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Executive Director

This job is no longer available

Columbia, South Carolina, United States
Full-time

Across South Carolina, we aspire for every student to have an empowering education. To that end, we are seeking an Executive Director to work towards this vision and to maximize Teach For America’s impact. We aim to build a movement of teachers (corps members) and alumni impacting thousands of students growing up in poverty. The Executive Director will inspire and motivate his/her team while creating a culture of excellence, urgency, and core values alignment – balancing our short-term work and long-term efforts in the community.

To realize the vision of growing and deepening our impact, the Executive Director will maximize our funding base of more than four million dollars annually; set the vision and direction for a movement of nearly than 100 corps members and alumni and a staff of 20, 3 of whom are direct reports to the Executive Director; and will play a critical role in the education reform movement taking place across the state.

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. The Executive Director for Teach For America-South Carolina reports directly to the Executive 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: 

Set the vision and direction for TFA-South Carolina as a partner and leader in the state’s education community by:

  • Charting the course for the region and creating a clear, compelling, community-based vision that is grounded in the landscape’s opportunities, needs, and problems
  • Investing stakeholders in this vision
  • Supporting the work of teacher leadership development to create a larger, more effective force of transformational teachers
  • Developing a comprehensive strategic plan with outcomes and targets to achieve this vision
  • Being the face and voice for TFA-South Carolina in local and statewide platforms
  • Establishing national and local networks of education leaders to understand best practices in education reform and how to maximize those best practices in the local landscape

Influence others to achieve outcomes in service of this vision by:

  • Seeking, listening to, and discerning diverse perspectives to formulate informed opinions
  • Acquiring firsthand community experience to deepen insights and approaches
  • Navigating and leveraging structures and relationships to gain support
  • Acquiring knowledge of political and policy landscapes to deepen insights and approach
  • Demonstrating adaptability in approaching and communicating with diverse audiences to cultivate support and inspire action
  • Anticipating where conflicts may develop and surfacing, managing, and resolving conflict proactively and constructively

Provide cultural leadership to TFA-South Carolina by:

  • Building and maintaining a culture that is grounded in our five core values – transformational change, leadership, team, diversity, and respect and humility – in partnership with staff, corps members, and alumni
  • Exemplifying our core values in all actions with all internal and external constituents
  • Creating an environment that fosters diversity and inclusiveness

Lead fundraising efforts and engage and cultivate stakeholders by:

  • Deepening our political capital and fundraising capacity to ensure that TFA-South Carolina is a meaningful part of the educational fabric of the community
  • Focusing on significantly growing and diversifying a sustainable funding base that will include gifts from individuals, corporations, foundations, and districts
  • Being responsible for a current budget that exceeds four million dollars     
  • Cultivating new and strengthening existing relationships with public officials and organizations that are statewide in nature – ranging from district partners, higher education institutions, education non-profits, and civic/social justice organizations – to maximize our scale and impact
  • Partnering with a regional advisory board that will help to maximize TFA-South Carolina’s impact, narrative, and sustainability in the region

Provide executive management to TFA-South Carolina by:

  • Attracting, hiring, and developing a team of diverse and talented staff members
  • Ensuring that the proper infrastructure exists to maximize performance of all people and resources
  • Managing a team (including through layers) to reach ambitious goals, especially goals that lead to our breakthrough results of:
    • A connected, inclusive, supported, thriving community of corps members, alumni, and staff contributing to a powerful movement
    • Corps members, alumni, and staff who have a consistently strong impact for kids both inside and outside of the classroom
    • A large, diverse, and influential force of corps members and alumni working for educational equity and excellence
  • Executing the fundamentals of not-for-profit management, especially board management, fundraising, and fiscal management (growing a diversified and sustainable funding base, monitoring the fiscal health of the region, and engaging TFA-South Carolina board members to maximize impact in the region)

Make decisions and demonstrate judgment as the leader of TFA-South Carolina by:

  • Exercising good judgment when facing new challenges and viewing situations through multiple lenses to weigh options and consequences
  • Leading with integrity in ambiguous and/or paradoxical situations
  • Constructing decision-making processes to engage multiple perspectives at the appropriate times to move work forward
  • Enacting a suitable, timely course of action when making decisions
Skills/Experience: 

Prior Experience

  • Significant leadership experience (minimum of 7 years) managing a high-performing team towards ambitious outcomes with financial accountability in a complex, mission-driven organization
  • Demonstrated ability to mobilize people and to create champions in support of an organizational mission to strengthen our fundraising efforts
  • Preferred 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
  • Outstanding interpersonal skills and an ability and desire to develop and maintain deep relationships with a variety of diverse constituents
  • Energy and enthusiasm to learn about the local community and its many unique stakeholders:  community partners, elected officials, legislators, and staff at the state level, in addition to school district officials and school board members, investing them in the path forward for TFA-South Carolina

Skills

  • Excellent strategic thinking skills to understand and lead in a complex environment
  • Excellent oral and written communication skills
  • Strong alignment with, passion for, and commitment to the mission and values of TFA
  • Sense of urgency around accomplishing goals and objectives
  • Strong sense of self-awareness and understanding of one’s strengths and areas for development
  • Commitment to exploring issues of race, class, and privilege 
  • Ability to deal with ambiguity and conflict
  • Excellent judgment and sound decision-making skills

Work Demands

  • Willingness and ability to learn about the South Carolina 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
Compensation/Benefits: 

Salary for this position is competitive and depends on prior experience. In addition, a comprehensive benefits package is included. 

Organization Info

Teach For America

Overview
Headquarters: 
New York, NY, United States
Annual Budget : 
$100-500M
Founded: 
1993
About Us
Areas of Focus: 
Mission: 

Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates, professionals, or graduate students who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity. Teach For America's mission is to enlist, develop, and mobilize as many as possible of our nation's most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence. In the 2016-2017 school year, 6,900 first- and second-year Teach For America corps members are teaching in 53 regions across the United States. Since 1990, Teach For America corps members have reached more than 10 million students. Teach For America's more than 40,000 alumni are providing critical leadership -- as teachers, school and district leaders; elected officials and policy advisers; and founders and leaders of education and social reform initiatives -- to ensure all children have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.

Listing Stats

Post Date: 
Dec 4 2017
Active Until: 
Jan 3 2018
Hiring Organization: 
Teach For America
industry: 
Nonprofit