POSITION OVERVIEW:
United Way is seeking an experienced professional to join the Community Impact team. The Director will focus on stable housing as a key supporting goal in the organization's mission to advance an economically just region, where access to financial opportunity is universal and prosperity is shared across race and ethnicity. The Director is someone who can collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders - housing and homelessness service providers, grassroots organizations, funders, schools, state and local officials, business leaders, researchers, and residents with lived experience. The ideal candidate will be a results-oriented, systems thinker with the ability to build relationships and manage projects effectively.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Strategic and Program Leadership
The Director will advance United Way's theory of change to end and prevent homelessness for individuals, youth, and families. Sitting in the community impact division, the Director will cultivate partnerships with nonprofit service providers, identify and implement field-building opportunities, and uplift community voice. Day to day activities include convening and/or regularly participating in coalitions and working groups where the Director will foster the participation of service providers, grassroots organizations, public agencies, people with lived experience, and other stakeholders, engaging in research and planning, learning and program development, and advocacy.
Key areas of leadership include:
- Equip volunteer leaders with the training, understanding, and data they need to engage effectively and equitably on committees and working groups related to ending and preventing homelessness.
- Convene working groups at a local or regional level with a focus on increasing access to housing resources or aligning housing resources for greatest impact. This involves effectively using data, planning and executing focus groups, presenting best practices, and developing mutual agendas across providers and systems, such as education, justice, and housing.
- Lead efforts to gather, uplift, and integrate lived experience in United Way's efforts to end and prevent homelessness and champion community voice in policy and program planning efforts beyond United Way. This may be guiding community engagement events or brokering partnerships.
- Build the field of holistic, multi-generational strategies to end and prevent homelessness including hosting sessions for professional development or facilitating learning communities, collecting and synthesizing barriers/best practices, and identifying and implementing grant programs or partnerships with other funders.
- Contribute to issue briefs, grant applications, and other written materials, harnessing national best practices, local community voice, and service-provider knowledge.
- Craft practice and policy recommendations that synthesize what United Way and its network is learning about housing justice, ending and preventing homelessness, and equity.
- Assist in the distribution and planning of United Way's Family Fund, a crisis response resource and avenue for supporting grassroots organizations and their work in equitable programming.
Personal Leadership
The Director will inspire the trust and confidence of internal and external colleagues, volunteers, and funders. Success will require the ability to collaborate and synthesize diverse skills and perspectives without losing focus on our collective goals. The ideal candidate will:
- Participate regularly in expanding the organization's knowledge of the housing and homelessness field, its emergency response and prevention systems, housing-related wealth disparities, and statewide or localized strategies to prevent and end homelessness.
- Leverage their knowledge of the field to contribute to United Way's collective work and theory of change, particularly connecting with peers and colleagues across issue areas and departments.
- Draw on available data to promote understanding of housing and homelessness systems and to advance policy and program development activities. Collaborate with analysts or researchers internally and externally to pose informed research questions and to guide research projects.
- Demonstrate a commitment to continual learning and growth and a willingness to embrace change.
- Experience and personal/professional commitment to United Way's priority communities and ability to foster solidarity within the movement for housing justice.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and to the mission of the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley
- Degree or professional training and relevant experience OR programming experience and an interest in leveraging that background for systemic change; lived experience is honored and valued as relevant
- Knowledge of the individual and systemic barriers to housing stability and an ability to translate that information into action
- Experience in the nonprofit or public sector and comfort in collaborating with leaders from various perspectives in the field
- Ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, and deadlines
- Strong facilitative and relational skills
- Experience analyzing and using data to inform and improve program performance and outcomes
- Flexibility with virtual and hybrid work (hybrid beginning 2 days in the office and may eventually need to travel throughout United Way's footprint when it is safe and advantageous to do so).
For more information, or to apply now, you must go to the website below. Please DO NOT email your resume to us as we only accept applications through our website.