Reports to Director of Communities [Organizing Director]

Job Summary

Community & Program Managers (CPMs) report to the Director of Communities and are some of the primary community builders and coaches of Thread -- they plant themselves in a community of 150+ volunteers and young people, and then apply community organizing and antiracist principles to facilitate everyone’s strong relationships and positive personal, professional, and academic outcomes. CPMs work through the “Thread Community Model,” coaching, mobilizing, and empowering volunteers and youth to access the programming, resources, and other tools they need in order to thrive. Operating at Thread’s smaller high school sites, Community & Program Managers integrate into the partner school to develop and facilitate out-of-school programming, maintaining strong partnerships with school staff to share information and advocate for students.

The Thread Community Model is built upon CPMs directly coaching volunteer leaders, called “GrandParents.” Each GrandParent coaches eight volunteer leaders called “Heads of Family.” Each Head of Family leads, coaches, and organizes a Thread Family, which includes both “Family Member” volunteers and young people. Community & Program Managers ensure the effective and consistent implementation of this Model, ensuring everyone in the community is connected, engaged, and working towards their goals.

Community & Program Managers are responsible for monitoring the needs and goals of 150+ people, designing and implementing strategies to support them, and mobilizing them to events and activities throughout the month. At the same time, CPMs make every individual in their community feel seen and known, by being able to intimately connect with them and guide them through their personal growth journey as needed -- at the center of which is a racial equity journey. They do this by pairing strong project management, data, and organizing skills with a magnetic personality that can both energize and support people, even in the toughest moments.

Success will be measured by (1) the number of young people and volunteers engaged and retained, (2) the number of young people on track to graduate and graduated from high school, (3) the number of young people who have chosen and are prepared for their post-high school pathway, (4) the design and implementation of quality programming that delivers outcomes, and (5) qualitative feedback from volunteers and young people.

Key Responsibilities

Coaching, Community Building, and Volunteer Mobilization

• Build positive, long-term relationships with Thread volunteers, especially GrandParents
• Relentlessly facilitate and encourage relationships between volunteers and young people that elevate the power of young people, as the foundation for achieving exemplary outcomes
• Develop and maintain a scalable team of Resource Team Volunteers, interns, and collaborators, coaching them to execute strategy and facilitate high school goal development and attainment.
• Inform, educate, and foster growth of individuals at all stages of a racial equity journey
• Use effective storytelling and facilitation to drive group and individual outcomes
• Cultivate and retain high-performing GrandParents and Heads of Family

Volunteer Engagement and Mobilization

• Ensure the engagement and growth of young people and their “Family Member” volunteers by coaching and mobilizing “Grandparent” and “Head of Family” volunteer leaders
• Drive attendance to Thread programming, leveraging those spaces to model behavior, coach, and work towards key outcomes
• Coach “GrandParent” volunteer leaders each month to reflect, grow, and strategize
• Assist volunteers in removing barriers, including connecting with resources when needed
• Recruit and develop prospective and current volunteers to fill empty volunteer leader positions (“Heads of Family” and “Grandparents”)

Partnership Development & Advocacy

• Develop and maintain sustainable partnership with teachers and administrators in partner high school.
• Advocate with school partners to prevent transfers, ensure student needs are met, provide relevant supports, and exchange performance data.
• Engage and leverage community partners to co-lead programming, distribute community resources, and more.

Personal Performance and Project Management

• Build, implement, monitor, and adjust engagement and academic strategy for volunteers and young people to ensure positive outcomes, utilizing data and metrics, as well as qualitative info gathering
• Design and implement programming to build the capacity of staff, volunteers, and young people to build meaningful relationships while working towards their goals.
• Set mobilization targets and drive attendance to Thread programming accordingly
• Regularly collect, verify, and analyze students’ academic and professional data, as well as community needs and barriers.
• Plan and execute key student transition periods, including new student enrollment and the transition from high school to post-high school.
• Ensure community compliance with budget, policies, etc.

