The Opportunity:
We believe, and research shows, that student and stakeholder voice matters.
We equip education leaders and philanthropic funders to integrate on-the-ground insights into planning, professional development, and improvement processes. As the leader of YouthTruth, you would have the opportunity to influence schools, districts, funders and networks and help create happier, healthier, school systems paving the way for higher academic achievement.
Position Overview:
The Vice President represents YouthTruth and oversees all aspects of the initiative. The Vice President represents YouthTruth publicly, leads fundraising efforts, and manages relationships with its advisors. The Vice President is also responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of YouthTruth and ensuring that YouthTruth achieves its goals. Other key responsibilities of this role include marketing, managing funder relationships, overseeing district and state recruitment efforts nationally, overseeing product development, and guiding overall implementation. Reporting to the President of CEP, the Vice President is a member of CEP’s senior leadership team, leads a team of 17, and collaborates closely with staff in other departments at CEP.
Responsibilities:
- Provide strategic vision and leadership to successfully achieve YouthTruth’s growth, expansion, and sustainability plans.
- Serve as a spokesperson and persuasive champion for YouthTruth, for the importance of hearing from students, and for the insights gleaned from our data sets – including through speaking engagements, blog posts, and op eds.
- Cultivate and manage new and existing funder relationships to support YouthTruth, with leading national and regional education funders and organizations.
- Lead regional funder collaboratives to help foundations learn from and use perception data to advance their strategy, tactics, and grantee relationships.
- Working closely with YouthTruth’s leadership team:
- Oversee all program operations – including survey administration, customization, data analysis, production of reports at multiple levels (teacher, school, district, and regional/state/portfolio-level), results sharing, and professional development workshops for leadership teams – for all YouthTruth products (student surveys, family, surveys, and school staff surveys).
- Focus team on ensuring that clients understand, and are well positioned to use, assessment results – demonstrating patience, empathy, and an appreciation for organizational dynamics and the barriers to change and
- Oversee research agenda and publication of two to four reports annually drawing on YouthTruth’s aggregate national dataset.
- Manage and convene an external Advisory Board to provide strategic guidance.
- Manage a 17-person team and foster a strong team culture that prioritizes cohesion, mentorship, trust, respect, and empathy.
Qualifications
- Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to build relationships with a variety of constituents and present a vision and a compelling case for organizational support
- At least 10 years of relevant work experience, including experience managing teams in a fast‐
paced Edtech organization, school district or network, nonprofit, or business environment
- Demonstrated experience successfully bringing an initiative or business to scale
- Exceptional project management skills and experience managing a small team across multiple dynamic workstreams
- Strong strategic acumen, understanding of organizational dynamics, and ability to navigate challenging political climates
- Commitment to the role that data can play in improving the performance of education improvement efforts
- Interest in leading a growing team in a highly entrepreneurial, fast‐paced environment;
- Willingness to “roll up one’s sleeves”
- Experience leading marketing and sales efforts
- A commitment to excellence and diversity, equity, and inclusion; in particular, experience with – and strong advocacy for – marginalized communities
- Strong risk tolerance and comfort with ambiguity
- Ability to lead, motivate, and support a passionate and dedicated staff
Benefits
We successfully compete for top talent across the public and private sectors and offer competitive compensation and benefits, including:
- A commitment to pay parity and salary equity. The annual salary for this role is $255,000 (CA)
- Performance based incentive compensation plan
- Comprehensive health and dental insurance plans
- Generous paid time off plan, including up to 15 holidays, three weeks of accrued vacation, and two personal days per year
- Flexible working schedule options
- 401(k) plan with a 1:1 Employer Match up to 5% of total compensation
- Generous annual personal professional development allowance
- Flexible spending and dependent care tax free savings plans
- Life insurance covered 100% by the organization
Location:
This role will be based in our San Francisco, California office.
We strive to balance in-person time with flexibility and the needs of each person, team, and the organization. We believe culture, communication, trust, training, and certain kinds of creative work benefit from in-office interactions – and that remote work also has many advantages. Staff are expected to be in the office one day per week and enjoy the option to work fully remotely from anywhere four weeks per year. That said, given the leadership role the Vice President will play and the size of the YouthTruth team, we’d expect a more significant in-office presence for this leader: perhaps two to three days a week in the office when not travelling.
About YouthTruth
YouthTruth was born out of a conversation between the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation back in 2008. The Foundation was seeking to hear from more voices – and one that was missing was the voice of the people whose lives they were trying to affect: the students themselves.
YouthTruth is based on the simple but powerful premise that when you get timely feedback from those you’re trying to serve, and really listen to that feedback to make changes, you get better.
About CEP
For two decades, CEP has led the movement to improve philanthropy through a powerful combination of dispassionate analysis and a passionate commitment to improving lives. Today, over 350 foundations around the world have used CEP’s assessments and advisory services to gather honest feedback from their stakeholders in an effort to learn how to be even more effective. CEOs and trustees have come to rely on our research for insights into foundation effectiveness on a wide range of topics, from assessing performance to developing strategy to managing stakeholder relationships. Our highly regarded programming—including our biennial conference—gives foundation leaders an exclusive and unprecedented opportunity to connect with their peers. Strengths of CEP’s work culture are entrepreneurialism, accountability, teamwork, collegiality, diversity, and mutual respect.
Please fill out our application for employment and attach a resume and a thoughtful cover letter outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position. If you have any questions, please contact Leaha Wynn, Senior Manager, People and Culture and D&I Strategist or Alyse d’Amico, Vice President of People and Culture at jobs [at] cep [dot] org. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Once a candidate begins our process, we discourage outreach to our staff for interviews or conversations that are outside our standard interview process. We have worked hard to design a process that is fair and rigorous and achieves a good match between candidates and CEP/YouthTruth.
We evaluate candidates based on their merits. We strongly discourage unsolicited references. We will ask for references if and when a candidacy reaches a finalist stage.
