Chief, Community Leadership & Training Institute

CHIEF, COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

& TRAINING INSTITUTE

Reports to: Founding Executive Director | Location: New York City

About NYC Kids RISE

Over the last decade, NYC Kids RISE, alongside partners in government, philanthropy, business, and community, has worked to create the NYC Kids RISE Save for College Program, a universal wealth-building platform for New York City neighborhoods.

Today when a child starts kindergarten in New York City Public Schools, they receive an NYC Scholarship Account invested in a 529 Account with an initial investment for their educational futures. More than 380,000 children have NYC Scholarship Accounts and have accumulated more than $85M to date. ~1000 elementary schools are leveraging the Program as a tool for college & career readiness, strengthening school & community ties, and financial education & empowerment in a variety of different ways. Philanthropy, businesses, government, civic associations, houses of worship, and New Yorkers are plugging into the platform to share their social and financial capital and demonstrate to children what is possible by directing money into sets of students’ accounts through Community Scholarships, by integrating the Program into their own operations and activities, and by spreading the word and reinforcing expectations about what is possible for children. At its core, the Program is providing a way for our city to invest in all our children across the five boroughs.

We are now at an inflection point. This school year, nearly every child in a New York City public elementary school will have an NYC Scholarship Account. At the same time, New York State has established a new financial education mandate, and the federal government has launched 530A accounts—creating a powerful opportunity to increase the “Capital Stack” of financial and social assets available to children through the NYC Kids RISE platform. Over the next decade, the infrastructure will reach nearly one million students across the five boroughs. We will measure impact not only by reach and assets accumulated, but also by the extent to which communities shape, use, and feel ownership of the platform.

The Community Leadership & Training Institute

The NYC Kids RISE infrastructure fully realized is a nation-leading neighborhood-based community wealth building model and infrastructure. With a decade of experience under our belts, our collective charge is to further embed the Program into the fabric of New York City and create the conditions so that others - government, civic groups, philanthropy, business, New Yorkers - can further use it as a tool to share and build social and financial capital for all our kids. Today, we see that happening as parents/guardians are working with other parents/guardians to build financial capability, schools are teaching personal finance in the classroom, local businesses like the car dealer in Queens contributing $20 from every car sold to the Accounts of each student at the school up the street, Public Housing Resident Associations spreading the word to their communities to reinforce what’s possible for their children’s educational futures, NYC Public School alumni raising money and showcase college & career journeys to the students who are now sitting in the very seats where they previously sat, and elementary schools leveraging the Program to strengthen school & community ties and family engagement.

Our role is to help stakeholders across New York City understand the NYC Kids RISE platform and use it in ways that reflect their priorities, build on their strengths, and support their children. To advance this work at scale, NYC Kids RISE is launching the Community Leadership + Training Institute to: (1) equip partners to introduce and connect families to the platform; (2) enable institutions and stakeholders within neighborhoods to use the platform as a shared tool for collaboration; (3) help communities collectively build assets and reinforce expectations of success for every child; (4) create the infrastructure for stakeholders to convene, learn from one another, and strengthen their collective capacity to advance young people’s economic mobility and opportunity; and (5) identify, codify, and share effective practices that can drive neighborhood- and citywide change and inform the fields of wealth building, community economic development, place-based development, collective impact, and cradle-to-career strategy nationally.

The Opportunity

NYC Kids RISE seeks a visionary, entrepreneurial, and highly operational leader to build, launch, and grow the Community Leadership + Training Institute. The ideal candidate combines expertise in training and capacity building, collective impact, community organizing, and cross-sector partnership with the discipline to turn an ambitious vision into a durable citywide function.

Reporting to and working closely with the Founding Executive Director and leadership team, the Chief will operationalize the Institute’s strategy, offerings, operating model, team, and measures of success. This leader will create a consistent standard of excellence while enabling meaningful local adaptation across New York City’s diverse neighborhoods. They will center community ownership—co-designing with families, educators, young people, and community leaders and treating lived experience and local knowledge as essential expertise.

This is a builder role for someone excited to grow and fortify a nascent civic and financial infrastructure across the five boroughs - and willing to move fluidly between strategy, relationship building, facilitation, team leadership, and hands-on execution.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy, Leadership + Growth

• Develop and launch the Institute as the umbrella for NYC Kids RISE’s training, capacity-building, technical-assistance, convening, and leadership-development work.
• Building on learnings, hit the ground running to inform and execute the Institute’s vision into a clear multi-year strategy, operating model, roadmap, budget, staffing plan, and measurable outcomes.
• Advance a collective-impact approach that aligns families, schools, government, philanthropy, businesses, civic and faith-based organizations, and community institutions all around shared goals and mutually reinforcing strategies with place-based and citywide systems in mind.
• Establish frameworks and standards that ensure consistent, high-quality support citywide while enabling partners to adapt implementation to local assets, relationships, needs, and priorities.
• Monitor reach, quality, effectiveness, and growth; use data, stakeholder feedback, and implementation learning to strengthen the Institute’s offerings and strategy.
• In partnership with the Executive Director and Development team, cultivate funding and revenue opportunities; contribute to grant and contract reporting; and represent the Institute with funders, government, and cross-sector partners.
• Own the Institute’s budget, including forecasting and allocation of resources across staffing and program priorities.
• Work closely with leaders responsible for School Networks, Community Scholarships, Parent and Family Engagement, and place-based initiatives so the Institute strengthens and reinforces existing and future strategies.

