Program Coordinator, Impact Lab

Urban Land Institute; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 47,000 - 58,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and life insurance

Generous vacation leave

Retirement plan with employer match

Job summary

Urban Land Institute, headquartered in Washington, DC, seeks a program coordinator to support awards, conferences, and Lab convenings. You will backfill across centers, coordinating jury visits, bios, headshots, and celebratory materials with the Awards and Meetings teams.

You will help plan and load speakers, manage event pages, and assist with communications, reporting to the Vice President of Housing. A UI-focus and willingness to develop across programs is essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and roughly a year of professional experience.
• Comfort operating in a professional office environment.
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects and shifting priorities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Awards Program Support: manage awards portfolio, coordinate jury visits, build finalist/winner pages.
• Housing Conference & Event Support: plan logistics, confirm speakers, maintain event websites.
• Cross-Lab Events & Convenings: extend playbook, manage event websites, assist on-site logistics.
• Terwilliger Center & Communications: update websites and newsletters, support publications.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: partner with other teams, take on additional duties as needed.
• Travel: limited travel for select convenings and on-site support.

Skills

Strong organizational skills

Juggle multiple projects

MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Clear written and verbal communication

Collaborative, low-ego team player

Willingness to learn WordPress/CRM

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

WordPress

CRM/AMS familiarity

Job description

About ULI

The Urban Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and education organization supported by its members. Founded in 1936, the Institute has more than 48,000 members worldwide representing the full spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines across private enterprise and public service. ULI's mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.

About ULI

The Urban Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and education organization supported by its members. Founded in 1936, the Institute has more than 48,000 members worldwide representing the full spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines across private enterprise and public service. ULI's mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.

About The Team

The ULI Impact Lab is the philanthropically funded, systems-change engine of ULI. It aligns and amplifies ULI's flagship centers and initiatives: the Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate, the Terwilliger Center for Housing, and ULI's Initiative on Real Estate Economics and Capital Markets. The Lab also houses ULI's Advisory Services and Technical Assistance work and UrbanPlan, bringing multidisciplinary market expertise, stakeholder engagement, and implementable recommendations to communities across the country. Together, these programs share one goal: moving real estate markets toward decarbonization, resilience, health, and housing affordability at scale.

The Impact Lab is organizing more functionally than it has in the past, with staff increasingly working across centers rather than inside a single silo. This role sits right at that shift as a program coordination role that supports awards, conferences, and convenings across the full Lab.

The Role

This is a backfill position supporting the Terwilliger Center for Housing and, increasingly, the wider Impact Lab. The person in this seat will report to the Vice President, Terwilliger Center for Housing, and will work closely with the Lab's awards, housing conference, and events leads day to day.

Most of the job is dependable, detail-oriented program support: a jury site-visit receipt logged correctly, a finalist web page built on time, a speaker's bio and headshot uploaded before a deadline, a plaque ordered before the ceremony. This role is for someone who takes pride in that kind of follow-through and is energized by learning a little bit of everything rather than specializing narrowly.

There is a real growth path here. As the Impact Lab organizes functionally, this role now touches programs across the Lab rather than being boxed into a single center's budget and calendar, which means more variety across the year and more directions to grow into over time, whether that is deeper events work, communications, or hands-on community and technical assistance work as the Lab's grant-funded programs expand.

What You Will Do

Awards Program Support

• Support the Impact Lab's awards portfolio, including the Housing Opportunity Awards, the Awards for Excellence, the ULI Prize, and the Hines Student Competition.
• Coordinate jury site visits and process related receipts and expenses.
• Build and maintain web pages profiling award finalists and winners.
• Coordinate with the Marketing team on winner announcements and press releases, and manage recognition logistics such as ordering plaques.

Housing Conference & Event Support

• Support planning and logistics for ULI's annual Housing Opportunity Conference, working closely with the program committee to confirm speakers and gather bios and headshots.
• Keep event websites current and accurate ahead of each convening.
• Partner with ULI's Meetings team on on-site needs such as AV and catering for individual sessions.
• Support event marketing, registration, and online presence in collaboration with the Marketing, Convenings, and Strategic Communications team, primarily by gathering and feeding them the content they need.

Cross-Lab Events & Convenings

• Extend the same playbook to other Impact Lab convenings, including the Lewis Center Forum and Resilience Summit, and additional forums and symposia as the Lab's calendar develops.
• Own the event website back end (WordPress/NetFORUM) across these convenings, getting speakers loaded and confirmed quickly.
• Coordinate panel prep calls and presentation slides as events approach.
• Provide on-site support at select events, roughly three trips a year: the Housing Conference, one ULI Spring or Fall Meeting, and an occasional additional convening.

Terwilliger Center & Communications

• Manage and update the Terwilliger Center for Housing website and monthly newsletter.
• Coordinate with other ULI teams on Terwilliger Center publications, including editorial, design, and distribution.
• Support coordination of National Advisory Board meetings and the Center's relationships with members and content partners.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with other Impact Lab program areas, including decarbonization, resilience, and health, as opportunities arise to support work beyond housing.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required

What We're Looking For

• A bachelor's degree and roughly a year of professional experience, whether a first job or a substantive internship. We are looking for someone comfortable operating in a professional office environment.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to juggle several projects and shifting priorities at once.
• Comfort learning new systems quickly. No prior experience with WordPress or a CRM/AMS platform is required, just a willingness to pick it up.
• Clear, professional written and verbal communication.
• A collaborative, low-ego approach: someone who works well across teams, takes feedback well, and is glad to pitch in wherever needed.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Preferred

• General interest in housing policy, urban planning, or real estate and community development. Curiosity matters more than prior sector knowledge.
• Experience in a nonprofit, membership, or association environment.
• Familiarity with WordPress or a similar content management system.
• An interest in developing stronger writing skills over time. This role does not require polished writing on day one, but candidates who want to grow into drafting post-event recaps and articles will find real opportunities to do so.

What Success Looks Like

In your first months, you will learn how the Impact Lab's awards, conferences, and events work by sitting alongside the team, meeting the people you will support most, and experiencing the Housing Opportunity Conference up close. By the end of year one, you are the reliable hand behind the details: receipts are logged, finalist and winner pages go up on time, speakers are confirmed and their materials are ready before anyone has to ask twice. As you build confidence, you take on more, whether that is a first byline on a post-event recap, more ownership of a convening's website, or a bigger role supporting the Lab's growing technical assistance work.

Travel

Travel is limited and predictable: the two-day Housing Opportunity Conference each February or March, which moves to a different city each year (this year in Denver, February 23 to 24), one ULI Spring or Fall Meeting, and, occasionally, one additional convening. Most of the role's work happens from ULI's Washington, D.C. office.

Compensation And Benefits

The salary range for this position is $47,272 to $58,000. Actual compensation will be based on experience, education, skills, and other job-related factors.

ULI offers a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and life insurance, generous vacation leave, and a retirement plan with employer match.

Working Conditions

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is committed to shaping the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide, and we embrace our core values of integrity, collaboration, inclusion, and excellence in service to our members. In alignment with the Board of Directors' strong commitment to in-person collaboration, our roles require regular on-site presence to foster teamwork, innovation, and organizational effectiveness. ULI's primary workplace remains its offices, where in-person collaboration supports our mission and service to members.

ULI is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion/creed, sex, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran or active military status, non-citizenship or citizenship status, arrest or conviction record, credit history, caregiver status, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or partnership status, familial status, unemployment status, or any other status protected by applicable law.