Chief Operating Officer

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) will oversee the strategic management of the internal operations of America’s Promise Alliance (APA), in addition to supporting the development and administration of the Alliance member community. The COO will be tasked with leading and managing APA as it prepares to launch an ambitious five-year strategic plan, providing critical stewardship and infrastructure development during a period of high change and rapid growth. Reporting to the CEO and serving as a member of the Leadership Team, the COO will lead and manage core internal functions of the organization, including Finance, Talent & HR, Operations, Legal, Facilities, IT, and Alliance infrastructure. The ideal candidate for this role will bring a systems-minded, inclusive and collaborative approach to the management of APA, providing critical leadership essential to ensuring America’s Promise Alliance achieves the goals of its 2022-2026 strategic plan.

About America’s Promise Alliance

America’s Promise Alliance was founded in 1997 by five U.S. Presidents and General Colin Powell. Over the last 24 years, our Alliance has grown into a community of hundreds of the top youth-supporting non-profits in the country, working together to advance equity, increase opportunity, and improve outcomes for young people in America. Collectively, our member organizations serve millions of young people each year across every state in the country.

America’s Promise Alliance is an independent entity that exists to serve the field[1], to build the community, establish the infrastructure, and secure the resources necessary for collective improvement and action at a national scale. Our job is to make collaboration among our member organizations effective, efficient, continuous, informed by communities, and joyful. We believe that if you want to foster coordination and collaboration, you start by building relationships. We believe that if you want to build a field, you first create an authentic community dedicated to helping each other. We believe a sustained and continuous effort to bring the best organizations into deep and trusting working relationships with one another will ultimately translate into more effective and more connected support for young people across the country.

About Our Next Chapter

America’s Promise Alliance is in the process of completing a new 5-year strategic plan and a comprehensive “next chapter” for the organization. The work of the COO is essential to the successful implementation of this five-year strategy. An overview of that strategy is here.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The COO will manage a high-performing, diverse, and evolving team during a period of strategic reimagining and internal growth at APA, and will play a key role in developing the infrastructure of the growing Alliance member community. This includes overall responsibility for APA’s efficacy and efficiency, ensuring APA is an incredible place to work for our team, and ensuring our culture is rooted in equity, belonging, curiosity, and continuous improvement.

Core responsibilities for this position include:

Budget and Finance

• Develop a 5-year financial model to support APA’s 2022-2026 strategic plan; lead a multi-year financial planning process to support APA’s financial growth and health.
• Develop and manage annual budgets.
• Establish strategic financial goals, monitor APA’s performance against those goals, and recommend adjustments when necessary.
• Conduct regular financial analyses; forecasting costs related to different strategic choices, and oversee the development of budgets for new projects.
• Serve as a liaison to the Board of Directors and point person for the Board Finance Committee.
• Oversee investment strategy and serve as liaison with APA’s external investment manager to ensure compliance with APA’s Investment Policy Statement.
• Oversee financial and governance policies and procedures.  Establish new polices as needed to maintain best practices.
• Oversee the audit process, filing of the annual IRS Form 990 and state charitable registration filings.

Administration & Operations

• Oversee cross-functional team leaders in areas including Finance, IT, and Talent/HR to ensure teams are working seamlessly and in alignment with organizational priorities and available resources.
• Lead annual and ongoing planning for APA.
• Lead negotiations and manage ongoing vendor relationships for various operational functions.
• Oversee all contracts, partnership agreements, and consulting relationships.
• Serve as liaison on legal matters with APA’s external legal counsel.
• Coordinate project management and administrative support issues with the operations teams, balancing need for high performance and rapid growth with a commitment to building a culture of collaboration, iterative learning, and equitable practices.
• Lead APA in developing task management and communications processes and systems to promote effective collaborations and iterative project management within a diverse and evolving team.
• Recognize and anticipate gaps, opportunities and challenges as they relate to operations and administrative systems; generating ideas, innovative solutions and strategies to drive transformational organization-wide collaboration and deepening impact.
• Ensure that all operational decisions are supported by sound business practices and systems, and in alignment with APA’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and anti-racism.

Facilities

The APA team has been working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, but maintains an office headquarters in Washington, DC. The COO will be ultimately responsible for overseeing the management of APA’s facilities, including:

• Serve as the primary point person for APA’s office and real estate stakeholders.
• Evaluate functional needs of APA’s facilities and ensure all facilities are properly maintained to promote comfort, efficiency and utility for APA employees and guests.
• Develop in-office and remote working policies that meets the needs of team members and positions APA to achieve its goals.
• Explore and oversee subleasing options to maximize the utility of APA’s office space.

