Manager, Content & Volunteer Operations

Job description

Manager, Content & Volunteer Operations

Onsite in New York, NY

About DonorsChoose:

DonorsChoose makes it easy for anyone to help a teacher in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education.

Since 2000, more than 5 million people and partners have contributed $1 billion to support 2 million teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. Projects range from art supplies to build the set for a school musical, to books and puzzles that affirm students’ identities, to bird seed for an at-home science project. We proudly serve all US public schools, public charter schools, and Head Start centers, and we combat systemic inequity by driving a majority of donations to schools that have been historically underfunded due to economic and racial inequity.

DonorsChoose has been recognized as a best place to work by GOOD Magazine and the Nonprofit Times, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Our dedicated team works from across the United States to bring classroom dreams to life.

DonorsChoose is also at an exciting and pivotal moment of growth and innovation, exploring and testing new ways - through both growth and new product offerings - to eliminate educational inequity for all students. To learn more about the organization - visit the website.

About The Team:

The Content & Volunteer Operations (ConOps) team has a front-row seat to the most compelling classroom-generated content on our site. We review all incoming project requests from teachers, and help deliver the final touch to funded projects to donors: the “thank-you package”that includes a letter, photos, and handwritten student thank-yous. .

ConOps staff members work in tandem with a community of 200+ mission-driven volunteers to review this digital and physical project content. Last year, the team collectively reviewed 700,000+ project requests, thank-you photos, and physical student thank-you notes.

Our team is small and tight-knit, made up of eight people with a wide range of tenure. Most of the team works remotely, though we gather as a full team in-person a few times a year.

You will be one of the few folks based full-time in our NYC office leading a high-energy volunteer program. We’re looking for someone who’s energized by building community in-person, even when your internal team isn’t physically present every day. If you’re someone who finds joy in creating a sense of connection and community in both in-person and virtual spaces, you’ll thrive here.

About The Role:

Donors who give $50+ can opt in to receive physical student thank-you notes from students, which are mailed by classrooms across the country to our NYC offices. That’s where you’ll come in!

Every day, our office receives hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of packages filled with student notes. When the mail arrives, you and your team (including dozens of in-person volunteers) will review the thank-you notes and package them up to send back to our community of donors.

In this role, you will:

Lead our NYC in-person volunteer program.

• Maintain and scale operations to ensure that we can review incoming student thank-you notes within our turnaround time goals.
• Develop and execute a volunteer recruitment and engagement plan to harness the power of in-person volunteers to support our work.
• Cultivate a fun, friendly, and productive volunteer environment that keeps folks excited, inspired, and motivated to return and volunteer regularly.
• Monitor data and community trends in order to propose and advocate for process improvements, workforce recommendations, or other strategies to improve the volunteer and staff experience.
• Ensure that program logistics (including budget oversight, supply ordering, and inventory) run seamlessly.
• Develop and execute a calendar of engaging and informative volunteer-facing touchpoints, including: emails, website/social content, and events.
• Evaluate and continuously iterate on our in-person community programming to meet our organization’s evolving needs.
• Represent our gratitude operations for external DonorsChoose initiatives, as needed (examples: 1-day corporate group volunteer events, conferences, etc).

Manage one full-time staff member.

• Support and guide one full-time team member to help them thrive in their role. Make sure they have the right tools, info, and support to hit their goals with confidence.
• Share helpful feedback and coaching to encourage continuous learning and growth.
• Work together to set clear goals, track progress, and adjust course when needed.
• Collaborate with ConOps leaders to create a culture where everyone feels aligned, connected, and valued.

Support strategic initiatives and special projects, as needed.

• Provide operational support and guidance for emerging organization-wide initiatives, when warranted.
• Develop and execute operational plans to integrate new projects or products with existing volunteer programs, if needed.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement one-off projects and/or pilots aligned with our organization’s strategic plan.

This job might be for you if:

• You believe in the power of volunteerism - and have the experience to prove it. You have hands-on experience and a proven track record of overseeing and managing a volunteer program. Bonus points if you’ve ever developed a program from scratch, or significantly scaled an existing program! You’ve already started jotting down potential ideas to engage our community.
• You have experience managing people, and are motivated by bringing out the best in others. You have at least 1-2 years of direct management experience (interns, part-time, or full-time staff). You find joy in empowering your team with the necessary knowledge, skills, and guidance to succeed.
• You’re a natural relationship-builder and collaborator. You love forging authentic connections with others, and have a passion for mobilizing people around common goals.
• You are a visionary thinker and stellar project manager. You get fired up by crafting and leading new strategies. When the rubber hits the road, you can translate big-picture ideas into action, and develop tactical plans to achieve ambitious outcomes. You execute work with a high degree of excellence (no dropped balls here!), can easily balance the needs of various stakeholders, and can proactively make tough prioritization decisions if time or resources are limited.
• You are obsessed with efficiency, and fueled by a desire to continuously improve. You thrive in situations when you are charged to build systems to impose order, love to experiment with new approaches, and always strive to ensure that your second time doing something takes less time and effort than your first.
• You love to learn new things, and are adaptable to changing priorities. You embrace flexibility, ingenuity, teamwork, humility, and transparency, and are curious and excited to learn. You are cool and collected under pressure, and are always looking for new ways to meet constantly evolving team and organization needs.
• You are mission-motivated, and passionate about educational equity. You care about helping teachers, and believe that all students should have equal access to educational opportunities.

Skills and Qualifications:

• 2-4 years of full-time work experience
• At least 1-2 years of direct people management/supervision experience
• Ability to work beyond traditional working hours, on a very limited basis. Occasional weekends and evenings may be required.

Hybrid Workplace and Other Details:

This role requires a full-time schedule based in our NYC Midtown office. You can expect a typical schedule of 4 days per week in-office, with flexibility built in based on volunteer program needs.

If your direct report (who manages the day-to-day program logistics) is out, we’d look to you to provide coverage as needed.

Compensation and Benefits

Our compensation philosophy ensures that we are both externally competitive with tech-forward nonprofits of a similar size and internally fair in our pay practices. The following ranges represent the target offer range given the scope and experience expectations for this role.

• The hiring salary range for this role at this level is $75,200 - $83,200

In addition, we offer full-time staff 25 paid vacation days per year and 11 paid holidays, a rich employer-paid individual and family health plan, a matching 401(k) plan (up to 5% of base salary), annual professional development stipend, and casual and flexible work environment. To learn more about what it is like to work for DonorsChoose, visit our careers page.

To Apply:

Please submit your application online, addressing your cover letter to Jennifer Mao, Director of Content & Volunteer Operations.

A Final Note

At DonorsChoose, we hire and support a diverse team of the best and the brightest talent available.

We are an organization increasingly representative of the varied races and ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, religious and political beliefs, and abilities that comprise our nation. DonorsChoose focuses on attracting, retaining, and advancing diverse talent because it makes us more effective, high-performing, creative, and resilient.

If you are passionate about our mission, highly skilled in your field, and looking for a place where you can bring all of yourself to work, we want you.