Community Manager

THREAD INC•Baltimore, MD

About The Position

Community Managers (CMs) are the primary community builders and coaches of Thread -- they plant themselves in a community of 200+ volunteers and young people, and then apply community organizing and antiracist principles to facilitate everyone’s strong relationships and positive personal, professional, and academic outcomes. CMs work through the Thread Community Model, coaching, mobilizing, and empowering volunteers and youth to access the programming, resources, and other tools they need in order to thrive. Key outcomes include volunteer/student engagement, retention, and satisfaction, as well as high school graduation and post-secondary credential completion. The Thread model is built upon Community Managers coaching up to 12 volunteer leaders, called GrandParents. Each GrandParent supports and coaches other volunteer leaders called Heads of Family who each support a Thread Family consisting of Family Member volunteers and Thread young people. Through the Thread model, volunteers work together and with their designated coaches to connect with their young people, their families, and fellow volunteers to deploy the Thread Engagement Process of connecting, setting goals, identifying and removing barriers, and achieving goals. The intended objective for all volunteers is to build the skills necessary to bridge and bond across lines of difference. This includes a deeper understanding of one’s bias, active listening, and how to overcome barriers. A Community Manager’s work incorporates both high-level strategic thinking while not losing sight of critical details about their community.. They are responsible for monitoring the needs and goals of hundreds of people, designing and implementing strategies to support them and leveraging community events, activities, resources and opportunities that facilitate connection, barrier removal and goal attainment. At the same time, CMs are responsible for modeling Thread’s core competencies in order to cultivate a culture within their community that makes each person feel seen and known. Community Managers are responsible for supporting the learning and growth of volunteers within their community by modeling and actively practicing Thread core competencies to guide volunteers through their personal growth journey as needed - at the center of which is a racial equity journey. They do this by pairing strong project management, data, and organizing skills with a magnetic personality that can both energize and support people, even in the toughest moments.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree and/or 3-5 years of demonstrated success in community organizing, coaching, and mobilizing people to take action
At least 2 years of demonstrated success in project and program management, including building and developing a team of people towards common goals as well as data input, monitoring, and evaluation
Demonstrated commitment to and experience with equity and inclusion through an intersectional lens, including experience navigating and/or coaching others through a racial equity journey
Consistent access to a vehicle, as well as a willingness to occasionally work evenings and weekends as needed
Highly responsive, adaptive communications style; ability to inspire one-on-one and in groups of all sizes
Ability to clearly communicate and live out Thread’s core values & core competencies.
Recognition of the ways that race and other identities (historically and presently) intersect and play out in the workplace

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with Baltimore human services landscape, including City Public School System, neighborhoods, and/or organizations and resources
Prior experience working in a youth-serving and/or nonprofit environment
Prior experience working with mobile app-based data input and with Salesforce
Fluency in a second language, especially Spanish

Responsibilities

Coaching and Community Building Build positive, long-term relationships with Thread volunteers, especially GrandParents
Relentlessly facilitate and encourage relationships between Volunteers and Young People, that elevate the power of young people, as the foundation for achieving exemplary outcomes
Facilitate connections between volunteer and young people’s Parents/Guardians
Inform, educate, and foster growth of individuals at all stages of a racial equity journey
Use effective storytelling and facilitation to drive group and individual outcomes
Provide on-going coaching and development of a Community Engagement Specialist where applicable. A Community Engagement Specialist is a full time staff member that ishired to support up to 32 Thread young people during their first and/or second year in Thread. These young people are paired with a CES, rather than a family in their initial year(s) of Thread to build a strong and sticky foundation with the Thread community
Cultivate and retain high-performing GrandParents and Heads of Family Volunteer Recruitment, Engagement and Mobilization
Ensure the engagement and growth of young people and their Family Member volunteers by coaching and mobilizing GrandParent and Head of Family volunteer leaders
Drive attendance to Thread programming, leveraging those spaces to model behavior, coach, and work towards key outcomes
Assist volunteers in removing barriers, including connecting with resources when needed
In coordination with Volunteer Recruitment Managers, Community Managers will work to create visibility and deepen partnerships with Recruitment Hubs (local universities, hospitals, corporations, faith based and neighborhood organizations) to recruit and place volunteers through a Place Based strategy
Assist with recruiting prospective volunteers to ensure volunteer and volunteer leadership roles are filled
Develop current volunteers to become volunteer leaders (Heads of Family and“GrandParents")
Personal Performance and Project Management Build, implement, monitor, and adjust engagement strategy for volunteers and young people to ensure positive outcomes, utilizing quantitative and qualitative data and metrics
Set mobilization targets and drive attendance to Thread programming accordingly
Ensure community compliance with budget, policies, etc.
Collaborate with and leverage Thread’s other functional teams to effectively support volunteers and students
Develop, manage, and assist with additional programs and projects as needed to achieve team goals
Other duties as assigned