Job Description

About the Opportunity:

826 Boston seeks a dynamic and experienced nonprofit professional to serve as the Senior Manager of Volunteer and Community Engagement. We are seeking a candidate with a strong command of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles and approaches, who can build on the current strengths of the Volunteer and Community Engagement Team – robust training and support that center DEI principles, collaborative partnerships, and creating a culture of joy and connection through writing.

The Senior Manager will lead the Volunteer and Community Engagement Team through a period of redesign, and will be in charge of managing a brand new team of 2-3 direct reports. Under the Senior Manager’s direction, the Volunteer and Community Engagement Team will cultivate and steward new and existing partnerships to increase the number of the individual volunteers that foster learning spaces that are student-centered, strengths-based, and promote inclusivity for the identities, experiences, and voices of LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and neurodiverse students.

Mission: 

826 Boston is a nonprofit writing, tutoring, and publishing organization where students in grades K-12 and beyond can share their stories, amplify their voices, and develop as leaders in school and in life.

Responsibilities: 

Program Management

• Manage the 826 Boston Volunteer Program of roughly 750 volunteers who serve across the organization supporting students in developing writing, creative self-expression, and critical thinking skills; volunteers work with students on academic and creative writing assignments, homework across content areas, and support our in-house publishing process
• Drive vision for volunteer life cycle, including recruitment, training, retention, and community building
• Oversee the development and facilitation of volunteer trainings and communication
• Maintain a robust online volunteer resource portal
• Lead team trainings related to volunteer life cycle and ensure volunteer program quality and effectiveness across the organization
• Maintain accurate volunteer records, including coordinating volunteer background checks and tracking volunteer engagement in SalesForce
• Collaborate with Director of Programs and Community Engagement to set annual, measurable volunteer team goals; report out on progress at Mid-Year and End-of-Year Reporting and lead strategy adjustments
• Build, cultivate, and manage strong relationships with universities, companies, educational and cultural institutions, neighborhood-based organizations and other community partners with a demonstrated commitment to DEI and anti-racism
• Develop strategy and targeted outreach initiatives to increase BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ representation in volunteer cohorts, as well as increase STEM-focused volunteers to support after-school and in-school STEM programming
• Increase Spanish-speaking volunteer engagement for our two Bilingual partner sites where students learn and communicate in both English and Spanish
• Collaborate with development team on corporate engagement
• Represent 826 Boston at conferences and community meetings

Personnel Management

• Supervise Community Engagement Coordinator who is responsible for maintaining pipelines with university partners and community organizations that fuel Service Learning opportunities and Writing Workshops support and supervises 1-2 interns per semester
• Supervise 1-2 AmeriCorps Volunteer Engagement Specialists who are completing an 11-month service term, support the volunteer life cycle, and serve as writing tutors across 826 programs

• Guide all team members in establishing individual work and service plans in support of team goals; identify areas for professional development
• Manage the hiring and training of all Volunteer Program Team personnel
• Lead Volunteer Program Team meetings, focused on developing individual team members and sharing best practices

Additional Responsibilities

• Support organization-wide summer programming
• Provide occasional support to programming as a tutor or staff coverage
• Provide support at select outreach and fundraising events, including nights and weekends on rare occasions.

Qualifications: 

The ideal candidate is a team player with a steadfast commitment to improving the quality of K-12 education, including adopting antiracist/anti-oppressive approaches, with a desire to work in a collaborative and inclusive culture and a passion for youth empowerment through writing and publishing.

826 Boston recognizes that impostor syndrome and the confidence gap might prevent some applicants from applying. Few candidates will have all of the relevant experience listed below, but 826 Boston is committed to assessing candidates with transferable skills and a willingness to be trained for this role.

Skills and experiences:

• 3+ years of experience of experience working in a K-12 school, education, or youth development nonprofit
• Exceptional organizational, time management, project management, and resource management skills; high attention to detail
• Strong team management skills with ability to mentor, coach, and develop staff, and build a strong sense of team identity and community
• Ability to incorporate anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices into analysis, planning, and programming
• Knowledge of and fluency with social and racial justice, intersectionality, BIPoC and LGBTQIA+ history, and historic/current systems of oppression
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to give and receive feedback with humility, regulation, and tact
• Experience in community outreach campaigns, partnership development, or working in bilingual and/or global majority communities in the Greater Boston Area strongly preferred
• Ability to travel between 826 Boston offices and school partners, including some school locations that are not ADA accessible
• Proficiency in Google Suite, Salesforce, and InDesign preferred
• Proficiency in Spanish preferred

Compensation

The salary for this full time position is $59,740 a year. Benefits include generous paid time off (including vacation, sick leave, holidays, and a two-week winter break); flexible schedule, including the option to work remotely 1-2 days a week; health and dental insurance (826 Boston covers 80% of premiums); parental leave; and more.

This is an exempt, full-time position that reports to the Director of Programs and Community Engagement. The ideal start date for this position is mid-to-late August. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

826 Boston Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement 

At 826 Boston, we honor and actively work toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across our organization. We are committed to centering the voices of the students who we serve, to creating inclusive spaces, and to incorporating feedback from our community into our decision-making processes. Our DEI lens is always evolving through the courageous conversations in which we participate and the relationships that we build through our work and service. We strengthen our cultural competency through experience, training, and feedback, which informs the development of all new organizational practices and goals and the evaluation of all existing procedures.

826 Boston is dedicated to providing a platform for student advocacy through writing and publishing opportunities. In our work and mission, we are committed to dismantling white supremacy culture by recognizing that we are complicit in systems of racism and oppression. We will work to hold ourselves accountable in addressing these harmful structures and behaviors. To learn more about our DEI Action Plans across the organization, please click here.

About Us

826 Boston is part of a national network of youth writing centers, co-founded by the award-winning author Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari, that were named in GOOD Magazine’s “30 Places We Want to Work.” Since opening in 2007, 826 Boston has delivered its free youth writing and tutoring programs to more than 29,000 students and has been recognized by The Boston Globe as one of the best places in the city to volunteer. 826 Boston’s youth writers have published their work in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and in numerous award-winning 826 Boston books, including A Place for Me in the World, which was hailed as a “triumph of middle school education” by The Boston Globe. In 2013, the 826 National network garnered the prestigious American Literacy Prize awarded by the Library of Congress.

How to Apply

Job Types: Full-Time. Salaries: 40,000 - 60,000.

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