Director, Community Infrastructure Center

MILKEN INSTITUTE•Washington, DC

3h•$120,000 - $150,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Community Infrastructure Center (CIC), an initiative of the Milken Institute, is a platform designed to scale up equitable capital deployment and accelerate infrastructure projects in historically undercapitalized and underserved communities. The CIC offers free connections to technical assistance for community-based project sponsors, project advancement tools, and links to a wide range of sources, including impact and institutional investors, federal and state grants, philanthropy, and project development expertise. CIC is working toward three goals: 1. Help catalyze $3.5 billion in community infrastructure deals, through both direct transactions and secondary market transactions. 2. Leverage technology to support 10,000 communities across the United States that are advancing projects in energy, housing preservation and new construction, water, resilience, community development, commercial corridor development, and other asset classes. 3. Use research and convenings to support infrastructure market development at a regional and national level. Since its launch, the CIC has grown into a national community of practice. The platform today supports more than 800 community infrastructure projects across 62 states, territories, and tribal nations, with over 3,000 members representing nearly 1,000 unique communities. The CIC convenes four standing forums, including the Community of Practice, the Community Power Forum, the Community Corridor Forum, and the Community Resilience Forum, alongside cross-forum working groups on predevelopment triage, capitalization, secondary markets and recapitalization, and data and AI. The Director will lead community-building and the cultivation of projects seeking support on CIC and with its trusted partners. The successful candidate thrives in rooms with people (planners, city staff, community leaders, and funders) and builds relationships both digitally and in person. The Director is accountable for supporting communities and projects, and for ensuring that CIC's forums and convenings produce not only discussion but also project pipeline, productive partnerships, and progress on research that helps the field move forward. The Director will be passionate about helping fill America's infrastructure gap and knowledgeable about a variety of assets and activities, such as renewable energy, battery storage, building decarbonization, broadband, commercial corridors, and water, with an interest in learning the ins and outs of delivering community-scale infrastructure projects and building the capital stacks that get them paid for.

Requirements

Experience as a former or current “planner” with a generalist's knowledge of infrastructure, including energy, housing, broadband, water, and related asset classes. Deep expertise in every single type of project is not required, but the successful candidate will be comfortable navigating community development, planning, or place-based real estate development in urban, suburban, and rural communities
Organized and process-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple relationships and pipeline stages at once and familiarity with using
Personable and relationship-driven, with boots-on-the-ground experience working in communities that require technical assistance to deliver complex infrastructure projects
Analytical, creative, and rigorous thinkers: We are seeking a detail-oriented and flexible problem solver who can synthesize diverse streams of information and switch comfortably between academic and real-world thinking
Roll-up-your-sleeves executers and adaptive thinkers: MI leaders are comfortable engaging in ambitious projects and with refinement and adaptation along the way to reach key metrics
Team players: MI leaders collaborate well with multidisciplinary teams across the Institute, comfortably taking leadership when necessary as well as following directions
Bachelor's degree required
Minimum 8 years experience in a relevant field.

Responsibilities

Cultivating and coordinating assistance to a pipeline of projects from predevelopment through construction.
Building relationships across markets to identify and triage potential projects; using the platform of the CIC and, in collaboration with technical assistance partners, guiding project triage and coordinating handoffs to move projects through pre-development stages toward construction-readiness and financing; and identifying opportunities for warm handoffs and connections between communities, funders, and partner organizations
Building and managing case management tracking systems at CIC.
Working in collaboration with the existing tech team to refine and build out existing technology and AI tools to efficiently track projects in the pipeline; tracking pipeline progress against CIC's targets and flagging where projects are stalling, so the team can intervene and provide assistance
Managing CIC's collaborative forums.
Owning and growing the working groups and forums that CIC has cultivated, including place-based regional efforts as well as thematic efforts (e.g., “community solar and storage” and “commercial corridors”); keeping forums active and productive by preparing materials for periodic meetings, hosting and facilitating biweekly and monthly calls, and sharing and posting relevant information, tools, and updates for forums that have an online web channel component; and actively growing forum membership by sharing opportunities to join with project owners in the pipeline and other stakeholders in the markets CIC touches
Supporting place-based engagements.
Serving as CIC's on-the-ground presence at events in priority markets and representing the organization in local and regional conversations, spending significant time in the field building and sustaining relationships in the communities CIC serves
Informing tool development and community-informed tech innovation.
Helping translate what is learned in the field into inputs for the technology and tools the team is building, so those tools actually reflect what communities need
Representing CIC at national convenings, positioning the organization as a collaborative partner and connector rather than a competitor to existing players
Contributing to research and publications that support market development, drive innovation in predevelopment and construction assistance and finance, and cement CIC as a “big tent” network that connects disparate actors to advance community projects
Other duties as assigned.

Benefits

Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
Retirement Plan - 403b (5% match)
Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
Paid Time Off (Personal, Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
Family Leave (Maternity & Paternity)
Fertility Support
Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
Flexible Spending Account (FSAs)
Pet Insurance Discount
Training & Development: LinkedIn Learning – over 15,000 self-guided classes offered
Annual Mentor Program
Wellness Resources: Employee Assistance Program
CALM app membership