Chief Strategy Officer

Democracy Fund; Washington (District of Columbia); Remote; USD 150,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a dynamic Chief Strategy Officer to lead its Engagement Team. This pivotal role involves implementing strategic plans, mentoring leaders, and driving organizational change to enhance equity and belonging. The ideal candidate will possess extensive experience in faith-based advocacy and demonstrate strong leadership skills. Join a mission-driven organization committed to social justice and community empowerment, where your contributions will shape the future of collective action and advocacy.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) retirement plan with match

Paid time off (20 days vacation, 15 sick days)

Professional development stipends

Mobile phone and internet stipends

Qualifications

• 10+ years in faith-based organizing or advocacy.
• 5+ years in senior leadership roles with emotional intelligence.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Engagement Team to implement strategic plans.
• Mentor department leaders and drive organizational change.

Skills

Programmatic Experience

Leadership Skills

Change Management

Strategic Planning

Coalition Building

Job description

Position Title: Chief Strategy Officer

Exempt or Non-Exempt: Exempt

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Location: Remote (Washington, DC area preferred)

Salary Range: $150,000-165,000

About Faith in Public Life/FPL Action: Faith in Public Life (FPL) and Faith in Public Life Action (FPLA), our sister organization, advance the moral imperative for a just, inclusive, and equitable country that allows each of us to live into our full humanity and advocate for policies that protect and advance our sacred human rights. Our coalition of influential faith leaders – who reflect the diversity of the nation – collectively discern, set faith-forward strategy, and take transformative action. The coalition fills an important gap in the social justice ecosystem, providing coordinated strategic interventions that complement grassroots organizing and legal advocacy towards shared goals. By building cultures of belonging, leveraging the collective power of our multi-faith and multi-racial coalition, and advocating for policies that protect the full humanity of each of us, our strategy hub leads us closer to realizing a healthy and equitable democracy.

Position Description

Faith in Public Life (FPL) is seeking a dynamic, dedicated, and nimble Chief Strategy Officer for its senior leadership team. The ideal candidate is shrewd and able to apply their range of experience to the current shifting and unpredictable political and social environment. They are willing to take risks and are able to quickly see patterns and opportunities for collaboration and coordinated actions.

The CSO understands societal power dynamics and is excited about building and wielding collective power among highly influential leaders towards equity and belonging. They fully grasp the scope and potential of FPL’s strategy, and they are passionate about building our capacity and effectiveness to execute it.

This individual will be an effective manager and empowering leader of teams who thrives in an environment where mission-driven work is key. They will relish the opportunity to mentor and guide leaders of different departments to greater success. They will also have the ability to not only keep an eye on the vision of the organization, but also have a direct role in designing the work that executes the vision.

FPL welcomes and embraces people of all faith backgrounds and is actively committed to representing a diversity of beliefs both internally and externally with its partners and peer organizations.

The CSO leads the Engagement Team, comprising staff from communications, organizing, policy and fundraising. They create alignment and cohesion across departments and ensure their activities successfully bring the CEO’s strategic vision to fruition.This includes translating the strategy for people across functions, driving organizational change in forging new working relationships and synergies across the organization, and establishing systems that lead to greater transparency and accountability for all who are carrying out the company’s programmatic and fundraising strategies.

The CSO also serves on the Senior Leadership Team with the COO and CEO. They, along with the COO, function as thought partners to the CEO, providing timely, strategic, creative and honest advice and feedback to her. They work with her to develop the best courses of action to execute her vision for the organization and champion her decisions to the staff and external stakeholders.

Faith in Public Life (FPL) and Faith in Public Life Action (FPLAF), our sister organization, are national faith-based organizations that resource, train, and empower multi-faith leaders across the country to promote the moral imperative for a just and equitable society. Since its founding in 2006, FPL has engaged faith leaders as trusted messengers to shore up our democracy, acting as peacekeepers during elections, providing accurate information to voters, and advocating for free and fair elections at the state and national level. With communications expertise, FPL also equips faith leaders to shape public discourse with faith and values-based messaging to impact narratives around critical social issues by amplifying shared values of equity and inclusion that promote the dignity of all people.We envision a country in which each person experiences a spiritual connection to one another and a sense of belonging to community, living in confidence that our human rights are held sacred, allowing each person to thrive.

FPL/A has undergone numerous transitions across all levels of the organization within the last 5 years. While we are growing into our new strategy, this rate of change has challenged Faith in Public Life’s efforts to expand our impact and effectiveness. FPL/A is committed to investing in building its infrastructure, systems, and human capacity to ensure the organization can carry out its strategic priorities, live into its commitment to equity, and develop and nurture a talented team while being responsive and impactful. The CSO is a key leader to help accomplish these goals.

Job Responsibilities

Lead the Engagement Team in the implementation of the strategic plan. (50%)

• Work closely with the CEO to ensure high-level impact, long-term strategy, and organizational effectiveness.
• Translate the programmatic strategy for people across functions and departments.
• Guide implementation of our programmatic strategies towards alignment while resolving any conflict that arises
• Working closely with the Operations team, support Engagement Team leaders in drafting and monitoring annual budgets and goals
• Ensure that FPL’s DEIA commitment and organizational values are consistently applied across all programming
• Develop and refine tactics and activities with members of the engagement team to advance programmatic goals.

