Director/Senior Director, Social Entrepreneurship

ABOUT US

UpStart inspires and empowers leaders to dream, build, and grow bold initiatives that enhance the vitality of Jewish Life. 

UpStart was founded fifteen years ago with a sole focus: to accelerate the success of social entrepreneurs fueling a renaissance in Jewish life. Since then, we have invested in 127 ventures and their leaders, while cultivating an ecosystem of institutional leaders and funders committed to Jewish community change. We are excited to be actively implementing a new Strategic plan that will put social entrepreneurs at the center of everything we do. Our vision is that Jewish communities will be thriving hubs of innovation, building a more just, vibrant, and inclusive future. 

UpStart strongly encourages applications from individuals with varied identities and backgrounds, including people of color, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQIA people, and people who come from low income or working class backgrounds. As an equal opportunity employer, all individuals are encouraged to apply without regard to race, color, religion, age, disability, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, ancestry, genetic information, medical condition, veteran status, or any other class protected under federal, state, or local laws.

POSITION SUMMARY

UpStart strives to model our vision of a just, vibrant, and inclusive future. Statistics show that women and structurally marginalized and/or underrepresented groups of people need to see themselves in almost 100% of the requirements in a job posting to apply. We welcome you to apply even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications, as no one applicant ever does. 

UpStart is doubling down on its commitment to social entrepreneurs as the lynch-pin to building the thriving Jewish communities of the future. Key to the execution of this vision is the Senior Director/Director, Social Entrepreneurship. The Senior Director/Director of Social Entrepreneurship will manage the delivery of quality, bold programming for idea, early, growth, and mezzanine stage Jewish social enterprises, and partner with the Managing Director of Social Entrepreneurship to adapt the current suite of programs in order to scale program delivery.  

RESPONSIBILITIES

Leverage your past experience with accelerators and in the social entrepreneur space to:

• Maintain a regular connection with Jewish social entrepreneurs—with a focus on underrepresented Jewish entrepreneurs—to better understand the barriers they face in launching ventures, and how our programming might help reduce those barriers. 
• Build and manage a pipeline of Social Entrepreneurs that represent different demographic backgrounds and ventures of different legal structures (non profit, for profit, hybrid) that will feed into our programs.
• Build and manage a pipeline of coaches and mentors for our Social Entrepreneurship programs.
• Demonstrate confidence in leveraging evaluation and impact measurements to ensure continually effective and relevant programs.
• In partnership with the Managing Director of Social Entrepreneurship and the Director, Human Centered Design, design new programs and revamp existing programs, to ensure that our programs provide practical application 
• Evaluate how the curriculum can be modified to serve for-profit and nonprofit ventures alike. 
• Map the entrepreneur journey from idea stage to mezzanine venture—ensuring that all programs complement each other and make necessary pivots to ensure relevancy to UpStart Social Entrepreneurs.

Leverage your track record of success managing people and projects to:

• Manage a team of employees and consultants who implement our idea, early, and growth stage programs, ensuring that curricular arcs, coaching structure, mentorship structure, speakers, etc. are all in place for successful program implementation.
• Provide the structure, work-plans, and support for each of our program implementation leaders to deliver the best programs possible.
• Ensure the Social Entrepreneurship implementation teams have the teaching and facilitation resources needed to successfully execute programs including curricular arc, coaching structure, facilitation tools, etc.
• Coordinate and support the integration of recommendations from our Learning, Human Centered Design, and Implementation teams to enact curriculum changes, and make adjustments to the program suite.
• Collaborate with the Development team to ensure social entrepreneurship programs are meeting grant deliverables and are well reflected in our fundraising efforts
• Collaborate with the Program Operations team to ensure that program implementation teams have what they need by way of systems and operating structure to successfully deliver programs, including for multi-day labs.
• Collaborate with the Communications Team to create templates for all internal program communications including any newsletters and program updates used for communicating with program participants.
• Collaborate with the Communications Team to develop external communications strategy for all social entrepreneurship programs.
• Coordinate with the Metrics and Evaluation team to design all evaluations, ensuring that data to inform logic models, Key Performance Indicators, and Grant Deliverables are all accounted for.

