Reports to: Chairman of the Board of Directors
Position Summary:
Central Oregon includes in excess of 200,000 people spread over three counties, with more than 20,000 of those people living in poverty. Given the Partnership to End Poverty's limited resources, in order to accomplish its primary goal of "growing the lives and expanding the economic opportunities for low income people", PEP must learn how to greatly leverage its resources. Thus the primary duty of the Executive Director is to develop creative programs and initiatives that allow PEP to leverage its financial and intellectual-capital resources.
Additional goals for the ED include personally participating in key programs that require extensive leadership skills, assuring the financial sustainability of the organization, and developing and/or locating a qualified successor.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
-
To create an environment for the organization's staff to succeed:
The ED is responsible for hiring, training and motivating staff members to accomplish the goals of the organization in the most efficient and well-leveraged manner possible and to develop a culture of accountability and concern for PEP's low income clients. The organization's culture will feature key components of the social entrepreneurial model, and thus must encourage the development of creative solutions for resolving the challenges of poverty. Given the need for the leveraging of PEP's assets, the ED's management style must include delegation, trust and a distinct lack of micro-management. The ED's primary culture-implementation and environment-building tool should be that of leading by example.
The ED is also responsible for building a team of caring, synergistic employees. Current examples of team building include 1) a flex time program for PEP employees, 2) staff participation in the United Way Days of Caring event and 3) occasional social gatherings including Christmas parties and "trips to Goody's." (The ice cream parlor next door to PEP offices.)
-
To engage the BOD in community leadership & strategic decision making:
The ED is responsible for communicating to the BOD the depths of Central Oregon's poverty, the needs of PEP's low income clients and the available options for serving them. The intent of such communication is twofold: 1) to engage the board in assisting the staff with community outreach and 2) to assist the board in its role of providing strategic direction.
-
To maintain a mutually beneficial and open relationship with the NWAF:
In order to maximize the benefits of the NWAF's significant financial investment in the Central Oregon region, the ED must not only work to accomplish its poverty reduction goals, but, in the process, must also drive and maintain timely and informative communications with the NWAF liaison director. In order to accomplish this, the communication schedules between the two should be organized and regularly scheduled. Also, interim random communications should be encouraged, especially when unforeseen problems or unusually positive achievements occur. Surprises should be held to a minimum.
The ED is also responsible to assure that the NWAF's reporting requirements and evaluation requests are observed and relevant timelines met.
-
To personally create and manage successful programs and/or initiatives:
The ED is expected to personally create and manage programs and initiatives of his/her own, especially those that require a high degree of leadership and community outreach skills. Such programs or initiatives must rely heavily on the factor of leverage, as it is not the intention herein to require that vast amounts of the ED's time be spent in driving a project or initiative. Consequently, a high degree of leverage should be present in any of the ED's personal programs or initiatives.
-
To maintain the fiscal integrity of PEP:
It is the ED's responsibility to assure the financial well being of the PEP organization, including the integrity of expenditures as relates to its operating expenses. To accomplish this he/she must: 1) assist in developing the budget, 2) regularly review the monthly financial statements, 3) attend the monthly Finance Committee meetings, 4) research and make recommendations for investment decisions relating to NWAF grant monies and 5) to review monthly expenditures.
-
To create and manage a strategy for assuring the organization's financial sustainability:
PEP's agreement with the NWAF, and the funding associated with it, terminates in 2012. Alternatives for assuring sustainability after 2012 include, but are not limited to: 1) developing a variety of revenue generating programs, 2) developing relationships with non-NWAF foundations and grantors, including but not limited to local family foundations, regional foundations and federal, state and local governmental organizations and 3) assuring that PEP's results places it within the NWAF's "proven and promising" parameters and with it, the opportunity to be considered for receiving continued funding post-2012.
-
To drive the organization's community leadership role within the poverty sector:
In order to best leverage its resources, The Partnership to End Poverty must act in a "catalyst" or "convener" role, thereby engaging the resources of other community and regional-based organizations, as it pursues the development of its own programs and initiatives. In order to accomplish this, PEP must have earned the region-wide credibility to fill such a leadership role. This leadership role must include all of the three counties and all of the sectors involved in the region, including the non-profit, public, business and faith-based sectors. The ED must develop relationships within all of these sectors and display the necessary leadership skills to sucessfully work with them.
-
To develop internally, or locate externally, candidates for the board to consider as a qualified successor:
The Executive Director and the Board of Directors has a responsibility to the NWAF, to the PEP staff and to its low income clients, to, once his/her decision is made to retire and move on, leave the organization in capable hands. Successor ED candidates for the board to consider may be developed from within the current staff or may come from the outside, but, whichever option is selected, it is the ED's responsiblity to help train and motivate the person the board selects for the position.