Provide mentorship and supervision to the Engagement Team’s department leaders.

• Supervise and mentor department leads to aid them in the day-to-day management and facilitation of cross departmental strategy
• Support department leads in managing their direct reports in line with the approved FPL organizational chart

• Support the Engagement Team in understanding and adopting organizational changes

Drive organizational change in forging new ways of working across our engagement strategy.

• Refine and implement our systems to establish, review and evaluate organizational programs, ensuring the process is collaborative and transparent.
• In close partnership with the Operations team, establish systems that lead to greater transparency and accountability for all who are carrying out FPL’s programmatic strategy.

Serve as a member of the SLT

• Attend regular meetings of the SLT and advise the CEO in matters of programming, staffing, and external affairs.
• Model and incorporate organizational values, policies and culture within the Engagement Team
• Prepare reports and materials regarding FPL programming and participate in meetings of the Boards of Directors

Other duties as assigned.

Job Qualifications

Candidates from all sectors and professional backgrounds will be considered, however, demonstrated competence in the following areas are the foundation for success in this position:

• Experience:
  You have 10+ years of programmatic experience in faith-based organizing or advocacy movements. You have managed teams, built systems, and garnered support for your work with peer organizations. Additionally, you have managed and built faith-based coalitions.
• Senior Leadership Experience: You have 5+ years experience serving on a Senior Leadership Team, reporting directly to the CEO/ED. You have demonstrated qualities of emotional intelligence in the workplace, including sound decision making, accurate self-perception, healthy self-expression, interpersonal-skills and stress management skills.
• Change Management: You have experience successfully leading major organizational change, including planning and communicating effectively with a range of relevant stakeholders.
• Program and Campaign Design: You have 5+ years of experience designing and building programs and/or campaigns that engage clergy and/or other senior faith leaders in building power and executing shared goals. You have managed staff and other stakeholders to successfully implement the plans you created.
• Shaping movement ecosystems: You have successfully influenced partner coalitions or networks’ direction, shaping the group's decisions and direction to include your organization’s interests.
• Deep commitment to FPL/A values, mission and theory of change.

Approach to the Job:

1. Coaching and modeling:
   You make it your mission to develop others. You delegate skillfully and take the time to offer useful and actionable feedback. Because you lead by example (with our values as your north star), you inspire and motivate others to take action and meet goals. You hold the team accountable in ways that grow the people and our impact, and you make sure people feel appreciated.
2. Strategist’s mind:
   You quickly grasp the subtleties of complex issues and identify patterns in challenges. You don’t stop at diagnosing problems, though; you come up with insightful, pragmatic, equitable, and sustainable ways to produce positive change without much guidance. You maintain an optimistic outlook and always look for ways to make ideas work before assuming they won’t.
3. Ownership and resilience:
   You care deeply about getting results. You gather information, seek input, and drive work forward to the finish line. You think 3 (or 30) steps ahead to develop solutions, anticipate problems, and course-correct when needed. You hold a high bar even when things are hectic and bounce back from setbacks by turning each hurdle into a learning opportunity. You firmly believe that we can all do things we’ve never done before, and can stretch ourselves to achieve incredible results.
4. High volume, high efficiency: We’re pretty busy here, and your job is to make it easy for our team members to do their jobs. You maintain systems for keeping tasks from slipping through the cracks. You’re able to juggle competing demands and prioritize without sacrificing quality. You get back to people in a timely manner and take pride in providing clear, helpful information. When mistakes happen (which they will!), you address them quickly and look for ways to prevent similar errors.
5. Cultivating belonging.
   Our external work is grounded in the collective power of our belonging in community with one another. You effectively apply this lens to your work. You build and reinforce belonging internally among the staff. You find and create opportunities to deepen connections and mutual relationships. You explicitly demonstrate respect and affirm the diversity of faiths, identities and viewpoints of the staff to help cultivate an authentic, safe work space and culture.

Compensation and Benefits

Faith in Public Life offers a generous and comprehensive benefits package to support the health and well-being of our team. We provide full premium coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life insurance and an FSA/DCA savings plan. Our 401(k) retirement benefit includes a dollar-for-dollar match of up to 3% of an employee's contribution. Employees also receive stipends to offset work-related mobile phone and internet expenses, and professional development opportunities are supported with available stipends. Our paid time off benefits include 4 weeks (20 days) of vacation, 15 paid sick days per year, 13 paid holidays, and additional paid time off during our annual office closure between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.

Equal Opportunity Statement:

Faith in Public Life is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace. We intentionally seek to build a diverse candidate pool with regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on these or any other characteristics protected by federal, state, or local laws. Employment decisions are made based on qualifications, merit, and organizational need.

To Apply:

Please apply at https://faithinpubliclife.bamboohr.com/careers/36.