Director of Employer Partnerships, Corps to Career

BACKGROUND: The California Volunteers Fund (CV Fund) exists to support the priorities and activities of California Volunteers, a department of the Office of the Governor of California. The CV Fund is an independent, nonprofit and registered public charity which serves as a bridge for public private partnerships that support engaging all Californians to come together to revitalize local communities across the state through service and civic engagement. California Volunteers oversees a number of important California Service Corps programs that serve 10,000+ CA Service Corps members annually - even larger than the Peace Corps - including #CaliforniansForAll College Corps, the California Climate Action Corps (CCAC), the Youth Service Corps, and AmeriCorps California.

OUR GOAL: Corps to Career (C2C) was created with a goal to provide California Service Corps members and alumni post-fellowship access to the next step on their career journey in a career pathway of their choice with opportunities for upward mobility. Our initial focus has been #CaliforniansForAll College Corps–specifically Los Angeles-based Fellows and alumni from CSU Dominguez Hills, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Long Beach, Cal Poly Pomona, and UCLA–and CCAC Fellows. This year we are expanding our strategy of providing training, networks and employer partnerships utilizing a digital platform, career fairs and a job board to all community colleges in LA and Youth Service Corps in the Mayor’s offices of LA and Long Beach. Our ultimate vision is to build a model that will expand to support California Service Corps alumni transition from Corps to Career across California, serving as a potential model for the nation. Together, we will create more equitable workforce opportunities for those who are traditionally underserved, build a workforce pipeline that represents California, and tackle our state's most pressing challenges, while mobilizing all Californians to serve their communities. Visit our website to learn more about Corps to Career.

ROLE DESCRIPTION: We are seeking a highly motivated individual to join our team as the C2C Director of Employer Partnerships (DOP). In this position, you will play a critical role in supporting CA Service Corps members and alumni to transition from Corps to Career by securing their first career placement post-fellowship and increasing alumni placement in a job, fellowship, or continuing education opportunities. You will be primarily responsible for cultivating and securing new employer partnerships and strengthening existing ones to support 1000+ CA Service Corps members successfully transitioning from Corps to Career by 2026. (See californiavolunteersfund.org/corpstocareer for our list of current partners). This role will require flexibility as Corps to Career is currently in its pilot phase, and may evolve to include additional duties or shifting priorities.

The DOP is primarily responsible for increasing the number of full-time (FT) jobs and placements secured by service members overall and through our employer partners, and other related benchmarks. The DOP will work to increase the number of partnership agreements signed overall and specifically ones that provide prioritization and/or have the highest chance of placement, strengthen existing partnerships to increase prioritization, effective execution and facilitate service members transitioning from corps to career to meet our placement goals. The DOP will analyze partnership data to drive strategic decisions, hold partners accountable to commitments, design outreach strategies to secure new partnerships, and leverage events to ensure effectiveness and strong employer engagement at Corps to Career events.

Goals: Cultivate and secure new employer partnerships, and strengthen existing ones to significantly increase the quality and quantity of employer partners that will ultimately lead to the hiring of our service members at their organizations.

• Increase the number of employers overall who sign an official partnership agreement that aligns with service member interest
• Increase the number of employers who sign an official partnership agreement that prioritizes our service members for FT jobs or placements at their organization
• Increase the number of employers who actually hire service members into FT jobs or placements at their organization (at least one, and ideally many)

Context: The Director of Employer Partnership’s initial focus will be in Los Angeles with Employer Partners for current target programs of Corps to Career; however, this may expand to other regions, programs or types of partnerships across California.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: In order to meet our objective, the DOP is expected to

