In-Person Volunteer Operations Manager

Overview

DonorsChoose makes it easy for anyone to help a teacher in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education.

Since 2000, more than 5 million people and partners have contributed $1 billion to support 2 million teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. Projects range from art supplies to build the set for a school musical, to books and puzzles that affirm students’ identities, to bird seed for an at-home science project. We proudly serve all US public schools, public charter schools, and Head Start centers, and we combat systemic inequity by driving a majority of donations to schools that have been historically underfunded due to economic and racial inequity.

DonorsChoose has been recognized as a best place to work by GOOD Magazine and the Nonprofit Times, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Our dedicated team works from across the United States bring classroom dreams to life.

Team Overview

The Content & Volunteer Operations team has a front-row seat to the most compelling classroom-generated content on our site. We review all incoming project requests, and help deliver the final touch to funded projects to donors: the donor thank-you “package”. When donors give to a project on our site, they receive direct follow-up from the classroom, including a letter, photos of the project in-action, and handwritten student thank-yous.  

Our goal is to guide, approve, and leverage this content to deliver a personal experience that inspires donor and partner loyalty. 

Our team of staff members works in tandem with a community of 200+ mission-driven volunteers to review this digital and physical project content. 

Last year, the team collectively reviewed over 500,000+ project requests and 210,000 thank-you photo submissions. 

About the Role

Pre-pandemic, donors who gave $50+ could opt in to receive physical thank-you notes from students, which would be physically mailed to our NYC offices for review by our team of local in-person volunteers. 

After a 2-year hiatus, our in-person volunteer program is returning – and that’s where you’ll come in! As our program relaunches, our office will begin receiving hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of packages filled with student thank-yous from classrooms across the country. When the mail arrives, you and your team (including dozens of in-person Gratitude volunteers) will be ready to tackle the challenge. 

In this role, you will: 

• Lead our NYC-based Gratitude volunteer program. You will be responsible for rebuilding the program and scaling up operations to pre-pandemic levels (and beyond), and ensure that our volunteer program’s capacity allows us to review incoming student thank-you notes within our turnaround time goals. 
• Lead the charge on developing a volunteer recruitment and engagement plan to harness the power of in-person volunteers to support our work. 
• Cultivate a fun, friendly, and productive volunteer environment that keeps folks excited, inspired, and motivated to return and volunteer regularly.
• Project manage a team of 2-3 colleagues who support the program part-time. Provide guidance, coaching, and support to ensure that the team is growing professionally, meeting their goals, and having fun while doing so.
• Make longer-term decisions around team staffing structure (including hiring additional part-time and/or full-time staff members) to meet our goals.  
• Monitor data and community trends in order to propose and advocate for process improvements, workforce recommendations, or other strategies to improve the volunteer and staff experience. 
• Ensure that program logistics (including budget oversight, supply ordering, and inventory) run seamlessly. 
• Develop and execute a calendar of engaging and informative volunteer-facing touchpoints, including: emails, website/social content, and events.
• Evaluate and continuously iterate on our in-person community programming to meet our organization’s evolving needs. 
• Represent our gratitude operations for external DonorsChoose initiatives, as needed (examples: 1-day corporate group volunteer events, conferences, etc).

Qualifications

This position might be for you if:

• You believe in the power of volunteerism – and have the experience to prove it. You have hands-on experience and a proven track record of overseeing and managing a volunteer program. Bonus points if you’ve ever developed a program from scratch, or significantly scaled an existing program! You’ve already started jotting down potential ideas to engage our community.
• You are a seasoned people manager, and are motivated by bringing out the best in others. You have at least 1-2 years of direct management experience (interns, part-time, or full-time staff). You find joy in empowering your team with the necessary knowledge, skills, and guidance to succeed.
• You’re a natural relationship-builder and collaborator. You love forging authentic connections with others, and have a passion for mobilizing people around common goals.
• You are a visionary thinker and stellar project manager. You get fired up by crafting and leading new strategies. When the rubber hits the road, you can translate big-picture ideas into action, and develop tactical plans to achieve ambitious outcomes. You execute work with a high degree of excellence (no dropped balls here!), can easily balance the needs of various stakeholders, and can proactively make tough prioritization decisions if time or resources are limited.
• You are obsessed with efficiency, and fueled by a desire to continuously improve. You thrive in situations when you are charged to build systems to impose order, love to experiment with new approaches, and always strive to ensure that your second time doing something takes less time and effort than your first.
• You adapt quickly to changing priorities. You know how to roll with the punches, and are excited by change. You are cool and collected under pressure, are adaptable to meet team needs, and perform best in a fast-paced startup environment.
• You are mission-motivated, and passionate about educational equity. You care about helping teachers, and believe that all students should have equal access to educational opportunities.

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

This role requires a full-time in-person schedule in our NYC Midtown office. The ideal candidate has the ability to work beyond traditional working hours, on a limited basis. Occasional weekends and evenings may be required.

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 Jennifer Mao, Director of Content & Volunteer Operations.

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.