Detroit Executive Director

Executive Director, Detroit
GreenLight Fund
Detroit, MI

About GreenLight Fund

Founded in 2004, GreenLight Fund is a national nonprofit with a local focus that partners with communities to create opportunities for inclusive prosperity. In our 12 sites, we facilitate a community-driven process that matches the local needs of individuals and families not met by existing programs, to organizations with track records of success elsewhere. Working with communities, we identify, invite in, and launch proven organizations, providing collaborative support so they can quickly take root and deliver change. Everything we do is designed to remove barriers to inclusive economic opportunity all too often rooted in racial inequities.

Our impact increases exponentially as we address one specific, community-identified need each year, in each GreenLight site. Since 2004, we have launched 45 portfolio organizations across 12 sites, invested $31M, and attracted an additional $206M from other funding sources, reaching more than 560,000 individuals and families in 2022 alone.

GreenLight Fund is headquartered in Boston, with sites in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Twin Cities. GreenLight is continuing to expand by adding one new site each year.

GreenLight Fund continues to grow strategically, with a focus on deepening community impact, growing to new cities, building our learning capacity, building strategic partnerships, and centering equity in all that we do.

To learn more about GreenLight Fund's work, please visit our website.

The Executive Director Opportunity

Since its launch in 2016 and with the support of a coalition of local donors, GreenLight Detroit has philanthropically invested $2M to bring three organizations to the city that are driving measurable outcomes for residents navigating poverty and working to overcome barriers to inclusive economic opportunity. These organizations are Center for Employment Opportunities, New Teacher Center, and Springboard Collaborative. This past year, the team raised GreenLight Detroit Fund II, a $5M fund that will enable four additional organizations to come to Detroit to address community-identified unmet needs.

GreenLight Fund is currently seeking a dynamic, passionate, and collaborative Executive Director to lead GreenLight Detroit forward. The Executive Director will work with a Selection Advisory Council – that includes private sector entrepreneurs and investors, nonprofit leaders, philanthropic leaders, social entrepreneurs, issue experts, and Detroit residents with lived experience navigating poverty – to identify critical needs in Detroit and vet, select, fund, and launch the highest-performing national solutions that directly fit the needs of the community. This entrepreneurial leader will also continue to build a strong, diverse coalition to support GreenLight Detroit and its portfolio organizations, including building and stewarding relationships with donors.

This is a fantastic opportunity to work at the intersection of national social innovation and community need, and to build and support a portfolio of high-performing nonprofits to confront the community's most pressing challenges.

The Executive Director will lead the work in Detroit to deliver GreenLight's Method of Impact, partner with peers across the country to find and spread what works, and support the national GreenLight network.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Programmatic Leadership:
• Lead a community-wide Selection Advisory Council to advise on identifying Detroit's high priority community needs, and the vetting and selection of portfolio organizations that can powerfully address them.
• Run an annual selection process through a racial equity lens to identify organizations with the potential to have a significant impact on community needs, conduct rigorous diligence and deep landscape analysis on prospective partner organizations, and select one organization annually for GreenLight Detroit to support.
• Engage community members with lived experience navigating poverty in determining priority needs and solutions.
• Serve as an active local advisory board member for portfolio organizations.
• Act as a strategic thought partner to and connector for local portfolio organization Executive Directors and boards on a broad range of strategic and operational issues.

External Relations and Fundraising:
• Represent GreenLight Detroit externally and cultivate a network of trusted relationships with community leaders, entrepreneurs, the private-sector investor community, philanthropic partners, government officials, nonprofit and business leaders, and prospective partner organizations.
• Actively steward GreenLight Detroit investors, secure event sponsorships, and lead all stages of the fund-raising cycle.
• Secure critical resources, financial and otherwise, for GreenLight Detroit and portfolio organizations, and actively and thoughtfully steward these relationships over time.
• Provide support to a portfolio of three organizations GreenLight Detroit has brought to the city.
• Create and manage events to launch new portfolio organizations to the region and build awareness of and support for portfolio organizations.

Organizational Leadership:
• Participate actively in the GreenLight network of site Executive Directors and local and national staff to share best practices, knowledge of promising social innovation, and strategies to build the network and collaborate to find and support GreenLight organizations.
• Help execute the organization's Strategic Plan over the next three years to deepen community impact, grow to new cities, build our learning capacity, build strategic partnerships, and center equity in all that we do.
• Effectively lead the local team and plan for future staffing needs.

Candidate Profile

The Detroit Executive Director will be an experienced, innovative, and collaborative leader with compelling presence and exceptional communication and relationship-building skills. While no one candidate will possess every quality outlined for this position, the successful candidate will bring many of the following professional qualifications and personal attributes:

• Authentic passion for GreenLight's mission and commitment to the Detroit community. 
• Proven commitment to bringing a racial equity lens to their work and deep understanding of how systems of oppression have affected communities experiencing poverty.
• A successful track record in entrepreneurial environments holding positions of increasing complexity and responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience developing effective working relationships with people from a wide array of backgrounds, leading groups and developing talent, all with a collegial and team-building approach that puts others at ease, engenders trust, and is grounded in community needs.
• Experience and relationships with the Detroit philanthropic, nonprofit and/or business sectors, as well as knowledge of the critical social issues affecting low-income residents in the area.
• Familiarity with nonprofit and/or philanthropy sectors, ideally with knowledge of the social innovation world and results-oriented, evidence-based program design; passion for and a demonstrated commitment to social entrepreneurship and social change.
• Strong analytical skills and experience with due diligence and/or grant-making processes.
• Superb verbal and written communication skills and the ability to represent GreenLight Detroit and portfolio organizations in a professional, engaging, and dynamic manner.
• A track record of securing financial resources from a variety of sources, building awareness of and support for important endeavors, and successfully cultivating and stewarding donors over time.
• Experience building and managing pipelines, especially with donors and/or programs.
• Creative, collaborative, entrepreneurial, and action-oriented with an eagerness to roll up one's sleeves and work hands-on to grow organizations. 
• Bachelor's degree is strongly preferred but not required.

Compensation & Benefits

The target salary for this position is $130,000. The compensation package also includes the following:

• Health Insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield (80% paid by GreenLight)
• Dental and Vision Insurance through Guardian (80% paid by GreenLight)
• Full coverage of all mental health visits through Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Safe Harbor 401k. GreenLight will match 100% of the first 3% of salary and 50% of the next 2%
• Short and Long-term disability and Life insurance fully paid by GreenLight Fund
• 11 company-wide holiday closings and 3 floating holidays
• Generous PTO and parental leave
• Up to $75 per month of cell phone reimbursement
• Up to $100 per month of WiFi reimbursement
• Up to $1,500 per year for professional development
• Access to Holisticly (40 Holisticly Credits per Month)

Greenlight Fund is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages applications from people of color, persons with disabilities, women, and LGBT applicants.

Contact

Koya Partners, the executive search firm that specializes in mission-driven search, has been exclusively retained for this engagement. To express your interest in this role, please submit materials here. Materials should include a thorough resume and compelling letter of interest. All inquiries and discussions will be considered strictly confidential.

Please submit your application materials by June 15th, our initial application deadline.

Koya Partners is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals living with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual living with a disability and need assistance expressing interest online, please email NonprofitSearchOps@divsearch.com. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.

About Koya Partners

Koya Partners, a part of Diversified Search Group, is a leading executive search and strategic advising firm dedicated to connecting exceptionally talented people with mission-driven clients. Our founding philosophy—The Right Person in the Right Place Can Change the World—guides our work as we partner with nonprofits & NGOs, institutions of higher education, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.

For more information about Koya Partners please visit our website.



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