This job description is intended to convey information essential to understand the scope of the position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of skills, efforts, duties, or responsibilities associated with the position.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Social Entrepreneurship: You have direct experience with Social Impact and Social Entrepreneurship—either as an entrepreneur yourself, or as someone who has run and/or participated in accelerator programs in the past. You understand the essential skills, knowledge and experiences an entrepreneur needs to successfully imagine and build a social enterprise from the idea-mezzanine stage of development.
• Drive to achieve results: You have a track record of accomplishing ambitious goals and getting results even when there are obstacles. You set a high bar and meet it, because you think three (or 30) steps ahead to anticipate hurdles and come up with pragmatic solutions. You embrace agility, plan backwards, and involve stakeholders and collaborators appropriately.
• Inclusive leadership and management: You approach leadership with a mindset of “power with” rather than “power over.” You know how to balance authentically including others’ decision-making with being directive in your leadership. You have experience managing multiple people and helping them feel a sense of ownership over their work, keeping them on track and driving towards shared results. You have experience managing multiple projects and keeping tasks from slipping through the cracks. You use resources wisely, and can effectively manage a team of staff, consultants, and volunteers to leverage time and talent for impact.
• Relationship-building: You develop and maintain strong, collaborative working relationships with a diverse group of stakeholders. You know how to seek out and build new relationships and opportunities for collaboration with a wide network of people. If you don’t know the right person or resource for the project, you will find the person who can make the connection for you. 
• In addition, you bring: 
  • Adaptability and agility in the face of change, both organizational and technological.
  • Passion for UpStart’s mission and the work of UpStart’s network.
  • Commitment to UpStart’s values of empathy, optimism, collaboration, and risk taking. 
  • Commitment to integrating a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice lens to every piece of your work. You recognize how your own identities show up in the work, and welcome, reflect on, and act on feedback with an eye toward continuous learning about race, ability, and other lines of difference.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The salary range for this position is $85,000-$115,000, based on the candidate’s job-specific experience and skills, education, and readiness. 

In addition to a competitive salary, UpStart currently offers the following benefits: 

• A comprehensive benefits package, including 100% employer paid medical, dental, and vision insurance. 
• Life, short-term and long-term disability insurance.
• 16-weeks of paid parental leave with no waiting period.
• FSA and Commuter Benefit accounts.
• Employer sponsored 401K with employer match.
• Flexible discretionary paid time off. 
• Annual $1,500 professional development stipend.
• $300 office setup  stipend and provided Mac.
• Meeting-Free Fridays.
• 3:00pm local close-of-business on Fridays.
• Days off for all work-prohibitive Jewish holidays, in addition to secular US holidays. 
• A great remote-first work culture! Check out our culture deck, here.

HOW TO APPLY

Click here to submit your resume and a thoughtful, one-page cover letter to our hiring team. 

If you are an individual with a disability who requires reasonable accommodation to complete any part of this application process, or needs an alternative method for applying, please contact Sydney Hirsch at sydneyh@upstartlab.org for assistance.

WHAT TO EXPECT

We are committed to a fair and respectful hiring process, and we do our absolute best to respond to every applicant. We prioritize communication and transparency with all candidates, even those who are not moving forward.

Here’s an overview of our hiring process*: 

• Step 1: Apply with your resume and cover letter!
• Step 2: Phone screen with an UpStart recruiter. 
• Step 3: Video interview with the hiring manager.
• Step 4: Skills-based assessment relevant to the position.
• Step 5: A video interview with a panel of UpStart employees. 
• Step 6: We’ll check your references to learn about your past experience. 
• Step 7: Get an offer letter, sign it, and start your professional journey with UpStart!

*Note: Some of our hiring processes may vary, and not all candidates will advance to each step.