Director, Housing and Resilience Programs

ImpactAlpha; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement plan

Generous vacation leave

On-site presence in DC office

Job summary

Urban Land Institute (ULI) is seeking a senior leader for the Impact Lab to direct two flagship programs focused on housing production and climate resilience. You will oversee day-to-day operations, budgets, and strategic partnerships with institutional funders, coordinating across regional collaborators to deliver actionable outcomes.

You will manage work plans, milestones, and stakeholder convenings, translating technical insights into scalable actions for state agencies, municipalities, and

Qualifications

• Solid grounding in housing policy, finance, or program delivery.
• 8+ years in progressively responsible roles, with program implementation experience.
• Experience managing large, multi-year grants or programs with budgets and deliverables.
• Strong organizational and facilitation skills for complex stakeholder meetings.
• Experience with institutional, corporate, or philanthropic funders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for practitioners and funders.
• Bachelor's degree in related field or equivalent experience.
• Preferred exposure to climate resilience, sustainability, or insurance in housing.
• Preferred familiarity with affordable housing finance tools and HUD TA programs.

Responsibilities

• Own work plans, timelines, and multi-market coordination for the programs.
• Track progress against grant milestones and deliverables; flag risks and adjust.
• Manage each grant's budget within approved terms.
• Serve as primary contact for funders' program staff; handle reporting.
• Prepare funder progress reports reflecting goals, outcomes, and metrics.
• Provide hands-on technical assistance to state agencies and municipalities.
• Coordinate three workstreams with partners and market engagements.
• Coordinate a bench of senior technical providers to deploy expertise.
• Collaborate with ULI teams and update Impact Lab leadership.

Skills

Policy analysis

Grant management

Budget management

Multi-stakeholder facilitation

Funder reporting

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's in public policy / urban planning

Master's degree preferred

Job description

About Urban Land Institute

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and education organization founded in 1936 that has grown to represent more than 48,000 members worldwide. The organization represents the full spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines across both private enterprise and public service sectors. ULI’s core mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide, guided by its values of integrity, collaboration, inclusion, and excellence. The ULI Impact Lab serves as the philanthropically funded, systems-change arm of the Institute. The Lab works to transform the built environment by creating places that are affordable, healthy, sustainable, and resilient. It accomplishes this by activating ULI’s extensive member expertise, leveraging its trusted nonpartisan voice, building strategic partnerships, and utilizing the Lab’s own insights to shape market outcomes. The Impact Lab’s Market Transformation team focuses on addressing critical challenges in housing production and climate resilience, managing significant grant-funded initiatives that address two of America’s most pressing needs: increasing housing supply and ensuring that new housing construction is resilient to climate change impacts. ULI is headquartered in Washington, DC and maintains a strong commitment to in-person collaboration and teamwork. The organization is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, committed to considering all qualified applicants without regard to protected characteristics including race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other legally protected statuses.

About this Role

This role positions you at the center of two critical challenges facing America: the need for increased housing production and the necessity of building climate resilience into new housing construction. You will direct two of the ULI Impact Lab’s flagship funded programs representing more than $2 million in grant-funded work, serving as the day-to-day operational leader and strategic partner to high-profile institutional funders. The Northeast Offsite Construction Collaborative works with a consortium of Northeast states in partnership with the Center for Public Enterprise to standardize the processes and costs of offsite construction methodologies, creating pathways to expand housing production across the region. Resilience+ is a two-year, three-market initiative designed to test and refine new protocols for integrating climate resilience, sustainability, and insurability into both the production and preservation of affordable multifamily housing. In this role, you will function as a bridge between technical experts, state and municipal agencies, developers, insurers, funders, and housing organizations. While ULI provides senior fellows, in-house resilience experts, and a bench of specialized consultants to support these programs, your responsibility is to ensure that this expertise translates into actionable outcomes. You will own work plans and budgets, facilitate complex multi-stakeholder convenings, and transform recommendations into sequenced action plans that agencies and housing organizations can successfully implement. Your success will be measured by on-time delivery of milestones, funder satisfaction and trust, and the concrete advancement of housing production and climate resilience initiatives across target markets.

Responsibilities

• Own the work plans, timelines, and multi-market coordination for both the Northeast Offsite Construction Collaborative and Resilience+ programs
• Track progress against each grant’s milestones and deliverables, including convenings, implementation briefs, diagnostics, and case studies, flagging risks early and coordinating course corrections
• Manage each grant’s budget holistically, keeping spending within approved budgets and aligned with grant terms
• Serve as day-to-day contact for the funders’ program staff, including market selection, quarterly check-ins, and progress reporting
• Prepare funder reporting that reflects accurate progress against each grant’s goals, outcomes, and metrics
• Provide hands-on technical assistance to state agencies working to expand offsite construction and to municipalities and housing organizations advancing housing resilience
• Coordinate the Collaborative’s three workstreams (policy, single-family, multifamily) in partnership with the Center for Public Enterprise and Resilience+ market engagements and owner cohorts
• Coordinate a bench of senior technical assistance providers, consultants, and subject-matter experts to ensure the right expertise is deployed at the right time
• Work across ULI teams, including the Foundation, Corporate Partners, and Marketing, and support periodic updates to Impact Lab leadership

Requirements

• A solid grounding in housing through policy, finance, or program delivery, with credibility to work directly with state and city agencies
• At least 8 years of progressively responsible experience, including helping a state, city, or community design and implement a program, ideally in housing or resilience
• Demonstrated success managing large, multi-year, multi-stakeholder grants or programs, including budgets, deadlines, and funder deliverables
• Exceptional organization and facilitation skills with proven ability to run complex multi-stakeholder meetings and keep sprawling projects on schedule
• Experience working with or reporting to institutional, corporate, or philanthropic funders
• Clear written and spoken communication skills for both practitioner and funder audiences
• Bachelor’s degree in public policy, public administration, urban planning, real estate, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Exposure to climate resilience, sustainability, or insurance as applied to housing (preferred)
• Familiarity with affordable housing finance tools such as Low Income Housing Tax Credits (preferred)
• Experience with HUD technical assistance or similar federal, state, or philanthropic technical assistance programs (preferred)
• A Master’s degree in a related field (preferred)
• Association, membership organization, or nonprofit experience (preferred)

Benefits

• Health, dental, and life insurance coverage
• Generous vacation leave
• Retirement plan with employer match
• Opportunity to work on high-impact initiatives addressing critical housing and climate resilience challenges
• Collaboration with senior fellows, in-house experts, and specialized consultants
• Access to ULI’s extensive network of 48,000+ members across land use and real estate development sectors
• Regular on-site presence in Washington, DC office supporting teamwork and innovation