Executive Director, Bridgeport Prospers
Company: United Way Worldwide
Location: Bridgeport
Posted on: March 16, 2023
Job Description:
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.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 FUNCTIONSIn 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/REQUIREMENTSThis
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 STAFFCore 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.
- 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.
Keywords: United Way Worldwide, Bridgeport , Executive Director, Bridgeport Prospers, Executive , Bridgeport, Connecticut
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