Executive Director

Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project

Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project (“Voz”) is a worker-led organization that empowers diverse day laborers and immigrants to improve their working conditions and protect civil rights through leadership development, organizing, education and economic opportunity.

Voz is based in Portland, Oregon and has an annual operating budget of $600,000 and 9 staff members.

Executive Director

Voz seeks a passionate, mindful, and committed social justice advocate with a strong background in organizational leadership to serve as its Executive Director (ED). The ED will lead a dedicated team of organizers and workers’ rights advocates to realize a vision of a worker led movement that protects worker rights and fully engages day laborers as leaders in our community. 

The ED will also work alongside the MLK Jr. Worker Center Director to support operations and supervision at the MLK Jr. Worker Center, where day laborers organize, seek work with fair wages, and build leadership and workplace skills.

In 2019, Voz will be engaging in a strategic planning process to set our goals for immigrant and workers' rights advocacy priorities, implement a regional workforce development strategy, improve our mechanisms for empowering day laborer leaders in the organization and in the community, and build a permanent home for day laborers in Portland. This is an opportunity to lead a unique, worker-led organization through an exciting period of growth.

The Opportunity

Reporting to the Board of Directors, the ED will have overall strategic and operational responsibility for Voz's staff, programs, expansion, and execution of its mission.

The ED exemplifies thoughtful leadership and management acumen that will develop a deep knowledge of field, programs, operations, and the organization’s strategic plan by working collaboratively within the organization, as well as with our partners and coalitions.

The ED will lead Voz as it transitions leadership from its founding director. The ED will employ their skills in change management, and team building to help create a vision for the future that establishes Voz as a community hub and sanctuary.

The ED’s skills in relationship building, fundraising, equity and inclusion, policy advocacy, financial management will increase sustainable impact at Voz. The ED will receive support from Voz’s interim executive director to help set the foundation for the transition.

Responsibilities Leadership & Management:

• Ensure ongoing programmatic excellence, rigorous program evaluation, and consistent quality of finance and administration, fundraising, communications, and systems; recommend timelines and resources needed to achieve the strategic goals.
• Actively engage and energize Voz day laborers, volunteers, board members, event committees, alumni, partnering organizations, and funders.
• Develop, maintain, and support a strong Board of Directors; serve as ex-officio of each committee; seek and build board involvement with strategic direction for ongoing operations.
• Lead, coach, develop, supervise and retain Voz's high-performance management team of 3 program directors.
• Ensure effective systems to track scaling progress, and regularly evaluate program components, so as to measure successes that can be effectively communicated to the board, funders, and other constituents.

Fundraising & Communications:

• Expand local revenue generating and fundraising activities to support existing program operations and a capital campaign.
• Maintain fiscal stability and sustainability.
• Deepen and refine all aspects of communications—serving as a spokesperson and representative of Voz’s mission in the community and in the media with the goal of creating a stronger brand.
• Use external presence and relationships to garner new opportunities.

Planning & Growth:

• Lead a strategic planning process
• Strengthen current partnership and determine new strategic partnerships, establishing relationships with the funders, and political and community leaders.
• Be an external local presence that publishes and communicates program results with an emphasis on the successes of the local program as a model for regional and national replication.

Qualifications

The ED will be thoroughly committed to Voz's mission, with an understanding of the role of grassroots community organizing in social change and movement building. All candidates should have proven leadership, coaching, and relationship management experience.

Specific requirements include:

• Demonstrated experience working in worker and/or immigrant justice, a deep understanding of issues affecting day laborers
• Three or more years of senior management experience; track record of effectively leading an outcomes-based organization and staff; ability to point to specific examples of having developed and operationalized strategies that have taken an organization to the next stage of growth
• Three years of financial management experience
• Fully bilingual in English and Spanish
• Excellence in organizational management with the ability to coach staff, manage, and develop high-performance teams, set and achieve strategic objectives, and manage a budget
• Past success working with a Board of Directors with the ability to cultivate existing board member relationships
• Demonstrated experience working with communitymembers, funders, partner organizations, staff, city and state government
• Courageous and proactive leadership, ability to adapt to a dynamic work environment and create a culture of wellness and care
• Strong marketing, public relations, and fundraising experience with the ability to engage a wide range of stakeholders and cultures in English and Spanish
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; a persuasive and passionate communicator with excellent interpersonal and multidisciplinary project skills
• Action-oriented, entrepreneurial, adaptable, and innovative approach to business planning
• Ability to work effectively in collaboration with diverse groups of people
• Passion, approachability, idealism, integrity, positive attitude, mission-driven, and self-directed
• Ability to travel as needed for meetings, conferences and events

How to submit an application:

Please send a cover letter and chronological resume to hiringcommittee@portlandvoz.org. In your cover letter please answer these two questions, supplying answers not more than 1 paragraph.

As an Executive Director, you will be both a leader and a manager. How do you see these roles intersecting?

Voz is driven by the principle and vision that our organization can be worker-led. How do you see your role as an organizational leader in this context?

**This position will remain open until filled.**