VP, Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships

Covenant House International•New York, NY

16h•Remote

About The Position

Covenant House serves and advocates for youth and young families experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and exploitation, with the goal of helping them achieve housing stability, heal from trauma, build on their resilience, and develop pathways to independence. Its work spans sites in 34 cities across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Reporting to the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships, the Vice President is the strategic and operational leader who translates advocacy vision into execution. The VP serves as the SVP’s key thought partner and deputy, maintains visibility across priorities, advances enterprise alignment, identifies risks and opportunities, stewards key relationships, and moves strategic initiatives from concept to implementation. The role connects strategy, advocacy, youth leadership, partnership development, and organizational change. The VP oversees the International Youth Congress (IYC), coordinates implementation of Covenant House advocacy priorities across the federation, and helps align advocacy efforts with the organization’s Strategic Vision and the Strategy Office’s goals. The position calls for someone able to advise senior leaders, facilitate cross-functional collaboration, engage and elevate youth with lived experience, manage complex initiatives, and drive day-to-day execution. The role is responsible for establishing and sustaining the IYC, integrating its recommendations into organizational work, and developing structures that make youth partnership meaningful. It also supports enterprise-wide strategic alignment and implementation of the advocacy agenda, including policy analysis, coordination across Covenant House sites and teams, youth advocacy pathways, and partnerships. The position is 100% remote outside of required travel, with travel of up to 25%.

Requirements

At least seven years of progressive leadership experience in advocacy, public policy, coalition building, youth development, systems change, nonprofit leadership, or a related field.
Demonstrated experience in youth work, including professional progression from individual or case-level work to program management and leadership.
Demonstrated success leading complex, cross-functional initiatives from strategy through implementation.
Proven ability to influence senior leaders and stakeholders without direct authority.
Experience developing and executing operational or implementation plans and performance measures.
Prior experience managing direct reports.
Excellent project management skills, including managing multiple initiatives and delivering high-quality work on deadlines.
Political judgment and ability to assess risk, timing, and stakeholder interests when making recommendations.
Change-management experience supporting organizations, teams, and individuals in adopting and sustaining new practices.
Relationship-management skills across senior leaders, frontline staff, youth leaders, government officials, and community partners.
Facilitation and convening skills, including leading workshops, strategy sessions, peer-learning cohorts, and planning processes.
Data literacy and ability to interpret and communicate data for advocacy, policy analysis, and decision-making.
Familiarity with public funding systems and how policy influences nonprofit financing.
Cultural humility and intergenerational leadership skills.
Ability to work in ambiguous, entrepreneurial environments, build and improve systems, apply learning, pivot, and prioritize effectively.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite, Teams, Zoom, and project management tools.

Nice To Haves

Spanish fluency, orally and in writing, with strong cross-cultural communication skills.
Graduate degree in public policy, social work, psychology, sociology, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of lived, professional, and academic experience.
Demonstrated experience supporting policy implementation and/or advocacy initiatives at international and/or federal and national levels.
Significant knowledge of at least one major social determinant of health policy domain, such as housing and homelessness, behavioral health, workforce development, education, child welfare, poverty reduction, public benefits, violence prevention, or juvenile justice.
Familiarity with federal legislative and regulatory processes and implementation mechanics.
Experience working with nonprofits, public agencies, coalitions, or cross-sector partnerships.
Experience navigating politically diverse environments and building bipartisan relationships.

Responsibilities

Lead the successful implementation, institutionalization, and long-term sustainability of the International Youth Congress (IYC).
Integrate IYC recommendations and insights into organizational planning, policy development, program design, research, and continuous quality improvement.
Build organizational readiness for meaningful youth partnership across the enterprise.
Develop governance structures, feedback loops, accountability mechanisms, and decision-making pathways that elevate youth voice while supporting organizational effectiveness.
Supervise the Youth Advocacy Program Manager and ensure high-quality execution of IYC logistics and coordination.
Manage the IYC budget and provide accurate, timely reporting to the SVP of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships.
Coordinate the IYC Advisory Board and ensure governance and engagement performance indicators are met.
Oversee development of IYC curriculum aligned with the strategic vision.
Manage vendors and consultants supporting IYC capacity and member leadership development.
Build partnerships and collaborations that expand resources and opportunities for IYC leadership development.
Serve as the key contact for IYC site leads and build federation-wide understanding and buy-in for IYC goals, vision, values, and implementation timeline.
Partner with Research and Impact to create opportunities for IYC members to participate in research and evaluation related to youth homelessness and relevant social determinants of health.
Collaborate across Covenant House teams and departments to support communication, institutional support, and IYC sustainability.
Serve as the primary operational partner and strategic advisor to the SVP of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships.
Maintain enterprise-wide awareness of advocacy, youth engagement, partnership, prevention, and restoration initiatives; identify opportunities, risks, dependencies, and implementation challenges and recommend solutions.
Coordinate implementation of advocacy priorities within the Advocacy Team workplan.
Develop and manage systems that support accountability, follow-through, buy-in, and visibility on major initiatives.
Monitor strategic goals and key performance indicators and regularly recommend actions to the SVP.
Lead cross-functional planning and coordinate work across Advocacy, Research & Impact, Development, Communications, IT, Programs, and site leadership.
Align policy priorities, IYC initiatives, partnership development, and organizational strategy.
Support senior leadership decisions through briefings, recommendations, environmental scans, and strategic analyses.
Facilitate leadership meetings, planning sessions, and implementation reviews as needed.
Support planning and implementation of the International Advocacy Framework and help the enterprise and sites execute advocacy elements of the Prevention Pathway.
Coordinate advocacy activities across levels to ensure consistency and alignment.
Establish systems to monitor policy opportunities, organizational responses, and advocacy outcomes.
Support federation-wide advocacy planning and implementation through communication, technical assistance, and cross-site collaboration.
Prepare leadership briefings and recommendations on emerging policy issues, risks, and opportunities.
Provide legislative and regulatory analysis and advice on federal initiatives and international and regional opportunities.
Liaise with policy and advocacy leaders working to end youth homelessness and child trafficking.
Collaborate on thought leadership, including blogs, white papers, policy briefs, and other media advancing Covenant House’s advocacy agenda.
Cultivate relationships with leaders and decision-makers at partner organizations through regular communication and mutually beneficial collaboration.
Create pathways for youth advocacy through policy participation, skills development, training, and advocacy opportunities, including annual Covenant House Advocacy Week.
Support training and technical assistance for Covenant House sites advancing site-specific youth advocacy and lived-experience initiatives and programs.
Coordinate with Research and Impact and Covenant House sites to solicit and receive advocacy performance metrics.