Talent, Culture and Human Resources

In order to achieve the goals of APA’s 2022-2026 strategic plan, the organization anticipates near term ambitious growth of the internal team in order to support an expanding and dynamic Alliance community. COO responsibilities in this area include:

• Oversee the new Senior Director of Talent and Culture in all aspects of APA’s talent work, including developing recruitment strategies and systems, establishing and implementing performance management and talent development processes, and evolving employee engagement and inclusion initiatives.
• Lead the process through which APA operationalizes the goals of our 2022-2026 strategic plan and defines the culture that bests serves the organization; implement the systems and practices that monitor our pursuit of our performance and culture goals.
• Continuously model anti-racism in leadership and embrace APA’s commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; and through leadership promote an ongoing learning and evolution in anti-racism and equitable practices throughout the organization.
• Partner with the VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to organize and execute on our internal DEI roadmaps and priorities.
• Serve as liaison with APA’s benefit broker to negotiate employee benefits on an annual basis.
• Direct and maintain policies and procedures to ensure APA’s compliance with federal and state employment laws.

Organizational Performance & Learning

The COO will lead APA’s efforts to drive systems, process and efficiency improvements across the organization as APA transforms and grows. In this area, the COO will:

• Develop a comprehensive framework, metrics, and infrastructure to monitor organizational performance and learning.
• Lead quarterly and annual review of progress against our performance and learning goals.
• Support leaders and teams in developing and building a culture of high performance and continuous learning.

Organizational Leadership

The COO will lead, manage and model effective leadership, both within the teams directly managed by the role and for the organization more broadly. Core responsibilities in this area include:

• Provide effective management and support the professional growth of direct reports and the teams they manage.
• Ensure the organization’s Leadership Team is effectively providing org-wide leadership for the organization.
• Represent APA at Board of Directors meetings and work directly with Board members on special projects.
• Represent APA with external stakeholders and partners.
• Working closely with the Leadership Team and the new Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, craft and implement strategies to operationalize APA’s commitments to anti-racism and DEI roadmap across the organization.

Alliance Community Infrastructure

In addition to managing the internal operations of APA, the COO will also work closely with the new Chief Community Impact Officer (CCIO) to develop and build scalable infrastructure for the contemplated growth of the reimagined Alliance community. In this area, the COO will:

• Develop a financial model for the Alliance overall and financial KPI’s that can help us manage the Alliance to a place of financial stability.
• Build and scale the infrastructure for member recruitment, enrollment, management, and retention.
• Build and scale the infrastructure for the collection and management of membership fees.
• Build and maintain event management and community communication solutions.
• Understand the technology tools that can best support Alliance operations as we scale.
• Provide leadership, collaboration and counseling to various cross-functional teams to ensure diverse teams work seamlessly together to scale the Alliance and deliver on APA’s commitments to our Alliance Community.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years of senior leadership experience, preferably in the non-profit and youth-supporting field.
• 10+ years in operations management, including finance, talent, human resources, and operations.
• Prior experience in building and scaling operational systems and processes at a non-profit organization.
• Efficacy and comfort in both startup and high scale environments. Proven ability to enthusiastically lead and mobilize an evolving team through high-change and high-growth periods in an organization’s trajectory.
• Demonstrated ability to lead diverse, high-performing layered teams.
• Able to identify gaps, opportunities and strengths within an organization’s infrastructure, and to provide innovative strategies to improve processes and systems.
• DEI-centered leader who demonstrates a commitment to continuous learning, and who leads by modeling anti-racist practices.
• Demonstrated adept facilitation skills and ability to work and manage across lines of difference and approaching conversations with humility, thought and care.
• Demonstrated commitment to racial justice and improving youth outcomes.
• Experience working in one or more of APA’s outcome areas: education & youth development; racial & social justice; workforce development & economic mobility; mental health and wellbeing.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

Salary and benefits will be competitive and commensurate with experience with a range of $200,000 -$230,000. America’s Promise Alliance offers a generous benefits package that extends beyond health care coverage to help provide team members with a work-life balance that includes childcare, wellness initiatives, professional development, retirement savings, and more.

[1] We define the “field” as organizations working in the outcome areas at the intersection of young people’s lived experiences: (1) education & youth development, (2) racial & social justice, (3) workforce development & economic mobility, and (4) mental health and wellbeing.

To Apply

Please submit a resume and cover letter detailing your interest in this position to careers@americaspromise.org. Please include the position title in the subject line of your e-mail.

America’s Promise Alliance is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We actively seek and welcome diversity of all types on the America’s Promise team. America’s Promise is committed to an inclusive environment that allows all team members to thrive. While we sincerely appreciate all applications, only those candidates selected for interview will be contacted.