Program Manager, Equity & Impact – DonorsChoose

11% 1-Year Employee Growth Rate | 3% 2-Year Employee Growth Rate | LinkedIn | $7M Venture Funding

What Is Employee Growth Rate & Why Is It Important?

DonorsChoose is looking for a Program Manager, Equity & Impact to play a critical role in making DonorsChoose “best in class” in the education equity space, particularly in racial equity. As a key contributor to our organization’s success, you’ll collaborate across the entire organization and work closely with the Vice President of Equity & Impact to manage large organizational equity initiatives, build processes to enhance our org’s new racial equity focus, and deepen relationships with peer organizations with whom we collaborate to move the needle toward a more equitable education system.

About the Equity & Impact team

At DonorsChoose, we believe that neither a student’s race, nor their zip code, should dictate whether they have the resources they need to learn. School districts that serve students of color get $23B less in state and local funding than school districts with the same number of white students. Teachers who work with more students from low income households, and with more students of color, spend more of their own money on classroom materials.  Also, when students, especially students of color, see themselves reflected in their teachers and learning environments, they do better academically.

While DonorsChoose was created more than 20 years ago to address inequity in access to education, we’re newly committed to combating racial inequity in education. The Equity & Impact team at DonorsChoose is the team charged with leading organizational efforts to incorporate a race equity-forward lens in how we impact our students and teachers nationwide. We take a nuanced approach to these efforts, layering an equity lens across our strategy for every external org stakeholder (donors, teachers, partners, vendors, etc.) in order to achieve the promises set out in our Theory of Change.

About the role

The Program Manager, Equity & Impact will join a tiny (but mighty!) team and serve as the “collaborator-in-chief” for our org’s equity work, reporting to the Vice President of Equity & Impact. In this role, you will have the opportunity to lead work that positively impacts hundreds of thousands of students and teachers across the country.

In this role you will: 

• Build and maintain the structures and processes that establish DonorsChoose as a force for racial equity in America’s classrooms;
• Manage how we leverage our organization’s demographic data to unearth insights that inform our equity-forward campaigns;
• Connect the dots across teams in the organization, as they pursue newly created goals that center racial equity;
• Lead and consult on internal org projects that further our org’s equity impact (for example, developing a strategy around our use of asset-framing);
• Create and manage large org-wide equity external initiatives each year (like our recent Male Teacher of Color Initiative and #ISeeMe); and
• Create, manage, and/or collaborate on equity-centered impact campaigns (like Black History Month, Juneteenth, Autism Awareness, or Pride Month), including initiatives supported by philanthropists of color.
• Interface directly with like minded equity organizations as part of managing these initiatives.

All with an eye toward increasing our organization’s impact each year.

Who you are

• You are all in on our organization’s equity focus, and you’re deeply passionate about combating inequity (including socioeconomic equity, racial equity, and beyond) in US public school education.
• You have an authentic connection to our mission. You’re energized by conversations and scholarship centering race and equity, and you have a demonstrated commitment to advancing education equity.
• You have a knack for project management and a deep history of leading projects or campaigns involving multiple stakeholders and moving pieces. You’re collegial and collaborative, ready to roll up your sleeves to support another team or a colleague.
• You’re process-oriented, extremely organized and skilled at juggling multiple projects simultaneously and are excited about building processes from the ground up that’ll build the infrastructure for our organization’s new racial equity focus.
• You are curious, a self-starter and self-motivated with identifying problems and rallying stakeholders around the process for finding a way forward.
• You’re a relationship builder. The idea of jumping on a call to get to know a stakeholder and their equity work is thrilling to you.
• You have 3-6 years of work experience in an operational or relationship-building role.
• Nice to have, but not required: You have experience with sales, sales enablement, or within the DEI sector whether it’s through education policy, DEI consulting, or the like.

About DonorsChoose

DonorsChoose engages the public in public schools by giving people a simple, accountable, and personal way to address educational inequity. In this clip, board member Stephen Colbert tells our story.

To date, teachers at 87% of all the public schools in America have posted classroom project requests on our site. Projects range from paper and markers for a poetry writing unit to violins for a school recital. More than 4 million “citizen philanthropists” have supported such projects, channeling books, field trips, technology, and other resources to more than 40 million students nationwide. In all, we’ve generated $970 million for learning experiences designed by our country’s most dedicated public school teachers.

GOOD Magazine highlighted us as one of 30 Places We Want to Work, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose. one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Through our dedicated team and culture, DonorsChoose earned recognition as the #1 “Best Nonprofit to Work For” by the Nonprofit Times.

Compensation and Benefits

Compensation for this role is competitive with equivalent roles at other nonprofits of our size. In addition, we offer full-time staff 25 paid vacation days per year and 11 paid holidays, a rich employer-paid individual and family health plan, a matching 401(k) plan (up to 5% of base salary), annual professional development stipend, and casual and flexible work environment. To learn more about what it is like to work for DonorsChoose, visit our careers page.

Hybrid Workplace and Other Details

In this role, you’ll have the option to work a flexible hybrid schedule in our NYC office, or to work fully remotely from CA, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OR, PA, TX, or WI.

DonorsChoose is a fully vaccinated workplace and all new employees, regardless of their work location, will be asked to share proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 within two weeks of their hire date or request an exemption from this policy due to a disability or sincerely held religious belief or practice.

To Apply

Please submit your resume online and answer the application questions. A cover letter is optional and may be addressed to Kristina Joye Lyles, Vice President, Equity & Impact.

A Final Note

The DonorsChoose team works toward a nation where students in every community have the resources needed for an excellent education. To do this we hire and support a diverse team of the best and the brightest talent available.

We are an organization increasingly representative of the varied races and ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, religious and political beliefs, and abilities that comprise our nation. DonorsChoose focuses on attracting, retaining, and advancing diverse talent because it makes us more effective, high-performing, creative, and resilient.

If you are passionate about our mission, highly skilled in your field, and looking for a place where you can bring all of yourself to work, we want you.

Tagged as: 51-200 Employees, Hide US-Only Jobs, Venture Funded