Executive Director

Executive Director - CrossRoads Corporation; North Carolina; On-site; USD 125,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401(k)

EAP

PTO including eleven paid holidays

Job summary

CrossRoads Corporation in Charlotte seeks an Executive Director to lead a landmark neighborhood nonprofit, translating strategy into action and ensuring sustainable impact in Grier Heights.

The role serves as the main fundraiser, boss of operations, and partner to the Board, staff, residents, and partners, with a strong emphasis on trust, accountability, and community-centered leadership.

Qualifications

• Progressive senior leadership experience in a nonprofit, community development, affordable housing, or similarly complex mission-driven organization.
• Demonstrated fundraising success across a diverse portfolio of major donors, foundations, corporations, faith communities and public funding partners.
• Strong financial and operational management experience, including budgeting, internal controls, staff supervision, performance management, and organizational systems.
• Experience working effectively with a governing Board and engaging Board members in strategy, fundraising, ambassadorship, and oversight.
• Proven ability to translate strategic priorities into measurable goals, work plans, resource decisions, and accountability.
• Excellent written, verbal, and public communication skills, including the ability to articulate a compelling case for support.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the Board to clarify and advance CrossRoads’ identity, future role, and intended impact in Grier Heights.
• Translate the strategic plan into measurable priorities, annual work plans, resource decisions, and accountability systems.
• Define how affordable housing, community development, resident engagement, supportive services, partnerships, and convening fit within a unified strategy.
• Provide steady leadership through transition while maintaining organizational focus, community trust, and staff stability.
• Evaluate new opportunities against mission, capacity, community priorities, and long-term sustainability.
• Serve as CrossRoads’ lead fundraiser and build a comprehensive strategy to diversify revenue beyond institutional grants and housing-related income.
• Cultivate and steward donors and funding partners; develop a compelling case for support.
• Maintain a consistent, visible presence in Grier Heights and develop authentic relationships with residents and leaders.
• Guide CrossRoads’ evolving affordable housing strategy in response to market pressures.
• Provide disciplined oversight of budgeting, cash flow, financial reporting, controls, and risk management.
• Lead, coach, and develop staff, fostering an inclusive, mission-centered workplace.
• Serve as the Board’s chief strategic advisor and ensure governance alignment with the plan.

Skills

Nonprofit leadership

Fundraising

Strategic planning

Board relations

Communication skills

Financial management

Staff development

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant leadership experience

Job description

Career Opportunity CrossRoads Corporation seeks an Executive Director to lead a respected, place-based organization at an important moment of transition and possibility. The next leader will build upon nearly two decades of commitment to Charlotte’s historic Grier Heights neighborhood while helping the Board, staff, residents, and partners translate an emerging strategic direction into focused action, measurable impact, and long-term sustainability. This is an opportunity for a relationship-centered and entrepreneurial leader who can honor CrossRoads’ history while bringing clarity to its future. The Executive Director will serve as the organization’s lead fundraiser, principal ambassador, strategic partner to the Board, and accountable manager of people, finances, partnerships, and operations. Success will require visible community presence, disciplined execution, and a genuine willingness to listen before leading change.

Mission: CrossRoads Corporation is a nonprofit organization that through partnerships honors the history and supports the collective vision ofrejuvenation, economic stability, healthy living, and educational achievement within the Grier Heights community.

Reporting Structure: The Executive Director reports to the Board of Directors and leads a small professional team. The Executive Director works closely with Board leadership and community partners to ensure that strategy, programs, partnerships, fundraising, operations, and organizational culture remain aligned with CrossRoads’ mission.

Organizational Scale: CrossRoads is a small, relationship-driven nonprofit with an annual operating budget of approximately $1.4 million and assets of approximately $2.8 million.

Compensation and Benefits: Starting salary range of $125k to $130k. Competitive benefits package including Health benefits – QSEHRA plan using a reimbursement model; 401(k); EAP and generous PTO including eleven paid holidays. Working Environment/Location: Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a regular onsite and visible presence in Grier Heights.

Key Responsibilities of the Crossroads CEO

Strategic Leadership

• Partner with the Board to clarify and advance CrossRoads’ identity, future role, and intended impact in Grier Heights.
• Translate the strategic plan into measurable priorities, annual work plans, resource decisions, and accountability systems.
• Define how affordable housing, community development, resident engagement, supportive services, partnerships, and convening fit within a unified strategy.
• Provide steady leadership through transition while maintaining organizational focus, community trust, and staff stability.
• Evaluate new opportunities against mission, capacity, community priorities, and long-term sustainability.

Fund Development and External Relations

• Serve as CrossRoads’ lead fundraiser and build a comprehensive strategy to diversify revenue beyond institutional grants and housing-related income.
• Cultivate and steward individual donors, major gift prospects, corporations, foundations, faith communities, and public-sector funding partners.
• Develop a compelling case for support grounded in CrossRoads’ purpose, community relationships, measurable outcomes, and vision for the future.
• Partner with the Board to build a shared culture of philanthropy that includes introductions, cultivation, ambassadorship, and financial support.
• Represent CrossRoads with credibility before residents, donors, civic leaders, public officials, businesses, and community institutions.

Community Engagement and Partnerships

• Maintain a consistent, visible, and approachable presence in Grier Heights and develop authentic relationships with residents and neighborhood leaders.
• Clarify CrossRoads’ role as a convener, catalyst, partner, or ‘community quarterback,’ including what the organization will lead, facilitate, support, or entrust to others.
• Build and manage equitable partnerships in which responsibilities, outcomes, recognition, and accountability are clearly understood.
• Elevate resident voice and lived experience in organizational planning, programming, partnerships, and neighborhood decision-making.
• Communicate transparently and recognize the contributions of residents, churches, nonprofits, and other community partners.

