Senior Director of Youth & Family

Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center•Scottsdale, AZ

About The Position

The Valley of the Sun JCC is seeking a dynamic, strategic, and highly motivated Senior Director of Youth & Family to provide vision, leadership, and operational oversight for its comprehensive portfolio of programs serving children, teens, and families. The Senior Director oversees Shemesh Day Camp, the Alison Hendeles Early Childhood Center, School’s Out Camps, Club J / Before and After School programming, teen programming, young family engagement, and related youth initiatives. The position supervises department directors and program leaders and serves as a member of the JCC’s Senior Leadership Team. The role is responsible for programmatic excellence and business performance, including strengthening enrollment and retention, increasing participation and revenue, developing staff, ensuring safety and quality, improving systems and operational efficiency, and creating meaningful experiences that build lasting relationships between families and the J. In collaboration with senior leadership and departments including Marketing, Finance, Development, and Human Resources, the Senior Director establishes goals and strategies, uses enrollment, financial, and engagement data to measure progress, and identifies opportunities to strengthen, grow, and innovate Youth & Family services. The Senior Director ensures Jewish values, traditions, culture, and connection to Israel are meaningfully incorporated into Youth & Family experiences. The successful candidate is both a strategic leader and a hands-on operator, able to balance long-term planning with the day-to-day realities of operating programs for children and families. The role also supports the JCC’s mission and values, provides exceptional service and hospitality, maintains professionalism and confidentiality, collaborates across departments, and participates in organizational activities and trainings.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in education, early childhood education, social work, recreation, nonprofit management, or a related field.
Significant progressive leadership experience in youth development, early childhood education, camping, education, family programming, or a related field.
Demonstrated experience leading and developing managers and building effective teams.
Proven ability to grow programs, increase participation, and manage programs toward financial goals.
Strong budgeting, forecasting, and financial management skills.
Experience developing and implementing short- and long-term program and business plans.
Ability to use data and performance measures to establish goals, evaluate results, and make decisions.
Knowledge of Jewish culture, traditions, and values, and ability to incorporate Jewish learning and experiences accessibly and welcomingly.
Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills.
Excellent organizational and project-management skills, including the ability to manage multiple program areas simultaneously.
Demonstrated judgment and problem-solving skills, including the ability to make thoughtful decisions in complex or rapidly changing situations.
Strong technology proficiency, including Microsoft Office applications and program-management/data systems.
Ability to handle sensitive and confidential information with discretion.
Availability for occasional evenings, weekends, and other hours required by program and organizational needs.
Ability to work in office, classroom, camp, and program environments; sit or stand for prolonged periods; move throughout JCC facilities and program spaces; and lift up to 50 pounds when required.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree.
Experience in a JCC, camp, early childhood, youth-serving, educational, or other mission-driven organization.
Experience with enrollment-driven programs and customer relationship management systems.
Experience with fundraising, grants, and donor engagement.
Experience developing community partnerships.
Familiarity with registration, financial management, CRM, or other systems used in community-based organizations.
Bilingual or bicultural skills.

Responsibilities

Provide leadership, supervision, coaching, and accountability for directors and managers across Youth & Family program areas.
Establish annual goals, performance expectations, and success measures for each department; build collaboration, accountability, learning, hospitality, and continuous improvement.
Develop leadership capacity and staff recruitment, onboarding, training, and retention strategies in partnership with Human Resources and department leadership.
Set measurable enrollment, participation, retention, and revenue goals; maintain enrollment pipelines and track registrations, capacity, retention, waitlists, and revenue.
Partner with Marketing on year-round recruitment and marketing strategies and coordinated calendars; ensure program teams provide timely content and that family communications are accurate, welcoming, and consistent.
Evaluate enrollment trends, community needs, family feedback, and program performance to strengthen existing programs and develop new offerings.
Create pathways connecting families across JCC experiences and strategies to reconnect former participants and attract new families.
Ensure developmentally appropriate, high-quality programming across Youth & Family departments and evaluate quality, participation, financial sustainability, and relevance.
Identify opportunities to grow participation, maximize capacity and revenue, and introduce programs responsive to community needs; establish benchmarks and dashboards for key indicators.
Maintain consistent standards, policies, and procedures and improve registration, payment, family communication, transportation, scheduling, and administrative systems.
Stay current on best practices in early childhood education, camping, youth development, teen engagement, family programming, and experiential education; develop community partnerships and programming.
Incorporate Jewish values, traditions, holidays, culture, and connection to Israel into programs; create accessible Jewish experiences and opportunities for family connection, belonging, volunteerism, service learning, and community engagement.
Strengthen relationships with synagogues, schools, Jewish organizations, and other community organizations as appropriate.
Develop and manage annual operating budgets with Finance and department leaders; establish and monitor revenue, enrollment, and expense targets and take timely action when performance varies from plan.
Evaluate pricing, capacity, staffing models, and program finances; identify earned-revenue opportunities while protecting quality, accessibility, and participant experience.
Prepare and communicate operational and financial reporting, trends, risks, and opportunities to executive leadership; ensure compliance with JCC financial policies and manage vendor and contractor relationships.
Ensure high standards of health, safety, security, and risk management; partner on safety policies and emergency procedures and ensure compliance with licensing, regulations, JCC policies, and recognized standards.
Ensure staff training, certifications, background checks, and documentation are completed and maintained; review emergency preparedness, evacuation, supervision, and incident-response procedures and promptly address significant concerns.
Partner with Facilities, Finance, Operations, and program directors to identify and prioritize facility repairs, improvements, capital investments, and future needs; ensure program spaces are safe, functional, welcoming, and appropriate.
Partner with Development to identify fundraising opportunities, communicate program impact and needs, and participate as appropriate in donor cultivation, grant development, and stewardship.
Develop relationships with camp alumni, former families, and past participants and foster philanthropy and long-term connection to the J.
Build productive relationships with Board and committee members, donors, community partners, and stakeholders; work with volunteer committees, cultivate lay leaders and ambassadors, and represent the JCC externally.
Serve as an active member of the Senior Leadership Team, participate in strategic planning, translate organizational priorities into departmental goals, and improve cross-department collaboration and the family experience.
Perform other responsibilities as assigned.
Support the JCC’s mission and values; provide exceptional service and hospitality; maintain professionalism, integrity, and confidentiality; treat others respectfully; collaborate across departments; serve as an organizational ambassador; and participate in appropriate meetings, trainings, and activities.