What: As an integral member of Thrive’s dynamic and growing team, the Senior Associate for Opportunity Youth Strategies will work with key partners to support Thrive’s OY strategies aimed at reducing the number of Chicago youth not in school or working. The Senior Associate will work closely with the Thrive Director of Opportunity Youth Strategies to drive forward the work in this portfolio, including: Reconnection Hubs, Learn & Earn, Pathways to Careers, and 100K Opportunities. This position will serve as the primary point of contact and project manager for the wide range of stakeholders engaged in these workstreams. Stakeholders include: public institutions, community based organizations, funders, and employers. This skilled project manager will be flexible in supporting the needs of Thrive’s OY workstreams, ensuring the timely and effective completion of deliverables associated with them. This position will also serve as the primary coordinator of Thrive’s 100K initiative activities and liaison to 100K employers in Chicago. The Senior Associate will work with rest of Thrive team to ensure that all these activities align with and leverage the rest of Thrive’s work. Specific responsibilities include:
Opportunity Youth Strategies
- Support Thrive’s Director of Opportunity Youth Strategies in executing ongoing work by filling a variety of roles including the coordination of meetings, events, and community presentations.
- Develop and cultivate relationships with employers and community stakeholders, including practitioners in the education, faith, nonprofit, philanthropic, and civic sectors.
- Provide technical assistance, project management support and develop process improvement methods and tools as necessary to Reconnection Hub partners in the Roseland community.
- Support Reconnection Hub partners in other communities through facilitation of meetings to develop unified action plans to support planning and implementation of this intervention.
- Support facilitation, relationship buildinging, and execution of interventions related to Thrive’s Learn and Earn workstream.
- Support facilitation and project management of the Chicago Pathways to Career Community of Practice consisting of the four key partners supported by Aspen’s investment.
- Support execution of the Aspen Fund for Youth Connectivity grant deliverables.
- Work closely with Thrive staff to create and implement clear and timely communication strategies for various partners including members of different Thrive stakeholder groups, Thrive Leadership Council members, public institutions, education and non-profit partners.
- Manage to agreed upon action plans to ensure on time completion of all tasks, propose adjustments to timeline if needed.
- Travel and participate in national Opportunity Youth convenings as needed.
- Assist with grant reporting related to Thrive’s OY workstreams.
- Lead the project management, and operationalization all aspects of Chicago’s 100K Initiative in partnership with other initiative stakeholders.
- Serve as liaison and connector of Chicago 100K employers and youth facing agencies.
- Provide technical assistance to three community organizations delivering hiring fairs for OY in 2018 and ensure timely collection of data and information from partners organizing the fair.
- Travel and participate in national convenings associated with the initiative as needed.
- Serve as the day-to-day contact for national funders and partners supporting 100K (i.e. Aspen Forum for Community Solutions, Schultz Family Foundation, Starbucks, Jobs for the Future).
- Work closely with the Thrive Director of Opportunity Youth Strategies to ensure 100K activities align with and complement broader OY initiatives whenever possible.
- Manage grant reporting related to the 100K initiative.
- Represent the 100K Initiative at different youth employment initiatives and employer engagement initiatives, such as Reimagine Retail Chicagoland
- Passionate about realizing Thrive Chicago’s vision: Chicago is a city where all succeed in education, career, and life.
- Bachelor’s degree required with at least 5 years of relevant work experience.
- Demonstrated ability to manage the scope, requirements, deliverables, timeline, and resource needs of complex, multi-stakeholder projects. Knowledge of project management fundamentals and experience managing projects are essential.
- Strong meeting facilitation skills.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills. Must be an effective communicator with multiple audiences, including community based organizations, foundations, researchers, and educators. Must be able to communicate technical information to a wide variety of audiences.
- Strong strategic thinking skills.
- Be self-motivated, able to take initiative, and have a positive personality.
- Strong sense of emotional intelligence
- Good organizational skills and high attention to detail required.
- Advanced skills in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint preferred.
- Employer relationship management skills preferred.
- Familiarity with collective impact and non-profit sector preferred.
- Knowledge of education and workforce development systems in Chicago preferred.
Application Instructions
Please submit a resume/CV and cover letter to info@thrivechi.org with YOUR LAST NAME and “Senior Associate for OY Strategies” in subject line. We will review applications on a rolling basis, so it is to your advantage to apply as soon as possible.
Find the full job posting online here.