Director Of Communities [Organizing Director]

Position: Director of Communities [Organizing Director]

Reports to: Senior Director of Investment

Job Summary

The Director of Communities (Organizing Director) is responsible for Thread’s strategy to connect, retain, and mobilize Thread’s volunteers and young people in order to achieve their academic and professional goals. To execute this work, the Director will coach and manage full-time staff called Community Managers —Thread’s “coaches-in-chief”—who each manage a portfolio of volunteers and students, mobilize them consistently to leverage Thread’s programs and resources, and are responsible for ensuring they achieve their academic, professional, and personal goals. A successful Director will improve key outcomes for volunteers and students including: mobilization and engagement; retention and satisfaction; and the execution of Thread’s coaching practice.

Thread is in an exciting period of rapid community growth. The Director will be responsible for strengthening the community management strategy and building the team’s skills to systematize practices that are both effective and scalable. While key responsibilities are below, they may evolve over time.

Key Responsibilities

Program and Project Development and Management

• Planning community management strategy from start to completion, including deadlines, milestones and processes
• Manage key protocols and practices around community mobilization, volunteer and student placement, community portfolio management, and more
• Use performance, outcomes, and engagement measures to monitor progress and make adjustments to strategy or tactics as needed

Coaching, Training, and Capacity Building

• Develop and retain a team of high-performing Community Managers to execute the engagement strategy and key functions
• Strengthen Community Manager practices around a range of functions, including project management, volunteer management, community mobilization, data logging & analysis
• Model a high-quality coaching practice with Community Managers that they can deploy as they coach volunteers

Administration and Compliance

• Strengthen data input practices among Community Managers and volunteers to ensure that interactions, student and volunteer information, and other data is stored in-system
• Oversee management of community budgets to ensure effective and compliant use of Thread’s funds by staff and volunteers
• Ensure community management practices consistently adhere to legal guidelines and internal policies

Qualifications/Skills

Required:

• At least bachelor’s degree
• Minimum of 4-6 years of relevant work experience in managing people, community organizing, and volunteer mobilization.
• Demonstrated success in community organizing, coaching, and/or volunteer management. This includes the ability to mobilize people and resources to take action.
• Demonstrated success in project and program management, including building and developing a team of people towards common goals as well as data monitoring and evaluation
• Ability to clearly communicate and live out Thread’s core values & core competencies.

Preferred:

• Master’s degree in associate discipline
• Familiarity with Baltimore human services landscape, including City Public School System, neighborhoods, and/or organizations and resources
• Prior experience working in a youth-serving and/or nonprofit management environment
• Prior experience working with mobile app-based data input and with Salesforce

COVID Requirements

• “Effective September 20,2021 , Thread requires all new employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment, subject to reasonable accommodation. All offers of employment after [date] are contingent upon proof of COVID-19 vaccination as a part of the pre-employment process. If you are unable to be vaccinated due to medical or protected religious reasons, please reach out to Human Resources at HR@thread.org to submit an accommodation request.”

Diversity Statement

• We value a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture and encourage applications from all interested persons, including, but not limited to, people of color, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals

ADA Accommodation Language

Thread will make reasonable accommodations for the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an applicant or an employee, unless undue hardship or a direct threat would result from the accommodation. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact HR@Thread.org

More About Thread

Our Mission

Thread harnesses the power of relationships to create a new social fabric of diverse individuals deeply engaged with young people facing the most significant opportunity and achievement gaps. Our community is committed to ending social isolation and building a more equitable culture in which everyone thrives.

Our Why

Studies have shown that the defining difference between Rust Belt cities that struggled and those that were hotspots of rejuvenation was the structure of social networks. The Thread Community Model brings together a broad cross-section of our city by forming authentic, mutual, and enduring relationships and in turn provides a vehicle for sustained change. Thread believes that the power of relationships—the dynamic web of interconnectedness created when futures are woven together—can end the poverty of isolation and allow both youth and Baltimore to realize their full potential.

Thread is weaving a new social fabric where everyone thrives and which is expanding to connect with even more students, volunteers, and collaborators. Thread currently serves 655 students and alumni with the support of more than 1200 volunteers and more than 1300 collaborators. We plan to continue to increase our annual and total enrollments until we meet our long-term goal of engaging 300 new students each year (5% of every high school freshman class across Baltimore City). This expansion and evolution requires that Thread be nimble and innovative, and leverage identified opportunities in a way that is congruent with our values and core competencies.

Our How

Team members at Thread are hard- and smart-working, collaborative, curious, passionate, gritty, strategic and resilient. We meet people where they are. We go all in with care, compassion, and empathy. We believe small acts make a big difference. We trust each other to be sincere, reliable and competent. The outcomes Thread has achieved are exemplary. However, the road to excellence is peppered with iterative learning. We make mistakes often and fail frequently, but we learn from our mistakes and continue to tenaciously try and try again. We are about building communities of responsibility and have high expectations of students, volunteers, collaborators, and staff. We believe that each human being has a purpose in life and have found that individuals living on purpose have discovered the intersection of their skills, passion, and what the world needs. The journey to find this intersection, one’s dot, is often simultaneously exhilarating and difficult. Thread creates a safe and challenging space for all individuals in our community—students, volunteers, collaborators, and staff— to find their dot through deep reflection, honest feedback, and in-depth coaching.

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