Position Overview
The Direct/Senior Director, Strategic Planning and Allocations is a member of the Impact team and provides the Impact department key leadership, responsible to drive a culture of excellence and learning. This position is charged to support and advance a strategy for achievement and performance relating to all aspects of our strategic planning and allocations. This role requires superior skills in research-based analysis and evidence-based learning to establish a program for measurable and sustainable impact. The Director/Senior Director, Strategic Planning and Allocations is responsible to collaborate with colleagues, volunteer leadership, and other community builders, to create a robust community model of innovation, resiliency, sustainability, and deep impact. This position builds a design for investment and partnership founded upon data-driven solutions that drives vibrant Jewish life in Greater Washington (DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia) and a flourishing society in Israel & Overseas. You will?help?design and implement strategic?investment processes and?manage a portfolio of grants, including oversight of grants processes.?Working with prospective and returning grantee partners, the Strategic Planning & Allocations department is responsible for all aspects of the grants process, including collection of applications, evaluations, and stewarding volunteer committees to make recommendations for funding.
The Director/Senior Director, Strategic Planning & Allocations will manage a team of individuals responsible for local and global allocations predicated on relational grant-making and data-driven decision-making. With a focus on building organizational relationships, supporting communal leaders, strengthening ties throughout the community, elevating content and literacy, and ensuring that all individuals have an opportunity to engage Jewish life through a sense of belonging, this role is empowered to drive rich and sustainable impact for the nearly 400,000 members of the Jewish community in Greater Washington, and broader Israeli society. You will work in partnership with other members of the Impact department to think holistically about the broader allocations portfolio, designing a strategy for short- and long-term impact to support our work with Families with Young Children, Teens & Youth, NextGen, Individuals & Families with Needs, and Israel and Overseas. This position manages real-time grantmaking, responsive taskforce and scholarship distribution cycles, endowment funds, and emergency grants processes.
Roles and Responsibilities
Strategic Planning & Allocations (SP&A)
- Work closely with Chief Impact Officer and other members of Federation’s senior leadership to develop strategy for impact that supports organizational goals
- Direct full program of planning and allocations in support of strategic goals
- Manage team that oversees, stewards, and supports grant portfolios and working groups
- Define, create, and launch allocation processes to distribute investments in support of vibrant Jewish life
- Maintain regular and close contact with range of volunteer leaders, including members of Strategic Planning & Allocations Committee, supporting them in grants process, and providing data-based educational platform for impact and investment
- Foster successful relationships with partner agencies, executives, spiritual leadership, lay leadership, and other community organizations to understand community growth opportunities, needs, and challenges
- Prepare and deliver management-level presentations and communicate key findings with clarity and insight
Data & Metrics
- Work closely with colleagues to ensure data and metrics drive program for impact
- Build and iterate upon rubrics to support evaluation and assessment
- Develop surveys and studies (internal and external) to provide recommendations
- Curate presentations regularly, including written, visual, and oral
- Support and oversee market and program research initiatives
- Develop and maintain process documentation
External Partners
- Provide training, support, and expertise to local partners to build organizational resiliency and strategic collaboration with Federation
- Spokesperson throughout the community, when needed, to communicate our vision for impact and process to support our strategy and provide thought leadership
- Convene lay and professional leadership networks to develop, implement, and monitor strategies for strategy and planning across the Greater Washington Jewish community, working in partnership with community lay leaders and professionals, congregations, agencies, and schools to advance thought leadership, share best practices to build organizational capacity, and create and implement new opportunities for programmatic development
Internal Leadership & Activity
- Provide oversight of and support for team of professionals
- Develop team in proficiencies and track performance in all areas related to SP&A
- Recommend departmental systems and chart growth plan for members of team
- In addition to working alongside colleagues within Impact, collaborate as needed with Jewish Community Foundation, Financial Resource Development and Donor Engagement, Marketing, and Finance/Operations
Skills and Experience
- Bachelor’s Degree (Advanced Degree Preferred)
- 5-7 years of proven success within planning and allocations and 4+ years of managerial experience
- Growth orientation with enthusiastic approach towards culture building and positivity
- Demonstrated experience articulating a vision, translating it into executable strategy, and driving cross-functional teams to deliver to established priorities with measurable positive impact on outcomes
- Demonstrated experience facilitating organization-wide initiatives involving stakeholders at all levels (including professional and volunteer) and across all functional areas of a matrixed and integrated organization
- Experience convening a broad range of external stakeholder to collectively build and implement new initiatives and bring them to scale
- Proficiency with data collection practices and a strong ability to translate data into actionable insights – including surveys, diagnostics, and needs assessments
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Fluent in Microsoft Office Suite (desktop and online), with expertise in Excel and Powerpoint
- Maintain high level of confidentiality and discretion with sound judgement at all times
- Leadership Development: training staff and empowering them to develop professionally
- Comfort working in fast-paced environment and methodical pace of change
- Outcome driven mindset
- Innovative thinker with a comfort exploring calculated risks and learning
- Flexible approach with readiness to adapt to change
- Strong problem solving and critical thinking skills;?can?make sound and logical decisions and choose the appropriate courses of action based on the parameters of the situation at hand?
- Comfort managing multiple projects and tasks simultaneously
- Commitment to the mission of The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington?
In building our professional team,?Federation?strives to model our vision of an inclusive community and vibrant future. As an equal opportunity employer, we invite and encourage applications from all candidates of all backgrounds and identities. We know that no applicant's experience will align 100% with the listed qualifications. Don't let that hold you back! We encourage you to apply and look forward to meeting you.?
A People-Friendly Workplace??
- The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington is an equal opportunity employer offering a people- friendly environment, including:??
- Excellent health care and retirement benefits??
- Generous time off??
- Flexible work options??
- Opportunities and an annual stipend for continued professional development??
- Access to the JPRO Network, which connects, educates, inspires, and empowers professionals working in the Jewish nonprofit sector?
Organizational Vision, Mission, and Function?
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington envisions an open, connected, and vibrant Jewish community that cares for each other, fosters Jewish learning and journeys, embraces Jewish peoplehood and Israel, and acts as a force for good in the world. As a mission-driven non-profit organization, we work to inspire, build, and sustain vibrant Jewish life in a changing world by mobilizing our community in common purpose, intentional innovation, and effective action.?
Candidates should?be located in?or willing to relocate to the Greater Washington (DC, MD, and Northern VA) region. This?is a hybrid position, with 3 days a week required in our headquarters.?The health and safety of our professional team and community remains a top priority, and all Federation employees are required to provide proof of?vaccination against COVID-19.????