Director, Educational Outcomes

United Way of Greater Cincinnati•Cincinnati, OH

About The Position

The Director, Educational Outcomes supports United Way’s education initiative, which addresses non-academic barriers to education and creates pathways for children and families to thrive from early childhood through career readiness and financial empowerment. The role supports collective impact networks focused on improving educational outcomes across the cradle-to-career continuum. It builds and maintains community relationships, facilitates collaboration among practitioners, leaders, and families, designs partner capacity-building activities, leads program development and project management, and manages program data and evaluation. The position reports to the Chief Educational Outcomes Officer. The Director leads regional education impact strategy and implementation, including efforts to coordinate and convene partners, close gaps between neighborhoods, and promote family stability. Key focus areas include kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading, and workforce entry. The role oversees regional collective impact initiatives such as Success by 6 and manages education grantmaking efforts such as the Head Start Innovation Fund and the Future of Manufacturing Fund. It also develops localized theories of action, supports piloting and scaling effective efforts, leads community data conversations and continuous improvement cycles, and leads the Cradle to Career Data & Learning Working Group. The role provides strategic leadership and operational management for education initiatives, tracks data and community outcomes, designs partner learning and capacity-building activities, researches best practices and trends, and communicates progress to internal and external stakeholders. It engages community partners and members, provides technical assistance and relationship management, convenes working groups and other meetings, and represents United Way at community events. It also collaborates across the organization, supports project budgets and evaluation, and contributes to grant writing, advocacy, reporting, corporate engagement, and professional development. The position may take on supervisory responsibilities as the team and community work grow. Potential duties include setting expectations, providing feedback and development support, addressing conflict, fostering inclusion, recognizing accomplishments, and ensuring compliance with policies and procedures. The work is performed in a normal office environment with occasional local travel to regional events and extended computer-monitor viewing.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent preferred.
At least seven years of project management experience, preferably in social impact or collective impact in the nonprofit, human services, or education sector.
Demonstrated ability to independently develop and execute projects and work collaboratively.
Strong communication, facilitation, relationship management, and leadership skills.
Excellent team management, collaboration, problem-solving, and analytical abilities.
Proficiency in project management tools and practices.
Proficiency in Microsoft products, including Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Experience and expertise in education across varied levels.
Experience overseeing large projects while delivering programmatic and data-driven outcomes.
Proven experience overseeing strategy, building complex solutions or programs, and implementing them effectively.
Excellent project planning and management skills, including continuous improvement methods such as PDSA cycles.
Ability to create, grow, and retain strong stakeholder relationships.
Strong judgment and creative problem-solving, with decisions based on accurate and timely data-driven analysis.
Comfort collecting and using qualitative and quantitative data.
Understanding of systemic challenges and cultural responsiveness, including comfort working with diverse groups across socioeconomic, gender, racial, and ethnic identities.
Strong public-speaking and group-facilitation experience.
Effective written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills, with strong attention to detail.
Commitment to United Way’s mission and values and a passion for improving educational outcomes.

Nice To Haves

Experience with project management systems such as Asana.
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent is preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead strategy for regional education impact, including coordination, collaboration, and convening across key outcomes.
Determine implementation methods and deliver results to close neighborhood gaps and promote family stability, particularly in kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading, and workforce entry.
Lead and oversee regional collective impact efforts, including Success by 6.
Develop strategy and manage implementation of education grantmaking efforts, including the Head Start Innovation Fund and the Future of Manufacturing Fund.
Develop localized theories of action and strategies for piloting and scaling effective efforts.
Facilitate community-level data conversations and continuous improvement cycles with community partners.
Lead the Cradle to Career Data & Learning Working Group.
Provide strategic leadership and operational management for education impact efforts across the educational lifecycle.
Manage project data and track community outcomes and measures to support learning and improvement.
Design and facilitate partner capacity-building and education efforts.
Research best practices, trends, models, and relevant issue areas, communities, or sectors.
Lead project management for key initiatives and align efforts with team members.
Communicate and report regularly to internal teams, leadership, external stakeholders, funding partners, and investors.
Engage community partners and members to gather input and understand regional needs and assets.
Lead or support partner collaboration, working groups, and convenings to build shared vision and practices and foster learning.
Provide technical assistance and relationship management to partners by phone, virtually, and in person, including off-site visits.
Convene leaders and practitioners to share updates, identify learnings and challenges, build shared practices and tools, and evaluate network impact.
Manage event and convening logistics, including agendas, registration, materials, facilitation, notes, follow-up items, and resource sharing.
Represent United Way on committees and at community meetings and events as needed.
Collaborate with organizational leaders to support alignment, cross-training, and coordination.
Support management of project and annual operating budgets.
Support data tracking and evaluation for grants and projects.
Collaborate internally across teams and departments to deliver projects and foster collaboration, transparency, and accountability.
Support grant writing, advocacy, reporting, and corporate engagement as needed.
Contribute subject-matter expertise through professional development and research into collective impact and capacity-building practices.
If supervisory responsibilities are assigned, set team goals and expectations, provide feedback and development support, manage conflict, promote inclusion, recognize accomplishments, and ensure policy compliance.