Learning, Capacity Building + Knowledge

• Assess, codify, and strengthen existing training, technical-assistance, capacity-building, and implementation resources; develop new offerings aligned with stakeholder needs and Institute goals.
• Co-design offerings with families, students, educators, community leaders, and organizational partners, creating joyful and relational learning environments that honor lived experience, celebrate neighborhood assets, and build agency.
• Set and uphold a high standard for interactive, accessible, and culturally responsive learning across in-person, virtual, workshop, conference, and cohort-based formats.
• Oversee technical assistance and capacity building on core Program elements with consistent quality and equitable reach across the city.
• Lead (or assist) design, support and execute flagship convenings and leadership-development experiences.
• Develop place-based and stakeholder-specific communities of practice where participants build relationships, solve problems, exchange promising practices, and adapt successful approaches across neighborhoods.
• Build a continuous learning and knowledge-sharing system that turns lessons from stakeholders and neighborhood implementation into case studies, playbooks, implementation guides, curricula, and tools for New York City and the broader field.
• Develop and oversee the Institute’s digital learning infrastructure, including its web presence, learning management system, course catalog, virtual offerings, and participation and engagement tracking.
• Serve as a facilitator for flagship sessions, and build the capacity of Institute staff and partners to deliver excellent learning and co-creation experiences.
• Stay current on emerging practice in community-based learning, leadership development, capacity building, collective impact, and place-based economic mobility; position the Institute as a leader in equitable, community-owned approaches to scale.
• Work with colleagues to create feedback loops that enable stakeholders to inform policy and advocacy and programmatic design

Team + Organizational Leadership

• Build, lead, and develop a multidisciplinary team responsible for training, technical assistance, leadership development, implementation support, communities of practice, convenings, and knowledge sharing across four stakeholder tracks: students, families, schools, and neighborhoods. The initial team is expected to include approximately five full-time staff and grow as the Institute scales.
• Select and manage consultants with specialized expertise, ensuring alignment across internal and external resources on quality standards, success measures, and roadmap milestones.
• Oversee a coordinated, accessible citywide calendar and catalog of offerings organized by stakeholder and place.
• Develop and approve policies, procedures, and operating standards for the Institute’s programming, partnerships, and operations.
• Serve as an active member of NYC Kids RISE’s senior leadership team, contributing to organization-wide strategy, planning, decision-making, cross-functional coordination, and culture.
• Model and reinforce strict adherence to data-security and privacy policies, particularly those protecting confidential student and family information; proactively identify vulnerabilities and improve controls.
• Advance racial equity and anti-oppression across the Institute and the organization by identifying opportunities, inviting feedback, and helping build equitable practices, systems, and culture.

Qualifications

Required

• At least 10 years of progressively responsible experience in training and capacity building, leadership development, collective impact, community organizing, adult education, or a related field.
• A track record of building and launching a new initiative, organization, program line, or function from concept through implementation and scale, with accountability for strategy, operations, outcomes, and continuous improvement.
• At least five years of experience leading and developing high-performing teams, ideally including building a team or function from the ground up and leading through growth or change.
• Significant experience designing and facilitating culturally responsive learning experiences, leadership-development programs, communities of practice, and stakeholder convenings for diverse audiences.
• Strong operational and project-management skills, including the ability to turn complex strategy into clear priorities, workplans, systems, and high-quality execution across multiple workstreams.
• Demonstrated success working across cultures, identities, roles, and neighborhoods and using co-design, relationship building, and inclusive facilitation to advance equity and foster meaningful community ownership.
• Experience developing frameworks or systems that maintain quality and consistency at scale while supporting meaningful local adaptation.
• Experience defining success measures and using qualitative and quantitative data and feedback loops to evaluate and improve programs.
• Experience representing an organization with government, philanthropic, and cross-sector partners and translating those relationships into resources, partnerships, or influence.
• Excellent strategic judgment, organizational ability, and comfort navigating complexity, ambiguity, and competing priorities.
• Exceptional written, verbal, facilitation, and interpersonal communication skills across audiences including families, community leaders, staff, executives, board members, funders, and government partners.
• Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and relevant professional experience.
• Ability to spend approximately 80% of working time in the Long Island City office and/or at locations across New York City, with occasional evening and weekend work.

Preferred

• Experience with New York City public schools, college access and career readiness, economic empowerment, community organizing, or place-based initiatives.
• Experience with digital learning and virtual-engagement platforms; experience selecting or implementing a learning management system is strongly preferred.
• Experience in an entrepreneurial, evolving, or rapidly scaling organization.

Salary + Benefits

The salary range for this position is $170,000 - $250,000. NYC Kids RISE offers a comprehensive benefits package, including 30 days of paid time off (15 vacation days for new employees, increasing with tenure; five personal days; and two annual one-week office closures, in early July and late December), plus sick time and holidays. Benefits also include medical, dental, vision, life, and short- and long-term disability insurance; a healthcare FSA with an employer contribution; a dependent-care FSA; and a 401(k) with a 4% employer match after one year of service.

Location + Work Schedule

NYC Kids RISE maintains a hybrid work environment. Because this is a highly relational, leadership role, the Chief is expected to spend approximately 80% of working time in the Long Island City office and/or at meetings and events across New York City. Some evening and weekend availability is required.

How to Apply

Please submit a resume and brief cover letter through the NYC Kids RISE Careers page.

NYC Kids RISE is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate in employment on the basis of gender, religion, race, creed, color, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, marital status, caregiver status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, unemployment status, or any other characteristic protected by law.