• Collaborate with and leverage Thread’s other functional teams to effectively support volunteers and students
• Develop, manage, and assist with additional programs and projects as needed to achieve team goals
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications/Skills

Required:

• 3-5 years of demonstrated success in community organizing, coaching, and mobilizing people to take action; If you have work experience as a full-time campaign organizer inclusive of the required years you are encouraged to apply. This must be a minimum of 4 months per campaign.
• At least 2 years of demonstrated success in project and program management, including building and developing a team of people towards common goals as well as data input, monitoring, and evaluation
• Demonstrated commitment to and experience with equity and inclusion through an intersectional lens, including experience navigating and/or coaching others through a racial equity journey
• Consistent access to a vehicle, as well as willingness to occasionally work evenings and weekends as needed
• Highly responsive, adaptive communications style; ability to inspire one-on-one and in groups of all sizes
• Ability to clearly communicate and live out Thread’s core values & core competencies.
• Recognition of the ways that race and other identities (historically and presently) intersect and play out in the workplace.
• Ability to work during the evenings and weekends if necessary.

Preferred:

• Bachelor’s Degree in associated discipline
• Familiarity with Baltimore human services landscape, including City Public School System, neighborhoods, and/or organizations and resources
• Prior experience working in a youth-serving and/or nonprofit environment
• Prior experience working with mobile app-based data input and with Salesforce
• Fluency in a second language, especially Spanish

WORK PLACE/ENVIRONMENT

• Hybrid Work Environment
• Flexible and Supportive Work Culture
• While Thread is a flexible work environment, community positions do often need to be able to engage in-person during core business hours, in addition to work in evenings and weekends as needed.

COVID Requirements

• “Effective September 20,2021 , Thread requires all new employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment, subject to reasonable accommodation. All offers of employment after [date] are contingent upon proof of COVID-19 vaccination as a part of the pre-employment process. If you are unable to be vaccinated due to medical or protected religious reasons, please reach out to Human Resources at HR@thread.org to submit an accommodation request.”

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

• We value a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture and encourage applications from all interested persons, including, but not limited to, people of color, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals

ADA ACCOMMODATION LANGUAGE

Thread will make reasonable accommodations for the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an applicant or an employee, unless undue hardship or a direct threat would result from the accommodation. 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 HR@Thread.org

More About Thread

Our Mission

Thread harnesses the power of relationships to create a new social fabric of diverse individuals deeply engaged with young people facing the most significant opportunity and achievement gaps. Our community is committed to ending social isolation and building a more equitable culture in which everyone thrives.

Our Why

Studies have shown that the defining difference between Rust Belt cities that struggled and those that were hotspots of rejuvenation was the structure of social networks. The Thread Community Model brings together a broad cross-section of our city by forming authentic, mutual, and enduring relationships and in turn provides a vehicle for sustained change. Thread believes that the power of relationships—the dynamic web of interconnectedness created when futures are woven together—can end the poverty of isolation and allow both youth and Baltimore to realize their full potential.

Thread is weaving a new social fabric where everyone thrives and which is expanding to connect with even more students, volunteers, and collaborators. Thread currently serves 655 students and alumni with the support of more than 1200 volunteers and more than 1300 collaborators. We plan to continue to increase our annual and total enrollments until we meet our long-term goal of engaging 300 new students each year (5% of every high school freshman class across Baltimore City). This expansion and evolution requires that Thread be nimble and innovative, and leverage identified opportunities in a way that is congruent with our values and core competencies.

Our How

Team members at Thread are hard- and smart-working, collaborative, curious, passionate, gritty, strategic and resilient. We meet people where they are. We go all in with care, compassion, and empathy. We believe small acts make a big difference. We trust each other to be sincere, reliable and competent. The outcomes Thread has achieved are exemplary. However, the road to excellence is peppered with iterative learning. We make mistakes often and fail frequently, but we learn from our mistakes and continue to tenaciously try and try again. We are about building communities of responsibility and have high expectations of students, volunteers, collaborators, and staff. We believe that each human being has a purpose in life and have found that individuals living on purpose have discovered the intersection of their skills, passion, and what the world needs. The journey to find this intersection, one’s dot, is often simultaneously exhilarating and difficult. Thread creates a safe and challenging space for all individuals in our community—students, volunteers, collaborators, and staff— to find their dot through deep reflection, honest feedback, and in-depth coaching.

Posted On: Wednesday, June 15, 2022