Director of Practice, Learning and Quality

THREAD INC•Baltimore, MD

7d•$85,300 - $128,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Practice, Learning & Quality is responsible for defining, strengthening, and sustaining Thread’s relational practice model across Relational Resource Hubs. This role translates Thread’s core relationship model — bonding, bridging, and linking — into clear, teachable, repeatable practices for how Thread does life together with young people, volunteers, and collaborators; how Thread partners across institutions and communities; and how staff are equipped to carry those practices consistently in daily work. This role owns the practice standards, playbook content, coaching systems, learning loops, and quality-reflection practices that help Investment, and Involvement staff and organization leaders grow toward high-fidelity relational practice. This role is also responsible for leading updates to Thread’s logic model and journey maps for students, volunteers and collaborators. In partnership with Human Resources, the Director connects Thread’s expectations for how staff work together with the practices that shape how Thread recruits, engages, retains, and partners with young people, volunteers, employers, donors, collaborators, institutions, and neighborhoods. The Director builds the playbooks and capacity-building supports that help staff create the conditions for “1+1=47” — relationships and partnerships that multiply opportunities and resources for young people, volunteers, collaborators, and communities. This role partners closely with resource recruitment functional leaders, Directors of Communities, Director of Strategic Implementation & Operations and Human Resources. Together, these leaders ensure that Thread’s practice standards are not only documented, but actively taught, coached, reflected on, improved, and sustained across daily operations.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree (MPA, MBA, or similar) preferred.
Six or more years of professional experience in operations, quality assurance, continuous improvement, program management, or strategy — ideally within youth development, education, nonprofit, or human services settings.
Demonstrated experience designing and leading quality assurance, knowledge management, or process-improvement systems at an organizational scale.
Experience building SOPs, playbooks, or operating systems that drive consistency across multiple teams or sites.
Proven people management experience; ability to lead, coach, and develop staff.
Strong analytical skills; comfort navigating data systems to assess documentation compliance and quality, and to translate data into action.
Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and interpersonal communication skills.
Exceptionally organized, proactive, and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and stakeholders at once.
Deep belief in Thread’s mission and values, with the humility, emotional intelligence, and integrity to lead through service and collaboration.
Ability to clearly communicate and live out Thread’s core values and core competencies.

Nice To Haves

experience with logic-model-aligned program design, continuous improvement practices, and knowledge management systems.

