Reports To: Director of Resource Development
Work Days and Hours: Full-Time-Exempt, 40 hours a week
Work Location: Hybrid/Onsite
Compensation: $80,000 - $110,000
Location: Virtual & Remote with limited travel
Reports to: Executive Director and Director of Development and Communications
Status: Exempt (not eligible for overtime) This position may require 40+ hours per week which entitles the employee to be eligible for medical, dental, vision, retirement, and vacation benefits; as well as standard life, disability, and AD&D insurance from New Venture Fund and others offered within the CJSF culture.
About CJSF
Communities for Just Schools Fund (CJSF) is a national collaborative of community organizers and funders working to advance education justice. We believe in the inherent brilliance of young people, and in their right to a free, holistically safe, and equitable public education. Our work aims to achieve 2 goals- to increase the holistic safety of youth in schools and communities, and to increase the self-determination and governing power of youth, caregivers and educators. Our grassroots organizing partners, donors, and allies are building schools and communities that promote the holistic safety and well-being of all youth — irrespective of their race, gender, and sexuality, ability, documentation status, or zip code. By linking philanthropy with the power of grassroots organizing field, our organization supports 65+ Black-, People of Color, and multi-racial organizations across 17+ states, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. CJSF moves approximately $6M in grant resources and strengthens the collaboration, capacity, and impact of our organizing network partners. Supported by a donor member table of approximately 17 private foundations and philanthropic donors, CJSF provides a combination of long-term multi-year grants, capacity building and technical assistance, convening, and liberatory education. Our partners’ education-specific work includes organizing around dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, ensuring police-free schools, investing in culturally affirming social-emotional learning and mental health supports, liberatory curricula and pedagogy, restorative and transformative justice, parent partnerships, meaningful youth engagement, participatory budgeting, and much more. Led by a woman of color and with a dedicated team of 6 staffers and various consultants, we work virtually across the country.
Our Development and Communications Director will be responsible for leading the fund’s development strategy and operations. Through engaging foundation and individual donors, organizing philanthropy, and cultivating opportunities for learning and relationship building, the position will work closely with the Executive Director and programmatic staff to guarantee an annual operational and grantmaking budget of $8.5-10M annually, ensuring the grassroots organizing field has the resources it needs to advance intersectional education justice.
About New Venture Fund
CJSF is a project of New Venture Fund (NVF), a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates new & innovative public-interest projects & grant-making programs. NVF is committed to attracting, developing, and retaining exceptional people, and to creating a work environment that is dynamic, rewarding and enables each of us to realize our potential. NVF’s work environment is safe and open to all employees and partners, respecting the full spectrum of race, color, religious creed, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, political affiliation, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, & all other classifications protected by law in the locality and/or state in which you work.
Position Overview
CJSF is in search of an Executive Program Associate (EPA). This position will report to and work closely with the Executive Director and the Director of Development and Communications. The EPA will provide direct administrative and project management support to the Executive Director and Director of Development around CJSF’s Finance, Development, and Communications strategy and execution. This position is responsible for delivering administrative support to the EDs, including calendaring; preparing strategy and advisory board and donor-facing PowerPoint presentations, memos, and talking points; preparing financial documents (annual budget and quarterly financials); and executing development and communications activities and systems. This role will help CJSF continue to grow its base of foundation and individual donors and relationships.
This position will also work closely with the program team and our evaluations and communications consultants to synthesize impact data and storytelling about our programs and grantee partners to draft, producing compelling and accurate stories for the annual newsletter, social media for grants, and general annual reporting to a variety of stakeholders.
The ideal candidate is a detail-oriented writer, scheduler, social media storyteller, and project manager with a genuine interest and care for elevating our fund’s successes and impact in visual and narrative terms. They will embody discrete and poised coordination of the ED’s time, communicate effectively across teammates via platforms such as Slack, LinkedIn, email and in person engagements, understand and implement the detailed work of organizational flows and project management, and serve as a problem-solver and bridge between the ED, Development and Communications, and Program Departments, and individual and foundation donors.
Essential Job Responsibilities
Scheduling and Project Management (40-50%)
● Work closely with the ED to take notes, schedule meetings, and project manage ED-level major projects, prioritizing the allocation of the ED’s time with donors, staff, and consultants to hit annual and quarterly development, strategy, and communications benchmarks.
● Excellent and timely follow-up from meetings around action items
● Support the ED in various funder-facing activities and philanthropic organizing efforts
● Prepare calendar invites, agendas, presentations, notes, and talking points for funder calls, Executive Committee meetings, and donor table meetings.
● Provide select administrative support to ED’s philanthropic organizing engagements, including the Braiding Together Women of Color Intermediary Fund Formation- a formation of 4 women of color intermediaries.
