Project Manager, Los Angeles Initiative

Carnegie Foundation•Los Angeles, CA

1d•$112,000 - $135,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Carnegie Foundation's Innovation and Impact team focuses on building evidence for promising learning tools, models, and partnerships for K-12 transformation and postsecondary innovation. This includes exploring new ways to assess and credential learning, developing alternatives to the Carnegie Unit focused on competency-based learning, and identifying practices that enhance social and economic mobility. A key initiative, supported by a major Los Angeles philanthropy, involves creating a regional system of paid internships for high school students in Los Angeles. This program connects classroom learning with real-world work, allowing students to earn wages and academic credit simultaneously. Schools benefit from a method to translate on-the-job performance into transcript credit, and employers help shape the future workforce. Carnegie plays a central role in co-developing and overseeing the partnerships, governance, and implementation of this system, validating evidence, and disseminating successful models nationally. The initiative aims to place thousands of young people in paid work across the region over four years, testing the sustainability of the system beyond the initial funding. The ultimate goal is to equip more students with the skills, experience, and professional networks necessary for college and career success. The Project Manager is crucial to holding this complex, multi-partner, four-year effort together. Based in Los Angeles, this role involves developing plans, budgets, and communication systems to ensure the initiative progresses effectively, tracking its performance against promised impacts, and providing accurate status updates to senior leadership. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to building a novel system in Los Angeles and to create a replicable model for other cities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and direct project management experience.
5+ years of experience managing projects or programs, including at least one multiyear effort involving external partners.
5+ years of experience with budget development, maintenance, and management, and with using budget information to inform programmatic decisions.
Direct experience in K-12 education and in workforce development or work-based learning.
Working knowledge of Los Angeles: its school system, employer base, civic institutions, or workforce landscape.
Demonstrated use of AI tools in professional work, with the judgment to know when to rely on them and when not to.
Experience developing effective structures for collaboration, including shared goals, clear roles, and decision-making processes.
Experience facilitating meetings with stakeholders who bring different interests and incentives to the table.
Experience using project management methodologies and software.
Ability to create and improve processes, and to bring colleagues along in using them.
Skilled communicator with executives, staff, and external partners at any level.
Ability to manage multiple partnerships and complex projects at the same time.
Highly organized, resourceful, and creative in solving problems.
Ability to build and maintain high trust, mutually accountable relationships across teams and organizations.
Ability to navigate complex, multi-sector environments in which Carnegie does not control every partner or every decision.
Attention to detail, ability to set, meet, and enforce deadlines, and ability to delegate appropriately.
Sound judgment about what to escalate and what to resolve independently.
Ability to communicate effectively in writing, one-on-one, and in groups, with internal and external audiences at all levels.
Intermediate to advanced proficiency using project management software. Smartsheet experience preferred.
Intermediate proficiency using Excel, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace.
Practical fluency with AI tools for writing, synthesis, and analysis, and the ability to learn new tools quickly.

Nice To Haves

PMP or comparable certification(s) preferred.
Candidates who have worked across both K-12 education and workforce development or work-based learning fields preferred.

Responsibilities

Work with the project lead and portfolio leads to define the vision, target impacts, scope, and approach for each phase of the initiative.
Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, deliverables, and work plans across all workstreams, and coordinate multiple strands of activity so that each progresses on time and in step with the others.
Build project templates, dashboards, and reports in Smartsheet, the project management software used at Carnegie, and support the team in using it to maintain, monitor, and report on current plans.
Establish and run the operating cadence for the initiative, including standing meetings, decision records, and regular reporting to Carnegie leadership and funders.
Identify risks and emerging problems early, analyze the options, and initiate action to keep milestones and deliverables on schedule.
Contribute to the development of project KPIs and to the collection, analysis, and reporting of those measures.
Design and execute convenings for partners and stakeholders, typically 30 to 100 external attendees, in Los Angeles and nationally.
Serve as the day-to-day point of contact between Carnegie and its contracted implementation, research, communications, and learning network partners; track deliverables against scopes of work and flag slippage early.
Coordinate with district staff, employers, higher education partners, and community organizations so that shared timelines and commitments stay visible to everyone who depends on them.
Support the initiative's advisory board: scheduling, materials, follow-up, and tracking of the commitments members make.
Develop reports to funders and other external audiences by initiating, monitoring, collecting, copy editing, and compiling report components.
Manage planning calendars and schedule local and out of town meetings with multiple internal and external contacts.
Develop and manage project budgets tied to grant deliverables, including projections and encumbrances for known and expected expenses.
Monitor spending against established allocations, identify budget issues before they become problems, and work with the project director to resolve them.
Prepare contracts with external partners and consultants, and monitor and track contract spend rates, including regranted funds.
Collaborate with Director of Research Engagement and Director of Strategic Programs & Finance on annual and multiyear project plans, resource forecasts, and budget reports for leadership.
Maintain accurate accounting records of expenditures and process financial documentation through Carnegie's internal accounting system.
Use AI tools in daily project work: drafting and editing, synthesizing partner reports and meeting notes, building and querying trackers, and automating routine reporting.
Exercise judgment about where AI helps and where it does not, verify AI-generated content before it reaches partners or funders, and follow Carnegie's data and privacy practices.
Document what the team learns about running an initiative of this kind and develop artifacts that make those insights usable by others.
Improve project management processes, standards, and tools, and share what works with other Carnegie teams.
Provide logistical and technical support for in person and virtual meetings and conferences, serving as a link between Carnegie operations, project staff, and external partners.
Represent the initiative at local convenings and site visits when senior staff are unavailable.