Executive Director, Bridgeport Prospers

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW

United Way of Coastal Fairfield County brings people together to create a stronger region. We are changing the odds for children, families and communities by working toward solutions that will last, not just short-term charity.  Our employees are key to success.  All United Way employees must have the core competencies listed in this position description, as well as the specific skills for this job.

OVERVIEW OF RESPONSIBILITIES

Executive Director is responsible for leading the organization toward its goals of sustainably improving outcomes for all children, cradle-to-career, using a collective impact approach and related Theory of Action, ensuring the preservation of its mission and vision, and the six conditions of collective impact adopted by Bridgeport Prospers to achieve large-scale change.  

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES/ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

In the role of Executive Director, the major responsibilities include:

• Provide visionary and dynamic leadership and management to a high-performing team of volunteers, staff and community members by clarifying priorities and creating and monitoring progress towards organizational and individual goals;
• Lead, in partnership with team members, annual planning and budgeting processes and provide day to day management for the team;
• Work with CEO and resource development team to raise money for Bridgeport Prospers’ operations, identifying grant resources, philanthropic opportunities and participating in fundraising activities organization-wide.
• Serve as senior member of the United Way team, participating in activities and decision-making throughout the organization.
• Serve as a strong, neutral, and skilled facilitator who can guide the team, partners, and stakeholders towards consensus and shared vision and results;
• Build deep relationships with and understand cross-sector (education, social service, business, civic) partners who are connected to the success of every child;
• Advocate for the key outcomes and strategies identified by Bridgeport Prospers and its partners to improve outcomes and influence key leaders in scaling practices that work;
• Ensure community is kept apprised of goals, objectives, priorities, successes, and opportunities of Bridgeport Prospers and its stakeholders;
• Model the use of data to inform decision making and the use of improvement processes to scale what works along the cradle to career continuum and the commitment to see those improvements take hold over time;
• Work with the Core Leadership Team of program and community advisors to engage members in supporting and advocating for the tenets of the organization's work and the community's priorities. Recruit new members as needed and work collaboratively to support the program’s need for community representation;
• Represent Bridgeport Prospers externally to partners, media, funders, policymakers, StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network members, and others; and
• Value diversity, equity, and cultural differences, bringing cultural competency to their daily work.

EDUCATION/REQUIREMENTS

This is a full time position that requires experience that is normally developed through a master's  degree in education, business, public health, social work, and/ or public policy and a minimum of five years of experience in senior leadership roles in a complex organization.  Excellent relationship-building skills, organizational and project management skills, strong written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to multi-task and prioritize are also essential requirements for the position. Successful candidates must have a demonstrated ability to coalesce diverse groups of stakeholders.

A track record of persistently achieving intended organizational, community, and personal outcomes is paramount. Knowledge of the Bridgeport community is highly preferred.  Relationships in local and state government with elected officials, policymakers or funders would be a significant plus. Subject matter expertise in an aspect of the cradle to career span of work would distinguish candidates.

*Please see desired competencies below.

United Way of Coastal Fairfield County is an equal opportunity employer and seeks to hire staff members who reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. All positions at UWCFC are filled without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, employment status, HIV/AIDS status, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

If much of this job description describes you, please apply for this role. Research shows that women and people from underrepresented groups often apply to jobs only if they meet all the qualifications. We recognize this and encourage those with relevant skills and experience to apply.

Please submit a resume and cover letter. No application will be reviewed without a cover letter. We require all staff to be up to date on vaccines for Covid 19.

UNITED WAY CORE COMPETENCIES FOR ALL STAFF

Core Competencies:

• Mission-focused: The ability to promote United Way’s mission through communicating effectively and with passion “the story” of the organization’s work, participating in key events and opportunities to share the mission, developing relationships to contribute to the organizational effectiveness and focusing on the needs and aspirations of the community.
• Relationship-oriented: The ability to cultivate and manage relationships toward a common goal through understanding what motivates individuals and organizations, effectively communicating, building relationships internally and listening to others.
• Collaborator: The ability to mobilize resources (financial and human) through meaningful engagement in all sectors of the community through sharing knowledge of the community, mobilizing a broad range of sectors and resources, building consensus and support with diverse stakeholders, negotiating with individuals and groups both internally and externally, and working collaboratively with others to achieve common goals and positive results.
• Results-Driven: The ability to focus on shared and measurable goals for the common good through promoting innovation, developing relationships to drive resources and results, maintaining high performance standards for self and others, capitalizing on opportunities that advance the organization’s mission, challenging self and others to achieve “stretch” goals and demonstrating passion for improving the delivery of services.
• Brand-Steward: The ability to understand and protect the reputation of the United Way through acting with integrity and strong ethics, demonstrating the values of the network, following the standards and safeguards that protect the organization’s integrity, identifying, assessing and managing risk while striving to attain objectives, and the ability to understand brand concepts and articulate these to stakeholders and staff.

Community Impact Competencies:

• Strategic Community Collaborator: The ability to engage diverse stakeholders to assess community needs and strategically guide the United Way to contribute to the community’s priorities through listening and seeking information from the community, engaging in activities to understand community aspirations, being visible in the community, creating strategic partnerships, working with others to explore shared interests and create common goals and working effectively across a diverse culture of communities.
• Effective & Engaging Communicator: The ability to effectively and passionately articulate United Way’s message  through distilling complex information into a simple and compelling message, presenting our work using examples that are relevant to community priorities, writing clearly and concisely, public speaking, developing and implementing a comprehensive year-round communications plan, adjusting communication style to appropriately target audience, and working effectively with Resource Development and Marketing to develop and communicate compelling messages.
• Critical Thinking & Creative Problem Solving: The ability to address and manage complex issues to achieve desired results through gathering and analyzing data to create effective solutions, developing criteria for making effective decisions, using analysis and critical thinking skills to understand and solve problems, creating new and useful processes and managing conflict and tensions between collaboration and competition effectively.
• Planning & Implementation: The ability to demonstrate leadership and initiative in planning and developing initiatives within impact areas to achieve results and drive outcomes through establishing measurable goals, assessing priorities, creating timelines, meeting project goals, gathering support required for projects, engaging partners across sectors, and transferring knowledge in a way that facilitates strong implementation of projects and programs.
• Embracing & Managing Change: The ability to facilitate change and adapt successfully to changing needs while maintaining positive relationships with all constituents through fostering an environment of innovation, embracing changing initiative, identifying and implementing new ways of conducting business to enhance effectiveness and efficiency, overcoming obstacles, demonstrating flexibility, operating with transparency and striving to provide staff and partners with as much clarity and stability as possible.

Leadership Competencies:

• Talent Management & People Development: The ability to build and lead a diverse team that enables the organization to succeed through hiring the right people, ensuring people’s work is aligned with the mission and strategy, investing time and resources in training and development, coaching and mentoring employees and addressing performance problems.
• Business Acumen & Strategic Direction: The ability to demonstrate the understanding and knowledge of the United Way’s strategic direction and general business and financial principles required to achieve the mission through understanding the community and its business environment, understanding basic principles required to lead, managing and aligning resources for performance, ability to read financial statements and create budgets and ultimately contribute to the bottom line.
• Operational Planning & Execution: The ability to demonstrate knowledge of operational planning and execution through establishing effective and efficient processes that align the department priorities with the greater organizational goals, collaboration within the organization and engaging volunteers in a way that helps execute the strategy.
• Outward Turning: The ability to develop strategic relationships that benefit the United Way through knowing key players in the community, maintaining and expanding the network of partners, seeking learning from inside and outside the network to build skills, being visible in the community and with partners and establishing credibility as a leader on critical issues and solutions affecting the community.