Posted on December 13, 2012

print

Executive Director

Organizational Overview: YGB! is a private, non-profit adoption agency licensed to operate in New York State. We are the only agency in the US that limits its practice to finding permanent families for young adults, teens and pre-teens in the foster care system before they age out of the system alone. Founded by Pat O’Brien in 1995, YGB! has grown to a team of fifteen full time staff and placed hundreds of NYC area youth in permanent homes while training and licensing many hundreds more prospective adoptive parents of older teens.

During this time we have pioneered an approach to child-centered recruitment we call our Finding Families Model. It has undergone three rounds of federally funded research and is described as evidence-based and a “Promising Practice” for adoptive family recruitment.

Position Summary: Under the general direction of the Board of Directors, the Executive Director is responsible for ensuring that YGB! makes consistent progress towards its vision and its associated financial objectives. Key responsibilities include:

• Developing, implementing, evaluating and continuously improving YGB!’s leading edge child-centered teen adoption programming
• Ensuring YGB! remains a leading voice and advocate for teen permanence in all relevant forums, particularly the child welfare system, both in New York State & beyond
• Developing and ensuring adherence to long term strategic, medium term business and short term operational plans
• Ensuring that YGB! remains on a sound financial footing and achieves both annual and long term fundraising goals through the development of compelling external communications and fundraising strategies and plans
• Building strong,collaborative relationships with funders, partners, child welfare organizations
• Leading, managing and developing YGB!’s staff while implementing the management structure, disciplines and IT systems necessary for effective operations at greater scale
• Strengthening the unique friendly, flexible, family culture of YGB!
• Overseeing office administrative duties, compliance by the organization and its staff with all relevant regulations, and the development of appropriate risk management plans

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree with a minimum of 10 years work experience, with at least 5 years of them in the field of child or family welfare, or related experience
• Minimum 5 years of experience in leading a team, managing multiple direct reports, conducting performance appraisals and facilitating their professional development
• Basic proficiency with standard business software eg Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Email

Desired Characteristics:

• Must be passionate about and hold sacred the mission and vision of YGB!, including the belief that families are available for all children in foster care
• Possess inspirational and ethical leadership, and superior influencing skills with the ability to communicate effectively to multiple parties both verbally and in writing
• Be an optimist, with a healthy sense of humor
• Demonstrated ability to build strong outcome-based collaborations with public and private agencies and create connections within the local community
• Ability to handle strong opinions and political issues as a leader and role model
• Visionary thinker, with the ability to translate it into sound strategy and practical action
• Detail oriented with strong organizational and administrative skills
• Open-minded, flexible and resourceful
• Excellent financial management skills
• Strong coaching skills; knows how to develop others’ capabilities
• Successful track record in obtaining private or public funding of programs
• A good understanding of program-generated funding and complex funding as well as how to access various funding sources
• “Tech friendly” – a promoter of IT where it can make operations better, faster, lower cost
• Experience of successfully leading an organization or department through a phase of significant change and/or rapid growth
• Master's in Social Work, related Social Service Field, MPA or MBA
• Leadership experience in the field of child or family welfare

To Apply: To download a pdf of the long form version of the job description with more detail on YGB as an organization and on the postion’s key responsibilities please click on this link. Interested inquiries should be mailed with resume and cover letter to: