Policy & External Relationships Director, United Communities SE Philadelphia

Posted by on May 30, 2011

Policy & External Relationships Director, United Communities SE Philadelphia

Posted on: May 20, 2011

The Southeast Philadelphia Collaborative informs, educates and organizes a broad and diverse network of community partners, policymakers and stakeholders to leverage greater access to resources and opportunities that address the needs of youth in Southeast Philadelphia. Working collaboratively under the shared mission of coordinating youth and adult partnerships to provide and promote youth development and leadership opportunities in Southeast Philadelphia, SEPC helps nurture and empower youth to be leaders and positive contributors in the Southeast Philadelphia community. Every day, we work with hundreds of youth and their families in ways that add meaning to their lives, provide them with valuable skills and enrich our neighborhood. Since 1999, we have served as the primary network for a diverse group of community partners, policymakers and stakeholders.

The mission of the Southeast Philadelphia Collaborative is to coordinate youth and adult partnerships in order to provide and promote youth development and leadership opportunities in Southeast Philadelphia.
SEPC develops its programming around five core concepts that contribute to our youth’s development and opportunities for leadership:

Academic, Career and Life Skills Opportunities: To provide training experiences, youth internships, college preparatory assistance, job search skills, academic assistance and thinking concretely about the future.

Arts and Culture: To ensure youth access to the transformative potential of artistic and cultural experiences.

Environmental Justice: To encourage youth to investigate city-wide environmental issues and to learn how to address large-scale problems.

Leadership and Civic Engagement: To promote respect, accountability, critical thinking, initiative and well grounded decision-making in order to work together to identify and address issues of public concern.

Health and Wellness: To advance and promote health and fitness by providing nutritional, health education and fitness opportunities.

The Southeast Philadelphia Collaborative (SEPC) is seeking an individual to be the Policy & External Relationships Director. The Policy & External Relationships Director will work closely with the staff of the lead agency of SEPC, United Communities Southeast Philadelphia and the SEPC Network & Communications Director. This team will be focused on advancing the mission of the collaborative to become the go to entity as it relates to the need of children and youth in Southeast Philadelphia (postal zip codes 19147 and 19148).

Key Responsibilities for the SEPC Policy & External Relationships Director

The key responsibilities for this position include:

• Coordinate all planning of the SEPC governing bodies.
• Engage policy makers to participate with SEPC. This will include funders, public agencies and other city wide initiatives. Serve as the primary manager of SEPC Network external communication.
• Broker new relationships with organizations associated with youth development in the community, policy makers and lead organizations of city wide youth related initiatives. Develop new strategic partnerships to enhance SEPC’s mission and goals.
• Coordinate closely with the Philadelphia School District, the SEPC Education Liaison and others associated with secondary education in Southeast Philadelphia and city wide.
• Engage new strategic external partners and organizations to participate in monthly Community Council meetings.
• Establish and staff ad hoc committees as needed to advance the mission of SEPC.
• Ensure that data related to client demographics and outcomes of programs in the SEPC network are collected and tracked. This information is critical to SEPC’s sustainability efforts. This will include the supervision of the ETO Data Manager (who coordinates SEPC’s use of Efforts to Outcomes software for this purpose).
• Identify potential funders for the network and develop the SEPC Sustainability Plan in partnership with the Network & Communications Director.
• Serve as the lead SEPC staff in fiscal management of the collaborative in conjunction with United Communities fiscal team.
• Complete all reports required for SEPC leadership and funders.
• Coordinate with technical assistance providers who work with SEPC including but not limited to United Way of Southeastern PA Center for Youth Development (to ensure program quality in the network), Branch Associates (conducting evaluation activities on behalf of SEPC’s largest funder, the William Penn Foundation) and the Philadelphia Youth Network (funded for program management of SEPC by the William Penn Foundation).

Qualifications

§ Masters Degree in Human Services preferred
§ Able to build partnership and foster relationships
§ Understand systems approach, systems thinking orientation
§ Ability to implement a vision, move/advance the vision
§ Cultivating internal connections and opportunities, knowledgeable about the groups
§ Understand the neighborhood, local landscape and neighborhood context
§ Cultivating and brokering resource development opportunities
§ Master facilitator, skilled at resolving conflict
§ Understand community organizing
§ Politically savvy
§ Ability to use and operate in different circles of power
§ Youth background, knowledge and experience
§ Comfortable public speaker, good communicator and writer

Send cover letter and resume to maureenkebea@ucsep.org