The Organization
Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. We envision a system that is easy to navigate, delivers fair results, and meets the nation’s need for talent through a broad range of credentials. Our goal is to prepare people for informed citizenship and for success in a global economy.
Lumina is working with partners to design a learning system that gives every person—regardless of race and ethnicity, income, or other socioeconomic factors—the opportunities that only education and training after high school can provide. To achieve our mission, we work with governmental, nonprofit, and private-sector organizations to bring about widespread change. Our work relies on strategic communication, empowering leaders who can bring about change, policy outreach to state and federal officials, investments in proven and promising practices, and targeted efforts to measure and evaluate progress.
Lumina Foundation has a passionate and committed staff and is among the nation’s top private foundations, with an endowment in excess of $1.2 billion.
Position Overview
Purpose
The Strategy Director for Community College Workforce Education and Training leads a portfolio designed to increase the number of occupational short-term credential and AA degree programs. In an era of growing demand for work-integrated learning, there is need to expand the supply of high-quality career preparation programs that are tightly linked to local employers and economic development opportunities. The flexibility, affordability, and workforce focus of these programs respond to the interests of both traditional aged and older students seeking alternatives to traditional degrees. Employer interest in work-aligned credentials is also growing. A decade of sustained economic growth, low unemployment, and rising demands for skills has generated innovative partnerships between community colleges and employers across many different regions and industry sectors. Increasingly, employers are seeking local solutions to their talent development needs that are customized to their needs – and playing a more direct role in developing and financing those programs.
The Director will have an opportunity to develop and implement Lumina’s strategy, approach, and grantee portfolio in this field. In addition to experience with occupational short-term credential and AA degree programs, the director should be knowledgeable about employer-community college partnerships, labor market information, and financing of community college programs, as well as the institutional, state, and federal and policy context in which community colleges operate. The Director should also have insight into the current array of strategies and reforms that address equity, quality, scale and innovation dramatically increase the enrollment, persistence, and completion of postsecondary credentials, particularly for learners of color and adults.
This position works in a collaborative and integrated manner within the Learning and Work division as well as across all other areas of the Foundation to ensure that the goals of Lumina’s Strategic Plan are realized, and to assist the nation in making significant improvements in credential attainment.
Responsibilities
Strategy Leadership, Design, Planning & Implementation:
· Develops strategies and plans for an assigned significant area of the Foundation’s grantmaking.
· Establishes budgets and executes the work in the assigned significant area or defined critical outcome.
· Develops, monitors and reports progress on the annual work plan that incorporates multiple foundation tools.
· Collaborates on grant and contract development and budget review in the cross-functional programmatic group.
· Collaborates with other stakeholders and leverages resources that support the foundation’s strategies.
· Assumes significant, shared responsibility for managing the Foundation’s related grantmaking work including preparing for and actively engaging in grant review meetings, drafting grant and contract-related information, monitoring grant progress, and working with staff and grantees to identify and troubleshoot problems in funded programs.
· Drafts concept papers and develops requests for proposals and grant/contract guidelines to support new programs.
· Regularly revisits strategies to assure efforts remain responsive to emerging issues and information.
· Prepares materials for, attends, presents and responds to questions in Board meetings.
· Performs writing or analytical activities concerning grantmaking programs, the research and public policy agenda, and communications that support organizational learning and lessons learned to the field.
Support for Lumina’s Commitment to Racial Justice and Equity
· Strategy Directors Advance Lumina’s commitment to ending systemic racism and barriers to learning beyond high school for Black, Latino and Native American individuals.
· Further Learning and Works specific practices that promote racial and ethnic diversity in hiring, contracting, grantmaking, inclusive decision making, and achieving fair and just outcomes arising from the department’s exercise of its duties and responsibilities.
· Effectively communicate Lumina’s commitment to internal and external partners
Functional Leadership and Staff Development
· Provide leadership for a Strategy Team by setting a clear direction, delivering frequent and open communications, leveraging the strengths of team members while also providing development opportunities within the team.
· Support direct reports in their work by serving as an experienced, objective adviser and mentor.
· Provide administrative oversight on expenses, travel, grantmaking, contracting, and other functional processes.
· On-board new hires to ensure they have the introductions, resources, training, and productivity tools necessary to be effective as quickly as possible.
· For direct reports, collect feedback from internal or external stakeholders.
· Review individual and collective performance and provides clarifying examples where necessary.
· Support professional and career development by discussing and documenting with direct reports their professional development interests, strengths and gaps.
· Collaborate with direct reports to create a development plan, identify learning and reinforcing opportunities, and serve as mentor to them.
Thought Leadership
· Author and issue op-ed’s, position statements, reports, talking points and other documents that advance the foundations strategic efforts
· Collaborates with human network an design staff to identify, plan and execute convenings, meetings and conferences of grantees and leaders in higher education
· Attends and/or makes professional presentations and meetings of national associations and other groups.
Education and Experience
· Graduate degree or demonstrated competency required in higher education, social and behavior sciences or other related content area.
· Relevant Experience: At least eight (8) years’ experience in senior-level leadership role preferably in the higher education, workforce development, nonprofit and/or philanthropic sectors. Broad exposure to multiple employment sectors and employer community college partnerships ideal.
Qualifications
· Ability to learn quickly and connect learning to ongoing conversations related to the assigned body of work.
· Ability to demonstrate how best to use the Foundation’s resources to ensure the policies and practices envisioned in the Strategic Plan are aligned with Lumina’s principles of learning and credentialing.
· Ability to make decisions in concert with others without complete information and to thrive in an outcomes-oriented, continuously evolving work environment in which thinking beyond the curve is encouraged.
· Project management skills with demonstrated ability to execute and follow through to achieve intended results, by following through on commitments, prioritizing work, and managing time and resources well.
· Experience building and managing diverse networks that support efforts to produce systemic change.
· Excellent verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate accurately, effectively, and in ways appropriate to different audiences.
· Strong writer, with the ability to review, revise and synthesize a variety of information and help connect the Foundation’s work to broader discussions within the higher education landscape.
· Ability to manage internal and external constituents, projects, and budgets.
· Analytical, problem-solving, and research abilities and an ability to coordinate with researchers and program evaluators.
· Capable of applying adaptive problem-solving skills in response to unforeseen challenges and new assignments.
· Ability to prioritize a wide range of duties and responsibilities, organize tasks, and remain flexible to changing and multiple requests.
· Ability to work collegially and diplomatically across the organization and audience groups, with an ability to resolve any conflicts.
· Exercise sound judgment in handling sensitive or confidential information.
· Ability to use technology effectively, including databases, spreadsheets and Microsoft Office 365 products.
Work Environment and Physical Demands
· Work is performed in an office environment, mostly sedentary.
· Visual and auditory acuity for extensive use of various forms of technology.
· Currently Lumina staff are not traveling. When travel resumes- this position travels 10-20%, including overnight stays.
How To Apply
Applicants should send to the e-mail address below;
· a letter of interest that includes desired compensation,
· resume/curriculum vitae as attachments outlining experience relevant to the position, and
· a writing sample that focuses on a topic relevant to this position.
Amber SheltonHuman ,Resources Manager, lfecareers@luminafoundation.org