Position: Community Manager
Reports to: Director Community Management
Member of: Investment Team
Job Summary
The Community Manager has primary responsibility for ensuring we achieve exemplary student and volunteer outcomes by providing coaching, support and training to members of our Thread community, with a particular focus on the volunteer leaders who are their direct reports, called GrandParents (GPs). Community Managers support up to twelve GrandParents who are responsible for coaching volunteer Heads of Family, and Heads of Family are responsible for coaching volunteers called Thread Family Members. This coaching model best supports our Thread students and volunteers alike when all individuals are well coordinated, engaged and working together through the Thread Community Model. Community Managers oversee the effective and consistent implementation of this Model for a subset of Thread volunteers and students.
In addition to coaching GrandParents, Community Managers are responsible for cohorts of Thread participants that may include high school students at one of four partner high schools; high school students that have transferred to other schools in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, or beyond; post high school students pursuing academic study or career and technical training; and out of school youth (ages 14-24) pursuing alternative paths to high school diploma, seeking employment, planning careers, or exploring entrepreneurship.
The Community Manager works with up to twelve GrandParents who are a part of a network of up to 300 volunteers from the Baltimore area, who provide academic, professional and social support to as many as 96 Thread students. Depending on the cohorts assigned, the Community Manager may also spend time at a designated high school site.
The Community Manager guides the translation of Thread’s mission, vision, and values at the school site; actively develops volunteer leadership; liaises with principals, administrators and teachers; and ensures that students, volunteers and collaborators have the tools and supports that they need to thrive.
Key Responsibilities Relationship Building
● Facilitate connections between volunteers and students by coaching and working through volunteer GrandParents
● Develop and grow relationships with Principal, Administrators and Teachers at partner school
● Build positive, long-term relationships with Thread volunteers, resource teams, collaborators, staff and students
Volunteer Engagement
● Develop and retain high-performing GrandParents and support Thread Family volunteer and student outputs that contribute to our larger organizational outcomes, including high school graduation, post secondary degree and/or certification completion, student employment and student and volunteer retention. Examples of programming outputs include:
○ Attendance at Thread events such as tutoring sessions, professional development workshops and summer camp
○ Consistent logged interactions between students and volunteers that occur both inside and outside of Thread programming events, called TouchPoints
● Communicate, deploy and work through the Thread Community Model
● Prepare for and execute monthly ThreadTALKS, which are informational sessions for all of the volunteers serving at a particular school site
● In partnership with the [Engagement Team], recruit, train and retain volunteer leadership—Heads of Family (HOFs) and GPs
● Conduct monthly meetings with GPs and arm them with the tools they need to best serve their Thread Families
● Assist GPs and HOFs in working collaboratively with Thread Family members to identify individual needs of students/families and provide targeted interventions through daily after school tutoring session, SAT preparatory sessions, college planning activities, community service activities, special social events, and summer internships, etc.
● Assist GPs and HOFs in connecting with and securing Thread and external resources to support family efforts
● Work with GPs and HOFs to re-engage volunteers who are not meeting participation expectations
Performance and Program Management
● Track, analyze, report on, and present metrics and results
● Continually monitor metrics and outcomes and adjust implementation in order to improve performance
● Manage assessment rubrics for volunteer leaders and coordinate with staff on the collection and assimilation of volunteer metrics
● Gather site operating data
● Identify site program areas to target for improvement
● Set standards for accountability and measurements of success for volunteers
● Reinforce critical operating protocols and ensure proper implementation
● Ensure all site operations are aligned with Thread’s vision, mission and goals
● Manage site budget
● Provide critical input to the development of Programs and Services and support the development and maintenance of program infrastructure to meet the needs of the organization.