Finance and Operations (10%)
● Support the ED and our financial consultant in preparing and managing the organization’s budget, including tracking projected and actual expenses and reconciling them with our fiscal sponsor’s monthly reports
● Interact with the Deputy Director, ED, and our fiscal sponsor to help prepare grant budgets, spending reports, and the grants allocation process.
Development Administrative and Project Management Support (30%)
● Keep notes, update our project management platform ClickUp and fundraising CRM Blackbaud to track activities related to donor prospecting and stewardship, ensure CJSF has a robust pipeline of local, regional, and national grant opportunities to pursue.
● Collaborate with the Development and Communications Director to ensure teammates are current on and prepared for all upcoming applications, reports, and information needs.
● Organize files and documents, keeping consistently up-to-date files on proposal and report submissions, organizational attachments, grant award letters, reporting templates, deadlines, complimentary stakeholder reports, and other documents/files as requested.
● Collaborate with the Director of Development and Communications to maintain and monitor a detailed and comprehensive grants calendar for application and reporting deadlines, status and progress tracking.
● Manage grant portals/ logins and management of electronic posting of grant applications and reports; uploading narrative, data, and required attachments through online portals as necessary.
● Manage funder records in Blackbaud, our CRM, to ensure all grant opportunities, contacts and relationship notes, and tasks are current and well-detailed.
● Manage workflow for development in Blackbaud to ensure that all grants have open opportunities that are properly staged and set to close according to the grant calendar and all steps to completing each grant application have been set as tasks and assigned accordingly in partnership with the Executive Director and Director of Development and Communications.
● Design and update a grants progress-to-goal report so that the development dashboard remains current for all grant opportunities and annual budget goals are tracked.
● Revenue track grant payment installments received in our CRM.
Communications (10%)
● Collaborate with the Director of Development and Communications, consultants and program staff to draft social media, LinkedIn, and executive director communications for our monthly newsletter, donor-facing communications, and social media platforms.
● Conduct in person hard copy mailings of personalized notes, reports and other collateral to donors, funders and other contacts as needed.
● Support drafting monthly updates to CJSF’s donor member table, including scheduling, spotlighting partner accomplishments, and enabling donor collaborations amongst each other and with CJSF staff.
Qualifications
We encourage applications from strong candidates. We are looking for someone with high attention to detail, strong writing and project management skills, an independent worker strongly accountable to deadlines and deliverables with experience dealing with senior level executive leaders. We want to help you grow and in return, you to help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.
● An advocate for elevating underrepresented youth and for the community organizing field
● A Bachelor’s Degree and 5-8 years of nonprofit mid-level experience with proven results and consistent presence
● Experience writing all types of grants, from general operating and to programspecific, and foundation and government
● Experience with finance, budget management, and budget stewardship
● A born project manager with a knack for working backwards from a deadline to create a work plan for multiple co-occurring projects
● Scrupulously punctual and diligently mindful of deadlines
● Accustomed to working on multiple projects with different deadlines across multiple platforms simultaneously
● A succinct and directive communicator
● A natural information-sharer so that everyone is always looped in
● A disciplined and driven leader with exceptional follow-up so that you get what you need, when you need it
● A writer by heart and interest who can strategically tailor tone, voice, and style to appeal to a diverse audience of stakeholders for different purposes at different times
● A poised, even-keeled, discrete and judicious leader who can exercise superb judgement
● A strong self-motivator
● A disciplined and highly accountable steadying force
● Ability to travel and represent the organization on behalf of the ED
Compensation and Benefits
The salary range for this position is $80,000 - $110,000, commensurate with experience plus a competitive benefits package that includes health coverage, retirement benefits, paid sick leave, vacation and holidays, professional development support and more. We offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance for employees (and their families). Employees are able to enroll in 401k retirement plan and are eligible for a 3% automatic contribution and up to a 3% employer match on 401k contributions. Employees are also eligible for pre-tax transportation benefits. Employees will receive up to 80 hours of health leave, up to 2 days of casual leave, and 20 hours of volunteer leave annually and be able to accrue up to 120 hours of vacation time per year. Employees will also receive 13 paid holidays throughout the calendar year. Employees are eligible for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave after 90 days of employment.
● CJSF offers a high schedule flexibility as a salaried employee as long as the deliverables are met and the work
● Mentorship and career development, with strong feedback and cultivation with opportunities or growth.
● A $5,000 annual professional development budget so long as budget allows
To Apply
Interested applicants should send an email to info@cjsfund.org with Executive Program Associate in the subject line by June 22, 2026 and include:
● A cover letter that includes:
o Your mission alignment with our work
o Your salary requirements
o Available start date
● Resume
● A sample project management plan
● Sample communication to funders you have authored
● Sample social media or other donor-facing communications, such as an annual report or a newsletter posting
● 2 references including name, email, organization, title, and short description of your work with them.
E-Verify:
NVF participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with employees’ Form I-9 information to confirm authorization to work in the United States. Job candidates and employees authorized to work may not be discriminated against on the basis of national origin or citizenship status
