Managing Director

The Potter’s House DC is seeking a qualified candidate to serve as the next Managing Director. This is a unique opportunity to lead a much-beloved, 64-year-old community institution poised for expanded impact and growth and navigating a moment of significant organizational change.

The Role of the Managing Director

The Managing Director leads an approximately 20-person team and a $1.4 million budget, with earned revenue from the bookstore, café, events, and space rentals as well as support from individuals and institutions. They oversee the bookstore, café, events, and programming teams, ensuring mission alignment, operational effectiveness, and financial stability.

The Managing Director will bring both strategic and operational skills to the business of running a nonprofit social enterprise, balancing the needs of internal and external stakeholders, building a stable revenue model to grow and sustain community-focused programs, and guiding a collaborative team. Our next Managing Director should possess the project management skills, enthusiasm, entrepreneurial spirit, and broad business and nonprofit leadership experience to propel the organization to its next growth phase.

The Managing Director reports to a 10-member Board of Directors, representing a range of The Potter’s House stakeholders.

Core Responsibilities

The Managing Director is responsible for creating, implementing, and calibrating strategy in the following areas:

Organizational Strategy and Advancement

Establish a strategy that expands earned revenue and fundraising activities to ensure long-term financial stability that supports existing and new programs, general operations, and future goals.

• Create and execute a robust fundraising, grant funding, and donor cultivation strategy that can generate a minimum of $300,000 per year.
• Ensure the bookstore, café, space rentals, and events consistently meet revenue targets.
• Create reliable budgets, financial systems, bookkeeping, accounting procedures, and internal controls that take into account the relationships between the nonprofit and for-profit entities that comprise our social enterprise.
• Drive marketing strategy, including refining the narrative of The Potter’s House, properly communicating our brand through all existing and upcoming channels, and raising public awareness and interest in our mission.
• Collaborate with the Board of Directors, communicating key areas of need and leveraging the talent of its members to provide active support and delivering clear, concise, and actionable updates to the Board.

Operational Oversight and Administration

Oversee activities, operations, and expansion of our multiple lines of business as relates to our mission, including the café, bookstore, events, space rentals, and community programs.

• Build, guide, and develop a team with the skills and expertise to administer their respective areas of work with a high degree of professionalism and sustainability, fostering a supportive team culture and cultivating a leadership pipeline.
• Manage physical facility and infrastructure needs, including creative utilization of resources to maintain operational continuity.
• Lead, expand, and enhance The Potter’s House’s community programs, initiatives, partnerships, and engagement efforts, centering the needs of our diverse array of community members.

Core Behaviors

The Potter’s House is seeking highly qualified candidates who will lead and accomplish the above core responsibilities by embodying the following behaviors:

• Values: Demonstration of The Potter’s House values of community, service, accessibility, and justice and callings of gathering, collaboration, growth, and social care.
• Project Management: Exceptional ability to manage multiple projects and competing priorities at once, proactively identifying and mitigating risks and delegating tasks.
• Fundraising:Ability to set and achieve ambitious goals in both the individual and institutional fundraising realms.
• Communication: Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to communicate needs and ideas accurately, clearly, concisely, and professionally.
• Business Expertise: Strong business acumen, including comfortability with multi-year budgeting and systematizing organizational management and operational structures.
• Strategic Planning: Strong ability to change, set, and pursue new strategic directions, inspiring others to buy-in and support; ability to both plan for the long-term while also achieving short-term goals.
• Curiosity & Innovation:Deeply curious about the community and landscape The Potter’s House is a part of, with a desire to identify and solve for, through innovation, the root causes of problems.
• Team Culture: Emotional intelligence and ability to develop a team culture that fosters accountability, equity, trust, creativity, and distributed leadership.

Minimum Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent experience) in business, human resources, nonprofit management, finance, or closely related field from an accredited institution.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship during tenure.
• Residence in DC, Maryland, or Virginia, with the ability to work predominantly in-person at our physical location in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. Following the transition period, a more hybrid schedule may be explored.
• Weekend and evening availability to be on call to support staff and attend events/meetings, seeing as The Potter’s House may be open during these times.
• Experience in fundraising, fiscal management, program administration, and staff management.

Additional Desired Qualifications

• For-profit experience in restaurant, hospitality, retail, or related areas.
• Nonprofit experience in social services, advocacy, or other community services.
• Conversational Spanish-language ability.

Compensation and Benefits

The initial salary range for this on-site, full-time exempt position is $70,000 - $90,000 per year (commensurate with experience), plus a complete benefits package. After the first year of service, the salary may be increased based on performance.

How to Apply

To apply, email your resume and cover letter (with the subject line “Potter’s House Application - Managing Director”) to Nicole Cennamo at secretary@pottershousedc.org.

Application materials should be received by April 1, 2024 to ensure full consideration. The position will remain open until filled, with an ideal start date of May - June.

Candidates will need to have the following information or materials available to complete the application:

• A current resume that lists past positions (including dates of employment, state of employment, and duties/accomplishments) and contact information (email address and telephone number).
• A cover letter (not to exceed 2 pages) that demonstrates how the candidate’s experience and professional qualifications prepare them to serve as the Managing Director of The Potter’s House.

About The Potter’s House DC

The Potter’s House DC is a vibrant nonprofit social enterprise deeply rooted in the Adams Morgan community. Over 60 years old, The Potter’s House strives to create a third space where all patrons, whether paying or non-paying, can experience the same food, enjoy a shared ambience, and forge meaningful social connections. We are dedicated to celebrating shared humanity through our gathering spaces and programming; our socially responsible meals provided via the onsite café; and the unique curation of social justice books found in our bookstore.

Since 1960, The Potter’s House has been a steady, welcoming presence in Adams Morgan, offering radical hospitality to all who walk through our doors. Our ethos revolves around the concept of paying it forward – every coffee and book purchase contributes to our organizational mission, and patrons can easily make additional donations to provide meals for those facing food insecurity. Through our “Pay It Forward” program, we serve over 20,000 free meals per year to neighbors who might otherwise go hungry.

Our commitment to community service, accessibility, and justice forms the cornerstone of our work. Through activities of gathering, collaboration, growth, and social care, we work to create a shared community in which all members experience dignity and belonging. In our rapidly changing city - one in which development so often means displacement - The Potter's House is particularly dedicated to aiding individuals impacted by gentrification, serving as an inclusive space where we can build relationships across our differences, envision just alternatives, and grow movements that will make this future possible.

Today, we are in a pivotal moment of growth and expansion in terms of the services we provide, the impact that we’re making, and the structures that support our work. For more information about our rich heritage, please visit www.pottershousedc.org/history.

The Potter's House is an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity. We recruit and employ individuals without regard to race, color, religion, creed, age, gender, gender identity, sex, national origin, ancestry, marital status, pregnancy, familial status, ability, veteran status, sexual orientation, size, status with regard to public assistance, or genetic information.

The Potter’s House is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. 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 secretary@pottershousedc.org.

To apply, email your resume and cover letter (with the subject line “Potter’s House Application - Managing Director”) to Nicole Cennamo at secretary@pottershousedc.org. Application materials should be received by April 1, 2024 to ensure full consideration.