Fast Facts

City Year is seeking a dynamic Senior Vice President and Executive Director for its Little Rock site to advocate for public education and lead a team in mentoring students and managing partnerships.

Responsibilities: Lead and manage site staff and AmeriCorps members to ensure operational success and growth, develop community partnerships, and oversee fundraising efforts.

Skills: Strong interpersonal communication, team management, fundraising, and public speaking skills are required to effectively represent City Year’s mission.

Qualifications: Experience in non-profit management, community service, and knowledge of K-12 education and youth development are preferred.

Location: The position is based in Little Rock, AR, with in-person commitments.

Compensation: $120000 / Annually

Application Instructions

Click Apply to submit your online application. Please attach a resume and thoughtful cover letter on the "My Experience" page in the "Resume/CV" field.

Active City Year Staff members must login to Workday to apply internally.

Number of Positions: 1Work Location: 100% On-Site

Position Overview

ABOUT CITY YEAR LITTLE ROCK

City Year was founded in 1988, with the idea to unite young people, ages 17-24, from varied backgrounds to engage in a year of full-time service in schools. City Year Little Rock (CYLR) was established in 2004. Today, 40 AmeriCorps members are deployed in Little Rock School District and Jacksonville North Pulaski School District serving as tutors and mentors and implementing CY’s Whole School, Whole Child program. This research-based program focuses on the early warning indicators which can predict a students’ likelihood to graduate high school. For the 2025-2026 school year, CYLR AmeriCorps members will provide targeted interventions to over 6,600 students across its ABC intervention areas of Attendance, Behavior, and Course performance in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math.

POSITION OVERVIEW

City Year is seeking an innovative, entrepreneurial, and people-focused leader to serve as the Executive Director (ED) at City Year Little Rock. This position is an outstanding opportunity to play an integral role in advocating for and advancing public education in Greater Little Rock. This seasoned executive is responsible for ensuring the Little Rock site meets its impact, revenue, district partnership, and external relations goals. City Year Little Rock stands to further its position in the Greater Little Rock community, and key to the site’s success is a leader and collaborator who is a natural coalition-builder, people developer, and influencer who leads with both tenacity and humility.

Reporting to Market President, this dynamic, visionary change agent leads 9 staff members and 40 AmeriCorps members serving in 5 partner schools. Additionally, the Executive Director works closely with City Year Little Rock’s local advisory board, comprised of leaders in the public, private, and non-profit sectors of Greater Little Rock. The Executive Director is accountable for a current annual revenue budget of approximately $2.5 million from AmeriCorps, local government and private sector funds.

Serving as the primary champion of City Year’s impact locally, the Executive Director leads efforts to keep students in school and on track, while also ensuring the sustainability and continuity of the site. The Executive Director represents the organization within the Greater Little Rock community by mobilizing powerful coalitions to catalyze greater educational opportunities for underserved students. These constituencies include advisory board members; district leadership and school partners; AmeriCorps, alumni; and private sector investors.

Additionally, the Executive Director is a Senior Vice President for City Year Inc.’s national organization and therefore strengthens the connection between City Year’s national initiatives and the local work. Through this role as Senior Vice President, the Executive Director also participates within the City Year global network to advance the mission by managing working relationships with staff at City Year’s national office and helping to lead and set organizational strategy through network-wide project teams.

Job Description

Responsibilities

The Executive Director is responsible for leading and managing site staff and AmeriCorps members to ensure operational success and growth by generating resources and building support from the public and private sectors. This executive serves as a vital link between the local Greater Little Rock marketand the City Year national office. Site supervision includes the functional areas of student impact and school partnerships, revenue generation, expense management, management and retention of AmeriCorps members and staff, and site board development and relations.

Our Executive Directors embody our core values and must have the firm belief that education has the power to help all students reach their full potential and a passion for increasing our nation’s graduation rates. To successfully execute the job’s core responsibilities, a successful Executive Director must demonstrate the following behaviors:

• Build and forge partnerships and coalitions with stakeholders to advance the cause of educational for all students
• Mobilize internal and external stakeholders towards a bold vision of how they can impact the lives of young people
• Build and empower teams to fully own their functions while driving accountability and take personal responsibility for their success
• Build community and foster a caring and supportive environment with sense of connection and belonging
• Demonstrate curiosity and humility as a life-long learner who seeks out varied perspectives and opportunities for self-improvement
• Possess a deep sense of personal accountability to ensure the success of both City Year Little Rock locally and City Year, Inc. nationally
• Connect with and inspire teams of AmeriCorps Members between the ages of 18 and 25

Through these lenses, the Executive Director will focus on the following primary areas of responsibility:

People and Culture: Lead, coach, and develop 10 full-time staff members, increase staff engagement and retention of staff year over year (staff turnover 20% or less). Establish a dynamic culture that embodies our core values of inclusivity and teamwork. Further develop site human resources structures to ensure fair hiring and promotion practices.

