Regional Engagement Manager

The Organization

Would you like to make a meaningful contribution to Georgia’s students reaching their potential to succeed in school and in life? If so, you may have a future with the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, a dynamic, one-of-a-kind, nonprofit that is working to inform and influence Georgia leaders for the improvement of student achievement.
For over 30 years, The Georgia Partnership has served as the go-to source for high-quality, unbiased information on Georgia’s most critical education issues. In achieving this, we 1) convene business, education, civic and government leaders; 2) utilize and disseminate credible research; and 3) advocate for best policies and practices, with the goal of ensuring all Georgia students succeed throughout the education and workforce pipelines. Our staff strives to live our corporate values of respect, integrity, excellence, and collaboration.

The Position

This small but mighty education policy think tank seeks a Regional Engagement Manager with passion for engaging rural Georgia, building relationships and multisector connections, and supporting an ecosystem of success that leads to strong outcomes for Georgia’s students, families, businesses, and communities. The Georgia Partnership has a long tenure as a high-impact nonprofit, mapping strategies for success for public education in the state from early learning through post-secondary completion. Our philosophy centers on the need for strong education systems to create opportunities for family supporting employment, robust communities, and economic empowerment for all Georgians, especially our most vulnerable and underserved residents. This position focuses on our connectivity and service delivery at the local level across the state, especially rural and non-metro communities. The position will report directly to the President.

Responsibilities

The Regional Engagement Manager will manage the Georgia Partnership’s Regional Initiative priority area. The Regional Initiative body of work is a strategic priority of the Partnership’s overall strategy for informing leaders and improving education across the state of Georgia. The impact and influence of the initiative touches every element of what we do organizationally, with implications across our staff and body of work.
1. Primary responsibilities include:
a. Strengthening our current robust Rural Network by transforming it to a Community of Practice (CoP) Rural Learning Network, including the transition to the COP model as well as development of individual relationships, content curation, quality assurance, providing substantive connections, advice and feedback loops, and scanning the internal and external environment for relevant content for network members.
b. Planning and executing four Regional Summits annually in conjunction with host communities across Georgia.
c. Implementing community-based projects such as asset mapping or birth-to-work community scans as they arise.
2. Secondary responsibilities include:
a. Administering the Partnership’s College Access Grant program to local chambers of commerce to promote business partnerships with local education agencies in support of post-secondary enrollment and completion.
b. Representing the organization with statewide partners where appropriate (events, summits, presentations, etc.) including through attendance, participation, and presentations/public speaking.
c. Connecting with and supporting the work of other staff members and the organization where appropriate.
d. Managing and executing ground-level projects and programs such as events, long term community projects, and presentations across the state.

Qualifications & Qualities

1. Qualifications
a. Demonstrated experience leading a CoP network model.
b. Strong network building and relationship management skills, cultivating relationships with a broad range of stakeholders, showing awareness of subtle, underlying power dynamics in their context, drawing on a variety of strategies to adapt to stakeholders with a variety of needs.
c. Excellent communications skills necessary, including facilitating discussions among diverse perspectives, crafting key messages, and using storytelling techniques to simplify complex topics to a broad and diverse audience, and strong public speaking/ presentation skills to multisector audiences.
d. Excellent research and written communication skills, including the capacity to build project and community reports, support organizational grant writing/reports, and contribute to organizational publications such as the Top Ten Issues to Watch.
e. Cultural Competency: Proficiency working with multicultural, and diverse communities.
f. Successful track record in setting priorities; keen analytic, organization and problem-solving skills which support and enable sound decision-making.
g. Knowledge of and good-faith interest in public education and workforce development policy.
h. The ability to travel state-wide up to approximately 30% of the time.

2. Qualities
a. Commitment to improving society through systemic/ institutional change.
b. Demonstrated passion and enthusiasm for creating a culture that values and is sensitive to diverse academic, socio-economic, ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds.
c. Personal qualities of integrity and credibility.
d. Ability to work independently and be proactive while also collaborative and team oriented.
e. Strong organizational and prioritization skills.
f. Ability to joyfully engage and work effectively in a team environment.
g. Optimistic, relentless and solutions oriented.
h. Sense of humor is a plus!

Compensation based on experience. This is a full-time position based in Atlanta. The Partnership provides family-supporting schedules, remote/hybrid work as appropriate, and a generous benefits package. The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Nothing in the job posting or description should be construed as an offer or guarantee of employment.