Program Manager; CMF

The Council of Michigan Foundations is seeking a two-year, full-time grant-funded Program Manager for the Southeast Michigan Early Childhood Funders Collaborative (SEM-ECFC). This position will work remotely.

The Southeast Michigan Early Childhood Funders Collaborative (ECFC) is a network for grantmakers that come together to: (1) learn the latest research; (2) strategically coordinate and align philanthropic, public and private funding and resources; and (3) facilitate equity-focused approaches and timely responses to opportunities and needs so that we ensure quality early childhood development and education in Southeast Michigan, including Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties, as well as the city of Detroit and support stronger outcomes for their children and families.

The Southeast Michigan Early Childhood Funders Collaborative has existed as an informal networking group since 2007. Funders involved with ECFC currently include the:
Ballmer Group, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, McGregor Fund, PNC Foundation, Skillman Foundation and the Ralph

C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation. As a whole, the foundations involved in the collaborative invested more than $60 million in early childhood in metro Detroit between  and also created the Head Start Innovation Fund, which is now an $11 million effort specifically designed for Head Start agencies in the area.

The ideal candidate will be a strategic leader with knowledge of both the philanthropy and early childhood fields, with strong interpersonal and communications skills and the ability to support and facilitate a strong and sustainable funder network.

Job responsibilities include leading and managing key aspects of the collaborative’s work, including: planning and organization development; field building and collaboration with partners; development and implementation of a learning community; communication and education on early childhood priorities; and fundraising and fiscal management.

• Planning and organization development. The Program Manager will lead formalization of the collaborative structure and processes and help members achieve their expanded vision. The Program Manager will also be responsible for working with early childhood funders to identify a set of outcomes and associated metrics for the funders collaborative and will use those metrics to measure progress for the collaborative.
• Field building and collaboration. This position will be responsible for building a network of early childhood funders that invest both in Detroit and across the four main Southeast Michigan counties, and who are dedicated to aligning and leveraging philanthropic, public and private resources to promote federal, state and local policies and practices, and also systemic, equity-focused approaches that support young children, their families and the early childhood community.
  
  As part of this effort, the Program Manager will engage in periodic, directed conversations with early childhood nonprofit leaders, intermediary organizations, and grantee partners. Research of, and building connections to, other funding collaboratives from around the country will also be required periodically.
  Specifically, the Program Manager will work closely with the Hope Starts Here Implementation Director and the City of Detroit Director of Youth and Children Services to coordinate systems-level collaborative efforts. Through this work, the Program Manager will represent the interests and priorities of the collaborative as a whole in city, state and federal public funding and policy conversations to ensure alignment between philanthropic…