Partnership Coordinator

United Way of Southeast Minnesota Partnership Coordinator

Title: Partnership Coordinator

Department: Community Partnerships and Programs

Reports to: VP Community Partnerships and Programs

Employment status: Full-Time

FLSA status: Exempt (salary)

Salary Range: $45,000-$50,000

WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE DO:

United Way of Southeast Minnesota (UWSEMN) responds to the greatest needs across our region by inspiring people to get involved, give back, and take action. We envision a resilient region defined by care and collective action where residents are healthy, households are financially secure, and young people succeed in school and life.

You can learn more about our organization, our impact, and our values at www.uwsemn.org 

HOW YOU’D FIT IN & STAND OUT: •

This role is managed by the Vice President of Partnerships and Programs and sits on United Way’s Community Partnerships and Programs team, which is a team of five. Our team has strengths-based culture and finds value in diverse skills and strengths.

• Our team is a group of strong, social justice-oriented individuals who believe in high quality work to achieve community-level change. We are interested in continuous growth and improvement, as well as having hard conversations. We know that the best strategies aren’t always the easiest ones. We welcome dissenting views and would like a team member who doesn’t shy away from disagreements.

• We are looking for someone to take on the partner-facing operations of our work with local nonprofit programs and the facilitation of community partner meetings. This includes supporting community investment decisions, organizing, facilitating, and evaluating community partner meetings alongside other UW staff.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Partnership Coordinator will lead how we tend to partnerships across our community, through our Building Bridges Initiative and other Community Partnerships and Programs work. They will manage the day-to-day partner-facing operations of our Building Bridges work and other community investment processes as assigned. Building Bridges is an emerging initiative that helps people get to the right resource at the right time, our community investment processes transform individual donations into powerful investments into our community’s ability to reach its full potential.

Relationships and partnerships

• Build and maintain trusting relationships with grantees, prospective grantees, initiative partners, volunteers, and community stakeholders.

• Execute on Building Bridges partnership onboarding, and convenings for first phase of system development, aligning with other program cycles.

• Provide technical support to nonprofit partners within your skill set, capacity, and United Way’s competencies. .

• Participate actively as a member of the Community Partnerships and Programs team. We believe that diverse strengths, experiences, and points of view make our work better, and we are seeking a thought partner who will contribute to the overall work of our small but mighty team.

• Inspire high levels of volunteer engagement, performance, and satisfaction by communicating and modeling UWSEMN’s vision and values.

Process and operations

• Facilitate regular partnership convenings. This looks like creating space for group dynamic development, uplifting differing perspectives, working through conflict, and creating shared ownership amongst partners.

• Own all partnership communications, project management related to partner- assigned tasks, and oversee smooth work-flows for all partner-focused work.

• Develop human-centered processes that do not create undue burden for community organizations, particularly ones that have limited capacity already. This looks like setting clear expectations, only asking for information we have a use for, and leveraging existing resources to get what we need (accepting reports created for other purposes, leveraging documents on file, etc).

• Regularly solicit feedback and implement learnings from a variety of stakeholders.

• Utilize an equity lens to understand who is not at the table and what needs to change for full participation to occur.

Evaluation and research

• Collect, analyze, evaluate, and present data on the results of UWSEMN’s work.

• Stay current on local conditions and issues by reviewing local, state, and national data sources (eg. Minnesota Student Survey, Census, Community Health Needs Assessment, ALICE).

• Contribute to organization-wide efforts to translate data into everyday language to tell the story of community experiences and UWSEMN’s work by creating meaningful, easy-to-read reports for internal and external audiences. On occasion, translate this information for our own grant writing and reporting.

You probably don't have specific work experience in each of these areas, and that’s okay. We expect our new Partnership Coordinator will have done some but not all of these types of tasks in the past. We will provide support for on-the-job learning, as long as you possess the core competencies described below.

THIS JOB IS FOR YOU IF YOU:

• Feel passionate about creating equitable community change

• Enjoy working with both people and processes

• Possess strong written and verbal communication skills in English

• Are comfortable working on a PC and using or learning Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Excel, Microsoft Forms, grants management software

• Possess the following core competencies:

Focus on relationships: Build the trust of colleagues and community partners by demonstrating honesty, consistency, integrity, and transparency. Bring people along and approach conflict with an open and curious mindset, always focusing on the subject at hand, not the people involved. Seek out and value diverse perspectives, demonstrate intercultural mindsets, and contribute to a culture of belonging and antiracism within the organization. Regularly build facilitation skills and manage the delicate balance between keeping progress flowing and honoring natural group development milestones.

Plan wisely and stay organized: Analyze information, generate alternatives, and recommend solutions that ensure efficient and effective use of resources to achieve UWSEMN goals. Approach work with a learning mindset, staying curious about other ways of doing things. Think big about the challenges facing our community and break down big ideas into action steps. Remove barriers in our investment and partnership processes. Find ways to connect your work to other department areas. Communicate plans effectively, updating relevant partners and colleagues often. Take time to review details and ensure all tasks are executed correctly.

Learn from data and communicate it effectively: Dive into community data, research, conversations, etc. to understand the greatest needs our community is experiencing. Be willing to be surprised by what you learn, and adjust your plans based on new information. Look at data sets from multiple sources, synthesize what you’ve learned, explain high level trends and derive key insights to influence decisions. Tell the story behind the data in written communications, visuals, and speaking engagements.

HOURS:

• Our typical work week is 37.5 hours. • Located in our service area of Olmsted, Dodge, Winona, or Fillmore Counties – We are looking to hire a resident or someone willing to live within daily commuting distance, as we are rooted in our local community. Some in-person meetings and activities are required as safety permits.

• Typical office hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30am-4:00pm.

• We offer flexible work schedules to meet individual and family needs, and we need you to be available during peak times to meet with internal and external stakeholders. We are willing to work together to make sure employee and organizational needs are met.

• Hybrid/remote work options are available on an individual basis.

• Occasional availability outside of typical office hours is expected for special events, as individual circumstances allow.

OUR WORKPLACE:

United Way of Southeast Minnesota is an equal opportunity employer. Individuals who share lived experiences with the people and communities we serve are strongly encouraged to apply. We intentionally do our best to eliminate bias and remove barriers that may limit other applicant pools. UWSEMN encourages applications from individuals of all races, genders, ages, and abilities. Applicants must be approved to work in the United States to apply. We cannot sponsor work visas at this time.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

• Starting salary of $40,000-45,000 per year, depending on qualifications. • Employees are paid electronically twice a month.

• Benefits include health, dental, vision, and life insurance; 403b retirement plan with generous employer match available after one year of employment; 12 weeks paid parental leave.

• 20 days paid time off plus 15 paid holidays (New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and two floating holidays to be used at the employee’s discretion).

TO APPLY:

To apply, please email Zeni Aly at zenia@uwsemn.org with the following information:

1. 2-3 paragraphs in the email (not attached, write in the body of the email) telling us why you are interested in this position and how you believe you meet the qualifications.

• By paragraph we mean a set of 3-7 sentences, meaning your email should be approximately6- 21 sentences long.

• You will not receive more or less consideration because of a shorter or longer email.

1. It is preferred that you do not send us a traditional cover letter. A summary of your work/skills/training/educational history as an attachment OR a link to your LinkedIn profile

• We do not have a preference on which one.

• You will not receive special consideration for sending both.

• Our aim is to understand where you have worked or volunteered before and the types of roles you have had. Maybe you have led research projects in the nonprofit sector, maybe you have incredible relational and organizational skills from the education sector, maybe you have experience facilitating groups through your faith community—we are open and interested in learning from folks across the spectrum of experience and industry.

Qualified applicants will receive a reply within five business days to schedule a conversation. Applications submitted before April 20th at 11:59 pm will have priority in this process. We will keep the position open until filled. Start date is flexible—ideally someone will begin full time by May 18th