Vermont State Director

Job Title:         Vermont State Director

Reports To:     Chief Program Officer

FLSA Status: Full-Time, Exempt

Location:        Vermont

Pay: $123,000

Date:               November 2022

Mission and Organizational Background

The mission of First Children’s Finance (FCF) is to grow the supply and business sustainability of excellent child care. Founded in 1991, FCF provides business and financial assistance to business owners and leaders in the field of early care and education. The achieve our goals, FCF works on three levels: Individual Child Care Business Level, Community Level, and Systems Level. FCF is a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Minneapolis that provides business development programs and services in multiple states, with regional offices in four: Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Vermont. For more information, visit the First Children’s Finance website.

Benefits:

Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life, disability insurance, holidays, paid time off, and paid family medical leave. Allowable travel costs are reimbursed.

Flexible work environment

First Children’s Finance honors candidates’ time and effort in job-seeking by providing transparency regarding compensation. Creating transparency regarding salary information reduces the gender pay gap, and eliminates salary negotiation, which rarely benefits people of color or women. It is a value of our organization to support equitable hiring practices.

Job Summary

FCF is seeking a new Vermont Director that will be a talented manager and leader whose approach is strategic, collaborative, and characterized by the ability to inspire, motivate, and empower others to achieve the goals of FCF. This is a highly-functioning “generalist” who is a thought leader and a self-starter. This individual will possess highly-developed fundraising and communications skills, be creative, curious, innovative, and possess a continuous improvement mindset that will advance the Theory of Change work. The Vermont Director will be especially skilled and building and developing key stakeholder relationships and launching the Vermont FCF state office.

This is a remote position based in Vermont.

Essential Functions

Reporting to FCF’s Chief Program Officer, the Vermont Director leads a team of staff to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of all Vermont programs and participates on the FCF Leadership Team to support organization-wide activities. The Vermont Director also manages the day-to-day operations in Vermont under policies determined by FCF. The primary responsibilities are:

• Strategic Financial Development: Plan and implement and annual fundraising strategy; seek and maintain relationships with institutional funders; secure funding from state government and philanthropy; develop funding proposals and evaluation reports; Own and manage annual budget.
• Program Planning and Management: Develop, manage, and promote business and financial programs; help ECE providers build their business skills and capacity; market, evaluate, and improve FCF programs and services; provide training, consultative, and technical assistance to strengthen ECE programs.
• Human Resources Planning and Management: Support, develop, and retain qualified and excellent staff, consultants, and volunteers; ensure the smooth and efficient operation of the organization by selecting and developing effective people; foster a culture of cooperation and mutual respect, focusing on outstanding performance.
• Relationship Management: Maintain strong and effective relationships with ECE business leaders and advocates both in Vermont and nationally; build and maintain strong relationships with private and public sector leaders, revenue sources, industry leaders, and allied organizations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, organizational development, planning, communication, finance, or nonprofit administration, or public administration is required; Master’s degree preferred.

• Three or more years executive or advanced level professional supervisory experience in a nonprofit organization, with knowledge of early care and education issues preferred.
• Successful track record of securing approximately $1 million annually through a mix of philanthropy, government, corporate, and individual donors.
• Familiarity with the communities across Vermont, or the ability to quickly make connections in those communities.
• Program planning, development, facilitation, and evaluation.
• Demonstrated knowledge of community and economic development.
• Knowledge of current service trends and emerging models of early care and education.
• Proven administrative competence in areas such as financial management, budgeting, planning, and goal setting.
• Familiarity with FCF’s Theory of Change, or a positive orientation to change and new ways of doing business, including the ability to innovate and implement continuous improvements.

• Open to learning, accepting positive and constructive feedback
• Private sector engagement and partnership is a plus
• Energetic, enthusiastic, with a can-do attitude
• Proven track record of monitoring, managing, and analyzing program data and outcomes.
• A systems thinker that is able to maintain a big-picture focus while attending to detail.

 Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ability to recruit, retain, and develop both staff leaders.
• Highly organized, self-motivated, and able to work independently
• Ability to provide business and financial consultation and training
• Ability to read, interpret, and analyze financial statements and develop and manage budgets
• Ability to think strategically, plan regionally, and implement plans on the ground
• Ability to promote a positive image of FCF and position FCF as a key resource in the field of early care and education
• Ability to be flexible and work collaboratively with a diversity of FCF staff, customers, partners and stakeholders
• Excellent written and oral communications skills; public speaking experience
• Ability to work with minimum supervision, yet be a part of a team
• Experience in supervising collaborative work with multiple team members
• The ability and commitment to be an engaging ambassador and advocate for FCF with key business, community, and government leaders.

Work Conditions

• Must be able to work on the computer for extended periods of time
• Ability to travel when needed

Additional Notes

This job description represents the major functions of the position but is not intended to be all-inclusive. The incumbent is also responsible for taking direction from FCF representatives in completing projects or performing duties deemed necessary for the program and FCF success.

To Apply:

Please send a cover letter and a résumé by email to fcfjobs@FirstChildrensFinance.org with “Vermont State Director” in the subject line. Questions can be sent to HeidiHB@FirstChildrensFinance.org.

First Children’s Finance honors candidates’ time and effort in job-seeking by providing transparency regarding compensation. Creating transparency regarding salary information reduces the gender pay gap, and eliminates salary negotiation, which rarely benefits people of color or women. It is a value of our organization to support equitable hiring practices.