Responsibilities

Define and steward Thread’s relational practice model across three connected domains: how we do life together with young people, volunteers, and collaborators; how we partner across institutions and communities; and how staff are equipped to carry these practices consistently.
Lead updates to Thread’s logic model and student, volunteer, and collaborator journey maps so they continue to reflect Thread’s evolving understanding of high-fidelity relational practice, partnership practice, implementation learning, and community experience.
Translate Thread’s core relationship model — bonding, bridging, and linking — into clear, teachable, observable, and values-aligned practice expectations.
Serve as a strategic partner to the Managing Director, Involvement leaders, Directors of Communities, Human Resources and the Director of Strategic Implementation & Operations on how to strengthen relational practice, partnership practice, staff learning, and quality across Thread.
Ensure Thread’s approach to quality is grounded in learning, feedback, and growth, while maintaining clear expectations for consistent, high-fidelity practice.
Ensure Thread’s logic model, student journey map, volunteer journey map, collaborator journey map, playbooks, and practice standards remain aligned with one another and are used to guide practice design, learning priorities, quality reflection, and continuous improvement.
Develop the multi-year roadmap for practice, learning, and quality across Relational Resource Hubs, in alignment with Thread’s strategic plan, logic model, theory of change, journey maps, values, and core competencies.
Define what high-quality reciprocal relational practice looks like for young people, volunteers, collaborators, and staff across Relational Resource Hubs.
Build practice guidance that helps teams consistently create conditions for belonging, trust, mutual accountability, deep connection, and long-term relationship.
Ensure practices for recruitment, onboarding, engagement, retention, transition, and re-engagement are aligned with Thread’s relationship-centered model and values.
Partner with Directors of Communities and functional leaders to identify where relational practice is strong, where expectations need to be clarified, and where additional coaching, tools, or learning are needed.
Use feedback from young people, volunteers, collaborators, staff, and site staff to improve practice guidance and strengthen the experience of being in Thread.
Define the practice standards for how Thread partners with young people, volunteers, collaborators, employers, donors, community institutions, civic partners, and neighborhoods in ways that multiply opportunities and resources for young people and communities.
Develop playbooks and capacity-building supports that help Directors of Communities, Investment leaders, Involvement leaders, and other staff understand and practice Thread’s approach to partnership.
Ensure resource recruitment practices — including young people, volunteers, employers, collaborators, funding, opportunities, and institutional relationships — are consistent with Thread’s engagement, retention, and reciprocal relationship-building practices.
Partner with Involvement leadership, to strengthen the quality and consistency of how Thread builds, stewards, and sustains relationships with resource partners.
Partner with site-based, city-wide and state-wide leaders to surface effective partnership practices, codify what works, and clarify which practices should be consistent across Thread and which can be adapted locally.
Own the content, quality standards, and practice expectations within Thread’s playbooks, including guidance for relational practice, partnership practice, role-based practice, and site-based work.
Lead the design, iteration, and refinement of playbook content so expectations are clear, teachable, observable, and aligned with Thread’s model, values, and core competencies.
Identify gaps in existing playbooks and direct the development of new or revised guidance where leaders, staff, volunteers, collaborators, or partners need clearer expectations or stronger tools.
Ensure playbooks distinguish between core practices that must be consistent across Thread and areas where sites, functions, or leaders have room to customize based on context, relationships, and community needs.
Partner with the Director of Strategic Implementation & Operations, who owns the Investment Lane knowledge-management systems and operating infrastructure, to ensure playbook content is organized, accessible, current, version-controlled, and embedded into daily operating systems.
Design and oversee learning systems that help staff and leaders understand, practice, and grow into Thread’s relational and partnership standards.
Translate playbooks and practice expectations into role-specific learning experiences, coaching tools, onboarding pathways, and competency expectations.
Build capacity for Directors of Communities, Investment leaders, Involvement leaders, and other key staff to model, teach, coach, and reinforce Thread’s practices with their teams and partners.
Partner with Human Resources to align Thread’s “how we work together” expectations with the relational and partnership practices this role stewards.
Develop refresher learning and retraining systems that respond to gaps surfaced through practice coaching, documentation review, staff feedback, partner feedback, and performance data.
Track learning participation and effectiveness, and revise training and capacity-building supports based on what data, feedback, and lived experience show.
Design and oversee practice-coaching and quality-reflection systems that help teams grow toward Thread’s standards for high-fidelity relational and partnership practice.
Establish regular cycles of observation, documentation review, feedback, reflection, and follow-up to strengthen consistency, quality, and alignment with Thread’s values and playbooks.
Translate observations, documentation patterns, staff feedback, partner feedback, and site-level learning into root-cause analysis, learning priorities, and recommendations for senior leaders.
Support staff and leaders in using feedback as a tool for growth, ensuring that performance integrity is approached through coaching, clarity, accountability, and continuous improvement rather than compliance alone.
Partner with relevant leaders to strengthen the quality and completeness of records, notes, documentation, agreements, and other tools that support strong relational and partnership practice.
Analyze practice, quality, and performance trends across functions and sites to identify systemic patterns, surface risks, and recommend improvements.
Build feedback loops that allow young people, volunteers, collaborators, partners, frontline staff, and leaders to inform playbook content, practice standards, learning systems, and quality-reflection processes.
Partner with Directors of Communities, Investment leaders, Involvement leaders, and Human Resources to coordinate coaching, refreshed learning, or playbook revision when patterns reveal gaps in practice, clarity, consistency, or support.
Use qualitative and quantitative data to understand whether teams are growing toward Thread’s practice expectations and where additional support may be needed.
Use quantitative and qualitative data from feedback loops facilitated by the Director of Strategic Implementation & Operations to identify what Thread is learning from student, volunteer, and collaborator experiences, as well as staff practice, partnership practice, and implementation.
Translate learning from feedback loops, practice coaching, quality reflection, and implementation data into recommended updates to Thread’s logic model, student journey map, volunteer journey map, collaborator journey map, playbooks, learning systems, and practice standards.
Partner with the Director of Strategic Implementation & Operations to ensure findings related to student, volunteer, and collaborator experience are captured, reviewed, and incorporated into the appropriate planning, reporting, knowledge-management, and decision-making routines.
Serve as a connective leader across Investment, Involvement, Human Resources, citywide teams, and site-based teams on matters of relational practice, partnership practice, staff learning, coaching, and quality.
Partner with Involvement leadership to ensure Thread’s approach to resource development, volunteer engagement, employer partnerships, collaborator relationships, and fundraising is consistent with Thread’s relational model and values.
Partner with Investment leadership to ensure site-based practice reflects Thread’s standards for doing life together, building community, and sustaining high-quality relationships.
Partner with Human Resources to ensure staff expectations, onboarding, development, and performance practices reinforce Thread’s relational and partnership standards.
Represent practice, learning, and quality priorities in strategic planning, scorecard development, leadership conversations, and decision-making.
Supervise, coach, and develop the Manager of Practice, Learning & Quality and other assigned staff.
Build a team culture grounded in accountability, learning, collaboration, humility, trust, restoration, and continuous improvement.
Provide regular coaching, feedback, and professional development opportunities for team members.
Ensure team members effectively use Thread playbooks, practice standards, coaching tools, learning systems, and quality-reflection practices.