1. Cultivate and secure new partnerships by leveraging the following (30%):
   1. Preexisting relationships you may have and relationships you build
   2. Existing relationships, including employers we have cultivated or are on our target list
   3. New inquiries that arise from connections and/or from our intake form
   4. Other strategies TBD
2. Convert, Expand and/or Transform existing partnerships (30%):
   1. Convert Host Sites (sites where CA Service members engage in their 1-year fellowship) into formal C2C employer partnerships
   2. Ensure that formal employer partners provide relevant career pathway opportunities to new populations we serve (Youth Service Corps and Community Colleges)
   3. Transform formal employer partners who are not effective, executing our agreement and/or placing service members with one who is.
3. Manage Employer Partnerships Manager to maintain effectiveness and strengthen the efficacy of formal employer partnerships, including (5%):
   1. Manage the Employer Partnership Manager and hold Employer Partners accountable to agreements by providing concrete feedback, suggestions, support and re/de-prioritizing based on efficacy and progress.
   2. Oversee and ensure effective execution of the strategy, drafting and sending of communications for employer partners
   3. Develop and leverage relationships with Employer Partners and key stakeholders to secure commitments & effective execution
   4. Lead meetings in collaboration with Director of Workforce and/or Employer Partnerships Manager to move partnerships forward
   5. Track progress and utilize data to drive results
4. Implement vision, execute the strategy and iterate as needed to ensure effective employer partnerships with Director of Workforce, including (10%):
   1. Collaborate with the Director of Workforce and Operations & Employer Partnerships Coordinator to implement, execute and iterate on our strategy in maintaining and expanding Employer Partnerships as C2C scales up.
   2. Collaborate with formal employer partners and potential future ones to leverage their programming for our CA Service Corps members
   3. Co-design, implement and iterate on outreach strategy to maintain formal, conversion and targeted new partnerships.
   4. Leverage relationships, events, the Campground digital platform, analyze data, draft communications, and/or conduct meetings.
   5. Format and distribute an annually updated partnership agreement that tailors commitments—such as setting targets, prioritizing and/or streamlining the process for Service members, connection expectations, and support commitments—to each employer partner’s capacity, while ensuring alignment with C2C goals.
   6. Leverage formal partnerships and data to identify and inform target partnerships:
   7. Share opportunities with target partners, explore partnership between target employers and C2C to determine interest and value, & secure partnership.
5. Leverage events to drive outcomes for effective employer partner engagements (10%):
   1. Strategically execute key communications to formal and potential employer partners to ensure participation and follow-through to meet goals at Corps to Career events (virtual, in-person, industry or program specific), including:
      1. Drafting and sending targeted outreach before and after events to secure partner participation and prepare partners for events, leverage events to drive actions and next steps to meet goals.
      2. Collaborating with CV, CVF and Corps to Career team to optimize communications strategy for employers.
   2. Manage formal and potential formal employer partners at Corps to Career events:
      1. Prepping partners on scope of participation, creating event surveys to collect data, analyzing data on event participation and experience to improve future events and inform partnership strategy.
      2. Serving as a point of contact for day-of logistics and questions, consult and support the Director of Workforce as needed
   3. Lead, co-lead, and/or assist at events to leverage employer partners that are Corps to Career or external as necessary. Support the Director of Workforce or other staff as needed with other tasks for Corps to Career events.
6. Support overall organizational partnership strategy and implementation (10%):
   1. Serve as general partnership point of contact for the organization, liaising with internal staff and external stakeholders to triage partnership opportunities around four areas of engagement: Volunteer, Promote, Sponsor, and Employ.
      1. Working closely with the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer, as well as other applicable staff, to identify and implement partnership strategies and engagement.
      2. Meeting with prospective partners and connecting these entities/individuals with the appropriate staff.
      3. Supporting data management related to partnership cultivation, leveraging resources such as Salesforce, to track partnership communications, outreach/engagement, and deliverables.
7. Other tasks as assigned or TBD (5%)

EXPECTED COMPENSATION

$100,000 - $110,000/annual Salary + benefits.

QUALIFICATIONS

The CV Fund is looking for an energetic candidate who shares our passion for civic engagement in California. We are a small team of dedicated individuals committed to advancing this work across the state in support of CV. The ideal candidate will need to be able to work across government, private sectors and diverse stakeholders. Other qualities we look to include:

• Deep commitment to equity and closing equity gaps
• Goal-oriented, data-driven, and results-driven mindset with a track record of success; history of achieving outcomes and meeting goals
• Strategic thinker capable of organizing and prioritizing information
• Effective in execution, implementation and iteration
• Constant Learner: capable of balancing a learning orientation with process and results
• Adaptable, flexible; ability to adapt in a fast paced environment and prioritize workload and shift priorities quickly among changing tasks and priorities to accomplish goals. A multi-tasker who can efficiently do many things well (vs. being an expert in one).

Skills and Experience we are also looking for include:

• B.A., or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
• Outstanding levels of professionalism, project management, attention to detail, organizational skills, oral and written communication, and interpersonal skills
• Lead through influence (even without positional authority) to invest, engage, and motivate people to take action
• Strong case management and relationship management skills, such as communicating with empathy, advocating, and time management, documentation, and problem-solving to address barriers and challenges
• Skilled in project management, engaging in dialogue to mitigate unexpected challenges to meet objectives, and a proven track record of achieving outcomes and meeting goals
• Strong data analysis skills (experience in Salesforce and Excel preferred)
• Ability to utilize data to monitor progress, improve programs, and inform future models
• Experience building relationships across various stakeholders with unique interests; . supervising, evaluating, progress monitoring, and coaching employees to reach goals;
• Experience strengthen equitable opportunities in workforce, education &/or related fields
• Familiarity with elected politics, changing conditions, ambiguity, and/or the political landscape in Los Angeles and California

We are especially looking for candidates with an ability to:

• Work in a political environment, act with discretion, and recognize and respond diplomatically to complex and sensitive challenges
• Achieve outcomes while building strong relationships across lines of difference
• Manage, coordinate, schedule and facilitate small and large group meetings, as well as events, such career panels, networking events and training sessions
• Utilize and strengthen digital program platforms, websites, and/or social media platforms

The following are preferred, by not required qualifications:

• Strong preference for candidates who reflect the diversity of Los Angeles (LA) and the communities we aim to serve
• Other preferred, but not required qualities include:
  • Living in, connected to, and knowledgeable about LA policy landscape
  • 5-10 years of work experience
  • Having served in a CA Service Corps Program
  • Experience in workforce development, event management, working with stakeholders such as Service members/students and/or employers

This is a remote position that will require travel to Los Angeles where CA Service Corps members and Corps to Career partners are based. Interested applicants should send a resume and cover letter to Information@CaliforniaVolunteersFund.org.

Please Include “Director of Employer Partnerships” in the subject line and indicate if you are or have previously served as a CA Service Corps member. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis (Priority Deadline: April 18, 2025)

Equal Employment Opportunity

California Volunteers Fund provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, or non-disqualifying physical or mental handicap or disability.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Applicants as well as employees who are or become disabled must be able to perform the essential duties & responsibilities either unaided or with reasonable accommodation. The organization shall determine reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis in accordance with applicable law.