● Translate the Thread culture to the site to encompass the core competencies of the program: failing successfully, inclusive decision making, rethinking wealth, and never giving up
● Provide effective and inspiring leadership, ensuring effective communication between Thread Families, Programs and Services
● Provide feedback of successes/challenges to volunteers to better engage them in improving student outcomes
Qualifications/Skills
▪ Bachelor’s Degree required
▪ At least one year of relevant work experience working with opportunity youth and
families preferred
▪ Able to act adeptly as an entrepreneur, organizer and facilitator
▪ Ability to drive action by working through and with a number of individuals and groups
▪ Exceptional leadership and coaching abilities
▪ Excellent communication skills
▪ Passion for working with volunteers , youth and their families
▪ Experience building positive relationships with volunteers, community partners, parents, or teachers from a wide variety of backgrounds
▪ Demonstrated ability to work in complex environment and manage multiple processes and tasks simultaneously
▪ Proficiencies with technology (e.g. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint; Google Docs, Sheets, Drive; databases) and willingness to adapt to new technologies; Salesforce experience a plus
▪ Innovative and resourceful with respect to problem solving
▪ Experience with tracking, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data sets
▪ Strong candidates would possess the following attributes: entrepreneurial spirit; positive attitude, self-motivation, ability to problem solve, humility and willingness to encourage critical feedback from volunteers, team members, students and partners; interest in improving success of program
▪ Willingness to work unusual hours to accommodate for the demands of the position (candidates must also be willing to conduct evening meetings at least twice per week)
▪ Ability to make minimum two-year commitment to the position
▪ And perhaps most importantly, a true and genuine willingness to open oneself to others and build deep, meaningful, non-transactional relationships. Thread believes that empathetic and enduring relationships are our society’s most essential form of wealth. Cultivating relationships that transcend racial and socioeconomic barriers – and creatively building an unconventional family and community not defined by DNA and address – will enable us to overcome the poverty of isolation and, in its place, establish a wealth of human connection permanently linked by unconditional love and support. Site Coordinators build the type of relationships they want others to experience. The success of our model absolutely depends on it.
To Apply: Interested Applicants should email resume & cover letter to placeforpurpose@baltimorecorps.org with “Thread Community Manager” in the subject line.
More About Thread
Our Mission
Thread engages underperforming high school students confronting significant barriers outside of the classroom by providing each one with a family of committed volunteers and increased access to community resources. We foster students’ academic advancement and personal growth into self-motivated, resilient, and responsible citizens.
Our Why
The Thread Community Model brings together a broad cross-section of our city by forming authentic, mutual, and enduring relationships and in turn provides a vehicle for sustained change. Thread believes that the power of relationships—the dynamic web of interconnectedness created when futures are woven together—can end the poverty of isolation and allow both youth and Baltimore to realize their full potential.
Thread is weaving a new social fabric where everyone thrives and which is expanding to connect with even more students, volunteers, and collaborators. Thread currently serves 303 students and alumni with the support of over 800 volunteers and over 175 collaborators. We plan to continue to increase our annual and total enrollments until we meet our long-term
goal of engaging 300 new students each year (5% of every high school freshman class across Baltimore City). This expansion and evolution requires that Thread be nimble and innovative, and leverage identified opportunities in a way that is congruent with our values and core competencies.
Our How
Team members at Thread are hard- and smart-working, collaborative, curious, passionate, gritty, strategic and resilient. We meet people where they are. We go all in with care, compassion, and empathy. We believe small acts make a big difference. We trust each other to be sincere, reliable and competent. The outcomes Thread has achieved are exemplary. However, the road to excellence is peppered with iterative learning. We make mistakes often and fail frequently, but we learn from our mistakes and continue to tenaciously try and try again. We are about building communities of responsibility and have high expectations of students, volunteers, collaborators, and staff. We believe that each human being has a purpose in life and have found that individuals living on purpose have discovered the intersection of their skills, passion, and what the world needs. The journey to find this intersection, one’s dot, is often simultaneously exhilarating and difficult. Thread creates a safe and challenging space for all individuals in our community—students, volunteers, collaborators, and staff— to find their dot through deep reflection, honest feedback, and in-depth coaching.
