations and see this role as an opportunity to impact and support our team, corps members and alumni as they work toward educational equity.
The Coordinator, Alumni Leadership Operations sits on the Alumni Leadership team which is a sub-unit of the Program team, and reports to the Senior Managing Director, Alumni Leadership.
Alumni Event Operations (40%)
- In coordination with SMD, Alumni Leadership and the full alumni leadership team, execute on a vision and direction for alumni event logistics and operations, including securing space, assigning rooms, ordering materials and food, etc, such that we conduct effective, inclusive and inspiring events for alumni
- Act as the liaison between the larger regional team and the Alumni Leadership Team in communicating event participation and support expectations for all staff (including but not limited to: staff schedules, day-of logistics plans, etc.)
- Develop systems to track and manage alumni participation in leadership development or community events. Create surveys and tracking systems for alumni to make session choices, attendance tracking, etc.
- Alongside SMD, Alumni Leadership, coordinate on executing plans that support operational culture at ongoing alumni events (music, signage, celebration of alumni and staff, etc.)
- Support with week and day of set-up and program logistical support
Alumni Data (25%)
- Manage the accuracy of alumni data recording, including timely uploading of new contact information, professional sector and employment information, changes of region or address, event attendance; track meetings and alumni engagement in TFACT
- Complete data entry and data-related projects as requested by the SMD, Alumni Leadership
- Support the alumni leadership team with data collection and data related projects
- Support the SMD, Alumni Leadership in keeping the larger alumni team in compliance with TFACT management expectations
Communication and Connectivity (20%)
- Manage all alumni-facing inboxes to ensure that alumni get timely and customer service-focused responses, connecting them with the resources and networks which will fuel their impact for educational equity
- Spend time weekly sourcing opportunities for alumni development and programming and upload to our website and advertise in our communications
- Alongside the Manager, Network strategy manage a hub of resources for all alumni (resume tools, LinkedIn page, one pagers, videos, etc.)
- Alongside the Manager, Network strategy develop a year-long communications calendar and plan and support alumni leadership team in its implementation
- Connect new-to-region alumni with introductory experiences to onboard them to the region
- Develop & execute a daily/weekly system for managing and directing all incoming alumni requests (local & non-local)
- Support the larger team with marketing and recruitment plans and materials
Team Responsibilities (5%)
- Collaborate with the entire Program team to identify and define the member arc of experience
- Prepare for and lead check ins with your manager around progress toward your goals and your ongoing development
- Prepare for and participate in alumni leadership team meetings
- Collaborate with and support your Program colleagues’ work and development
Collective Responsibility Regional Projects (10%)
- Fulfill foundational responsibilities that allow our region to do our work, make decisions, grow as professionals, and strengthen our team culture, including but not limited to attending regional meetings, operating with our Core Values and commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness, completing our performance management cycle, and upholding our data management, office operations, and fiscal responsibilities
- Make a direct impact on the organizational mission of enlisting, developing and mobilizing leaders to strengthen the movement for educational equity by participating in selection (6-10 days total plus preparation and close out time), matriculation (up to six windows across the year), regional recruitment activity, member facing events (including Leadership Summits and Summer Training), our alumni giving campaign, alumni survey, and at least one regional or national committee/working group, and other initiatives that impact our members and partners
- Experience with Microsoft Office products (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and Google docs preferred
- Experience managing event logistics (large and small scale)
- 1-3 years of work experience in support staff capacity
Organizing, Planning and Executing:
- Demonstrates an ability to organize, prioritize, track and manage workflow and resources when planning and executing alumni-facing events and working with event partners and attendees
- Demonstrates an respond in a timely and effective way to a wide array of requests from a network of 3000+ alumni
- Operate with a high level of efficiency with their time
- Create and oversee systems to track and monitor communications and touchpoints with alumni
- Demonstrates and ability to create data collection systems and processes to efficiently and effectively collect data on our alumni community
Building Relationships and Investing Others:
- Ability to assess alumni motivations, barriers and needs through various forms of communication with alumni to determine the appropriate support to refer them to.
- Ability to articulate information and opportunities in an engaging, clear and succinct manner that inspires event partners, alumni and staff to take action and increase their partnership with Teach For America.
- Demonstrates an ability to assume a customer service approach in communication with alumni so they feel valued as members of our community.
- Demonstrates an ability to communicate effectively (especially in writing) with diverse audiences one-to-one and with large groups (i.e. alumni newsletters)
Reasoning & Strategic Thinking:
- Demonstrates an ability to create data reports to be shared with internal and external constituents, as well as with the Alumni Leadership team to better inform their work.
Work Demands
- Will need to be available for work activities 1-2 evenings a month and 1-2 weekends per month
- Will need to travel independently throughout Chicago for meetings and events