AmeriCorps Member Experience: Ensure the site delivers a transformational experience for all City Year AmeriCorps members, where at least 85 percent of AmeriCorps members persist from start of service to completion of service and 80% of AmeriCorps members report feeling prepared and confident in their service delivery. 

Student Impact: In partnership with senior site staff and national support staff, the ED will ensure high quality and commitment to the nationally developed service delivery model implemented by City Year AmeriCorps members in partner elementary, middle, and high schools.  

Private Sector Fundraising, Cultivation, and Stewardship: Serve as chief fundraiser and lead site staff and local advisory board to motivate key influencers to raise the funds necessary to meet annual and long-term revenue goals by leveraging national revenue and stewardship strategies. Develop a plan to increase private sector revenue in order to keep pace with public sector revenue.Identify, cultivate, solicit, and manage strategic relationships with corporations, foundations, family foundations, and individuals in order to build a sustainable private revenue mix that results in annual revenue of at least $400,000.

School/District Investments: Sustain transformational partnerships with existing district and school leadership and cultivate new transformational school partnerships. Negotiate contracts that result in sustained annual revenue.

Financial Management: Ensure City Year Little Rock raises three percent more than it spends annually by managing a fiscally-sound budget, forecasting, expense management, and cash flow for a current site expense budget of $2.4M.

Board Member Engagement: Recruit, develop, and manage a dynamic and deeply engaged local advisory board to build and execute a multi-year site strategic plan focused on local fundraising efforts, community engagement and brand awareness while also contributing to the success of the national organization. Ensure cultivation and engagement of future board leadership. 

Government Relations and Public Policy: Engage local and national elected officials – Governor, Mayor, City Council, local and state school board representatives, State Legislature, and members of U.S. Congress - to support funding and policies for City Year and the national service movement. Maintain effective and collaborative relationships with AmeriCorps partners; oversee the preparation of effective AmeriCorps grant applications and progress reports and meet performance and compliance requirements associated therein.

AmeriCorps Member Recruitment: Collaborate with City Year’s national recruitment and admissions team to ensure site recruits, selects, and admits AmeriCorps members within the regional framework, meeting quality, quantity, and inclusivity goals. Partner with site staff to ensure a strong cohort returns annually for a second year of service, with at least 30% of first year members applying for a second year of service.

Alumni Engagement: Ensure the engagement of local alumni board to leverage alumni to support AmeriCorps members in service and continue their lifetime of service.

Marketing and Communications: Lead the site in increasing visibility and brand awareness of City Year’s work in local and national media, social media and marketing channels by developing and leveraging local relationships. 

The top priorities include: 

• Ensuring financial solvency of City Year Little Rock by growing the current community of champions and financial investors to meet existing revenue goals
• Leading local site board and recruiting talent to the board to support future financial sustainability and growth while increasing brand awareness and recognition of City Year in the local community. 
• Deepening public sector relationships with emphasis on the City of Little Rock and the local school districts and establishing relationships with key members of the administration, city council and school boards.

Qualifications

• Strong ability and experience in the behaviors listed above
• Strong competency in interpersonalcommunication
• Demonstrated success managing effective and engaged teams, including managing through multiple layers of leadership 
• Proven skills in influencing and motivating stakeholders; track record in fundraising from corporations, foundations and major gifts and/or sales 
• Ability to connect programs to funding, creatively generating other resources, and building collaborative and strategic partnerships
• Strong communication, listening, and public speaking skills needed to powerfully represent City Year’s mission and vision 
• Ability to attend evening and weekend events; ability to travel to in-person meetings in various cities quarterly 
• Significant local non-profit, volunteer, or multi-sector experience preferred
• An established cross-sector, local network a plus
• Knowledge of GreaterLittle Rock and the educational landscape preferred
• Content knowledge of K-12 education, youth development, and/or community or national service a strong plus

To Apply

Initial deadline to apply isFriday,August 8th; applications accepted on a rolling basis after this date.The search process will move promptly, and candidates will be evaluated accordingly. Please submit your cover letter and resume via the online application.  

Compensation and Benefits:

The salary range for this role begins at $120,000, and the role is eligible for a performance bonus. Full-time employees are entitled to compensation commensurate with experience. Benefits for full-time employees include health insurance with a Flexible Spending Account, paid vacation, holidays, parental leave, 401K, and more.

Benefits

Full-time employees will be eligible for all benefits including vacation, sick days and organization holidays. You may participate in all benefit programs that City Year establishes and makes available to eligible employees, under (and subject to all provisions of) the plan documents that govern those programs. Currently, City Year offers medical, dental, vision, life, accidental death and dismemberment and disability coverage, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), and other benefits including 401(k) plan(s) pursuant to the terms and conditions of company policy and the 401(k) plan document. For more information, click here.

Employment at City Year is at-will. 

City Year does not sponsor work authorization visas.