Chief Public Affairs Officer

About the Role 

Reporting directly to the CEO, the Chief Public Affairs Officer (CPAO) will design, lead, and continuously refine the strategies that position Good Reason Houston and its 501(c)(4), Houstonians for Great Public Schools, as Houston's leading organizations for advancing student-centered governance, public policy, and community leadership. 

The CPAO will manage a team of senior leaders and lead a coordinated strategy spanning the full arc of GRH’s public affairs work — including state and local policy advocacy, local leadership and pipeline development, and community voice. The CPAO will also serve as Executive Director of Houstonians for Great Public Schools (Houston GPS), and work closely with its dedicated board. 

The ideal candidate will be a senior leader with strong judgment, deep relationship-building ability, experience leading public affairs or campaign work, and fluency in the legal and operational boundaries between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) activity. This CPAO is an essential piece of our GRH team as we prepare for the upcoming legislative cycle, and should be well versed in bipartisanship, grassroots organizing and large scale mobilization.
 

Key Responsibilities

Good Reason Houston Public Affairs Leadership (40%)

• Lead GRH's public affairs function, setting the strategic vision and direction for state and local policy advocacy, local leadership effectiveness and pipeline development, and community voice campaigns.
• Ensure public affairs division priorities are aligned with enterprise strategy, research, and organizational goals.
• Serve as a senior advisor to the CEO, peers on the executive team, and the GRH Board of Directors on stakeholder dynamics, public sentiment, governance conditions, and the holistic context and opportunities influencing enterprise vision and priorities.
• Bring a clear point of view on where GRH's external influence is strongest, where it needs to grow, and how the organization deploys its evidence, relationships, and community infrastructure to move the conditions that matter most for students.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with elected officials, school board trustees, civic leaders, and funders, and represent GRH credibly in public forums, coalition tables, legislative meetings, and other high-stakes settings.
• Engage the GRH Board on Public Affairs strategy, priorities, and progress, serving as a trusted resource for trustees on policy, governance, and community strategy and ensuring the Board has the context and confidence to champion GRH's public affairs agenda.

Houston GPS Leadership & Oversight (40%)

• Provide strategic leadership for Houston GPS, ensuring the organization's priorities, investments, and long-term direction advance Good Reason Houston's broader public affairs strategy.
• Ensure strong coordination between Good Reason Houston and Houston GPS so advocacy, governance, community engagement, and civic strategies are complementary, appropriately coordinated, and legally distinct.
• Review and approve Houston GPS's annual strategic priorities, operating plans, budgets, and major organizational initiatives, ensuring resources are aligned to the organization's highest-impact opportunities.
• Oversee governance, compliance, and organizational risk by ensuring Houston GPS maintains effective systems, financial stewardship, legal compliance, and board governance practices appropriate for a 501(c)(4).
• Engage and support the Houston GPS Board of Directors, providing strategic counsel on organizational direction, major decisions, and long-term governance while ensuring an effective partnership between board and staff leadership.
• Partner with the Advancement team to shape Houston GPS's fundraising strategy, cultivate key philanthropic relationships, and ensure the organization has the resources required to achieve its long-term civic and electoral goals.
• Regularly assess the effectiveness of Houston GPS's strategy, organizational capabilities, and impact, making adjustments as needed to strengthen long-term influence and sustainability.

Executive Leadership & Organizational Culture (20%)

• Serve as a member of the Good Reason Houston executive leadership team, sharing accountability for overall organizational health, performance, and long-term sustainability.
• Partner with the CEO and peer Chiefs to shape enterprise strategy, organizational priorities, resource allocation, and major decisions beyond the Public Affairs division.
• Serve as the primary bridge between Public Affairs and the rest of the enterprise, ensuring GRH's policy, leadership, and community work is grounded in evidence, aligned to organizational priorities, and resourced to deliver at the enterprise level.
• Lead and mentor a high performing team of community engagement, advocacy, and partnership staff; strengthening organizational leadership capacity, and ensuring clear accountability for results
• Create and model the conditions for each team member to do their best work by providing direction, resources, and support while holding them accountable to the outcomes the theory of change requires.
• Model the adaptive leadership required during a period of organizational and capability growth, building a new division culture for Public Affairs, navigating new direction with clarity and steadiness, and helping the team stay grounded in mission and outcomes when the local context or conditions shift.

Qualifications 

• 12+ years of progressive leadership experience in public affairs, advocacy, policy, community engagement, government relations, nonprofit leadership, education, legislative strategy, or related sectors, with a demonstrated ability to lead high-impact community engagement, issue advocacy, voter engagement, and civic or electoral initiatives.
• Experience working with elected officials, school board trustees, policymakers, candidates, community organizations, funders, and/or public-sector leaders.
• Experience managing boards, department leaders, and complex cross-functional initiatives.
• Experience supporting candidate cultivation, leadership development, governance training, school board effectiveness, voter engagement, and local electoral strategy.
• Strong fundraising instincts and ability to cultivate and steward funders around advocacy, governance, civic engagement, and electoral priorities.
• Strong understanding of local and state policy environments, ideally including public education governance, school finance, accountability, early childhood, workforce, postsecondary, or related issues.
• Exceptional relationship-building skills with elected officials, trustees, candidates, community leaders, parents, educators, advocates, civic stakeholders, funders, and grassroots leaders.
• Experience with 501(c)(4) preferred.
• Houston context preferred.

About the Organization

Good Reason Houston is the region's education backbone, aligning school districts, higher education, community partners, philanthropy, and civic leaders around a shared goal: ensuring every Houston student has a clear, supported path from the first day of pre-K to a living-wage career.

Our North Star is ambitious—to double the rate of Houston public school graduates earning a living wage by 2040. We believe that achieving this goal requires our region to work together; united around shared goals, measurable progress, and collective accountability, with parents and educators helping shape the decisions that matter most for students.

Good Reason Houston works alongside educators, families, school systems, and community partners to identify what students need most, align regional action, track progress and mobilize the resources and accountability required to improve outcomes for every child, in every neighborhood of Houston.

Today, Good Reason Houston partners with 25 public school systems serving more than 700,000 students across approximately 900 schools. Together with school systems, higher education institutions, employers, philanthropy, and civic leaders, we are building an education system that prepares every student for a future of opportunity, choice, and economic mobility.

You can read more about our impact and our team here. 

Benefits and Salary 

• The salary range for this role begins at $190,000. 
• Good Reason Houston also has a 401(k) (automatic 3% employer contribution), life, medical, dental and vision insurance packages.
• Each employee accrues 35 paid time off days per calendar year in addition to the 19 paid holidays per year.
• Good Reason Houston is an office-based organization, but allows for virtual work on Mondays and Fridays.

How to Apply 

• You can apply directly on the Good Reason Houston website. 
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, though we encourage candidates to apply by September 18. 
• This search is being managed by Good Reason Houston’s talent partners, Denise Smith Consulting and Mitchell & Mueller Consulting

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