Housing and Community Development

• Guide CrossRoads’ evolving affordable housing strategy in response to rising land values, construction costs, limited property availability, and complex financing.
• Assess opportunities in preservation, home repair, resident support, advocacy, targeted development, and development partnerships.
• Keep affordability, displacement prevention, equity, and the preservation of Grier Heights’ historic identity central to decision-making.

Operations and Finance

• Provide disciplined oversight of budgeting, cash flow, financial reporting, internal controls, compliance, and risk management.
• Strengthen policies, procedures, technology, data systems, constituent relationship management, and performance measurement.
• Establish clear organizational structures, decision rights, staff roles, and accountability practices.
• Use meaningful financial and programmatic metrics to monitor performance and communicate results to the Board and stakeholders.

Staff Leadership and Organizational Culture

• Lead, coach, and develop staff while setting clear expectations and addressing performance concerns in a timely and respectful manner.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, accountable, and mission-centered workplace.
• Clarify roles, improve internal communication, encourage professional development, and build leadership capacity across the team.
• Honor institutional knowledge and community relationships while guiding thoughtful organizational change.

Board Relations and Governance

• Serve as the Board’s chief strategic advisor and provide timely, transparent information needed for sound governance and decision-making.
• Support clear expectations for attendance, committee service, fundraising, ambassadorship, and engagement between meetings.
• Help align board composition, committee structure, meeting agendas, and Executive Director evaluation with the strategic plan.
• Support strategic Board recruitment that balances expertise with authentic Grier Heights representation and lived community experience.
• Develop a constructive Board–Executive Director partnership with appropriate clarity between governance and management.

The Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate will bring the leadership experience, relationship skills, and personal grounding needed to guide a respected community organization through its next chapter.

Required Qualifications

• Progressive senior leadership experience in a nonprofit, community development, affordable housing, or similarly complex mission-driven organization.
• Demonstrated fundraising success across a diverse portfolio of major donors, foundations, corporations, faith communities and public funding partners.
• Strong financial and operational management experience, including budgeting, internal controls, staff supervision, performance management, and organizational systems.
• Experience working effectively with a governing Board and engaging Board members in strategy, fundraising, ambassadorship, and oversight.
• Proven ability to translate strategic priorities into measurable goals, work plans, resource decisions, and accountability.
• Excellent written, verbal, and public communication skills, including the ability to articulate a compelling case for support.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant leadership experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of affordable housing, community development, neighborhood revitalization, or place-based community work.
• Experience leading organizational change and strengthening systems in a small or evolving organization.
• Success developing multi-sector partnerships in which organizations share responsibility for community outcomes.
• Experience evaluating programs and partnerships, clarifying accountability, and communicating measurable impact.
• Success engaging diverse communities and incorporating resident perspectives into organizational decision-making.
• Advanced degree or equivalent depth of executive leadership experience.

Leadership Attributes

• Relationship-oriented, trustworthy, and able to build credibility across a wide range of constituencies.
• Humble, culturally responsive, and willing to learn the history, culture, and lived experience of Grier Heights before pursuing significant change.
• Visible, approachable, and comfortable spending meaningful time in the community.
• Collaborative and generous in sharing ownership, recognition, and credit with residents and partners.
• Strategic and forward-thinking, with the discipline to establish priorities and maintain organizational focus.
• Entrepreneurial, adaptable, and able to identify new partnerships, funding opportunities, and approaches to community impact.
• Transparent, decisive, accountable, and consistent in communication and follow-through.
• Financially disciplined and attentive to operational detail without losing sight of mission and relationships.
• Supportive and empowering as a team leader, while comfortable setting expectations and addressing difficult issues.
• Patient, resilient, and capable of leading through complexity, uncertainty, and competing stakeholder expectations.
• Deeply committed to equity, affordability, resident opportunity, and the long-term well‑being of Grier Heights.

About CrossRoads Corporation

Founded in 2008, CrossRoads Corporation has worked alongside residents and partners to strengthen Grier Heights, one of Charlotte’s most historically significant neighborhoods. Its accomplishments in affordable housing, homeownership, redevelopment, neighborhood stabilization, youth and workforce initiatives, resident support, and community partnership have earned meaningful credibility and goodwill. Today, CrossRoads stands at a pivotal point—not in crisis, but in transition. Strategic planning and executive transition are occurring together so that the organization’s next leader is chosen for the work ahead. CrossRoads has the relationships, community commitment, and organizational foundation to shape a more focused and sustainable future while remaining rooted in Grier Heights.

About City Grier Heights and Charlotte

A Historic Charlotte Neighborhood Grier Heights is a historically Black neighborhood located southeast of Uptown Charlotte. Known for its strong community identity, churches, schools, civic leadership, and generations of resident engagement, the neighborhood holds an important place in Charlotte’s history. It also faces the pressures experienced by many urban communities, including rising property values, development pressure, housing affordability challenges, and displacement risk.

A Region of Growth and Opportunity

Charlotte is one of the Southeast’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas and a major center for banking, healthcare, education, energy, logistics, philanthropy, and the arts. The region offers the resources of a large city alongside distinctive neighborhoods, extensive greenways, professional sports, and access to the mountains and coast.

Why This Work Matters

The next Executive Director will lead at the intersection of neighborhood history, equitable development, housing affordability, resident opportunity, and regional growth. The role offers a rare opportunity to help a trusted organization define its next chapter while strengthening the voice and well‑being of a community with deep roots and enduring leadership.