Chicago, IL

The Organization
For 100 years, The Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation, has connected the generosity of donors with community needs by making grants to organizations working to improve metropolitan Chicago. In 2014, the Trust, together with its donors, granted more than $164 million to nonprofit organizations. From strengthening community schools to assisting local art programs, from building health centers to helping lives affected by violence, the Trust continues to enhance our region. To learn more, please visit the Trust online at www.cct.org.

Position Overview
Job Purpose:
The Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance is a funder collaborative hosted at The Chicago Community Trust. Its mission is to collaborate with employers and other workforce stakeholders to increase employment and earnings for underprepared workers in the Chicagoland region. It currently consists of twelve local, regional and national funders (foundations and corporations) who jointly support grant making and other supporting strategies to advance its shared mission. The Funder Alliance works very closely with World Business Chicago (WBC), which is an economic development organization that leads business retention, attraction and expansion efforts, raises Chicago’s position as a premier global business destination, and guides implementation of the Plan for Economic Growth & Jobs (PEGJ). Specifically, the Funder Alliance helps lead the PEGJ’s Workforce Development Strategy.

This position is intentionally designed to share Funder Alliance capacity with important external partners, especially WBC and its Human Capital Strategy Team, which consists of representatives from the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools and Skills for Chicagoland’s Future. While this position will play an essential role for the Funder Alliance interacting with external partners, it will also be fully integrated with the Funder Alliance team (Executive Director and Board), and will provide backup support to the Executive Director to cover the specific needs of the Funder Alliance.

Job Duties:

• Assist the Executive Director and Board as needed with the general business of the Funder Alliance, including staffing of Board meetings and Advisory Committee meetings, and the logistics of monitoring/supporting/evaluating grant investments
• Assist the Executive Director and Board as needed with external communications for the Funder Alliance, and relationship management with funders, partners and stakeholders
• Assist the Executive Director and Board as needed with strategic planning for the Funder Alliance
• Lead the WBC Human Capital Strategy Team, including executive level leaders, in setting and achieving near and long-term goals (e.g., background research, scoping, gathering pipeline of initiatives, developing pilot, executing pilot, and scaling up successful pilots – in consultation with the WBC Director and WBC Deputy Director)
• Support the Strategy Team in the management of on-time, quality initiative creation and rollout, including the empowerment of or (if necessary) creation of Industry Workforce Partnerships in the healthcare and transportation/distribution/logistics (TDL) sectors
• Manage 1-2 Economic Growth Fellows in support of the goals of the Strategy Team
• Oversee and lead the deployment of Funder Alliance and World Business Chicago resources in support of the goals of the Strategy Team
• Support the WBC Director and WBC Deputy Director in reporting/communicating Plan progress to various community stakeholders
• Lead research and analyses related to the work of the Strategy Team (including analyzing economic trend data, financial modeling, best practice gathering via local and global experts, project scoping, impact analysis, and the like) and updates to the PlanPlan and execute convenings and/or other events that support the goals and objectives of the Funder Alliance and the WBC Human Capital Strategy Team

This description should not be construed to contain every function or responsibility that may be required to be performed by an incumbent in this job.  Incumbents are required to perform other related functions as assigned.

Job Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree in public policy, business, or other related field preferred
• Must be service-oriented and committed to providing exceptional service to all partners of the Funder Alliance
• Must have 3+ years’ experience owning program management deliverables, 10 years of overall related experience preferred
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) required; Microsoft Access experience preferred
• Must have expertise and experience related to workforce development strategy and some knowledge of economic development
• Must have ability to deliver high-quality outputs on time with the ability to work well with a team
• Must possess strong interpersonal written/verbal communications skills, an attention to detail and good program management skills
• Must have organizational skills with an ability to prioritize, multi-task and work independently
• Must have occasional flexibility to work outside of normal business hours
• Must possess a passion for civic engagement that makes a difference for Chicagoland’s future