Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

Come and join a dynamic team as we deepen and expand our work to transform the child care sector! If you are a person who thrives on building and supporting a team, developing strategy, growing programs, and using your policy and business savvy to create stronger outcomes for child care providers and families, the role of Early Childhood Education Director is a match.

This position is a senior leadership position in a dynamic and ambitious social enterprise in high-growth mode. The role holds the opportunity and responsibility to evolve and scale 20 Degrees’ ECE products, services and strategy as part of our broader impact goals to reach 100,000 nonprofits and early childhood centers. The Director will need to ask and answer the question, “how can 20 Degrees drive the most impact in the early childhood sector?”

This encompasses the direct technical assistance and back-office work (scaling our shared services offerings as well as innovative tools, trainings and processes that are deployed directly with child care providers), and it also involves building partnerships with key actors, including federal, state and local-level municipalities and institutional funders to improve the ecosystem for providers and families. The Early Childhood Education Director job is perfect for someone who has significant leadership experience and wants to transform the larger ECE ecosystem while in the driver’s seat at a firm with the agility and capability to do so.

In this role you will lead our ECE team, report to the President and serve as a part of the executive team. Your experience in people management, child care business and policy, will be paired with your ability to drive strategy and support an incredibly talented and growing team. You will drive the ongoing evolution of 20 Degrees’ shared services programming, business tools and training/coaching. You will also help advance 20 Degrees efforts in affecting policy that better serves providers and the families in their care.

We are building a rocketship here. We are doing this because the moment is asking for better solutions to ensure child care providers can achieve actual sustainability and greater compensation for their workforce. 20 Degrees has built a strong foundation during the first five years of operation and now, we are seeking someone who can help us drive forward in impact in the next organizational chapter.

Essential Responsibilities
Strategy (30%)

  • Strategy Refinement: Iterate and develop the future ECE strategy for 20 Degrees. The director will need to leverage knowledge and relationships with critical industry actors to forge new opportunities for 20 Degrees in positioning the organization for growth and impact.
  • Advocacy and Policy: Ensure 20 Degrees is at the table in crafting new solutions for child care providers and families.
  • Business Development: Assist with business development opportunities, as needed, in order to align with impact and quality goals.

    Business Line Management and Evolution (40%)

  • Shared Services Support: Lead team delivering ‘back-office’ shared services (‘back-office’ = finance, operations and HR functions) to child care providers. Expectation is that the Director will do some portion of the work and support their team in completing the service delivery.
  • Tool evolution: Overseeing, collecting and integrating team and client feedback alongside data and materials (e.g., documents, impact data and financials), you would guide the continued standardization and replicability of the core products into tools, templates, and processes.
  • Client relationship management: You would serve as the senior presence in most client-facing relationships (i.e., national, state and local funders) and would support the team in meeting and exceeding client expectations.

    Team Management and Growth (20%)

  • Lead and grow a tremendous team who are committed to impact, values and scarcity slaying through individual and department support, while also contributing to the overall culture and team alongside the two co-founders and executive team.
  • Support team growth and development, leading talent recruitment needs as they arise and professional development opportunities for staff.
    Team Contributions (10%)

  • Contribute to the culture of 20 Degrees focused on scarcity slaying, field building, anti-racism, irreverent optimism, and truth telling.
  • Other duties as assigned.

    What Success Looks Like in This Role
    Success in this role will be judged first and foremost by the extension of our impact footprint and the quality at which we conduct our work. Stakeholder and client feedback will tell us how well we are doing in advancing better outcomes for the early childhood sector. New partnerships formed, including those with government and private actors, will give indication if we’re building the coalition needed for lasting change. ECE team engagement, growth and development will offer a view if we are living into our values and culture.

    We will look to you to be a leader in this critical business practice, providing leadership and driving the organization’s impact to the next level as we seek to scale in the coming years. Your goal is to ensure the team is able perform essential projects with a strong attention to detail and ensure our work with partners roll up to a larger sector-wide impact.

    Success will also be measured by how you step into this work as a collaborator with other members of the 20 Degrees team especially the executive team, co-founders and front-line staff.

    The job is fast-paced and success will require an ability to thrive in the big picture and small details. You will be asked to diligently manage multiple strategic projects at once with light supervision and deep collaboration with the co-founders and your team.

    Qualifications that Make You a Star
    ● 10+years of ECE industry experience, either in senior-level policy, funding or practitioner leadership roles
    ● 6+years of experience managing a team, with a strong preference for experience with virtual leadership.
    ● Strong understanding of ECE ecosystem, federal, state and local policy issues and players
    ● Demonstrated proficiency in, and knowledge of, back-office management, HR, operations and compliance policies, regulations and procedures
    ● Bachelor’s Degree in Education, Early Childhood Education, Public Health/ Administration, Business Administration, Education Administration or related field. MBA or other business-related advanced degrees preferred.
    ● A desire and ability to serve as a technical coach and set of extra hands when the work requires it.
    ● A passion for impact ranging from data analysis to storytelling.
    ● Experience with Google Suite, especially Google Slides, Sheets, and Docs and our key project management software, Monday.com or a similar project management software.
    ● Proven presentation and public speaking skills in both small and large group settings.
    ● Experience with creating systems while deploying services.
    ● Demonstrated ability and experience to self-manage and collaborate in a fast-paced, remote-based work culture.

    What Else You’ll Bring to the Table to Enable Success
    ● Keen interest in better understanding child care business and financial models
    ● Policy expertise to connect our work with allies advancing better policies for providers and families
    ● Desire to be in a fast-paced, remote-first workplace that’s growing and still figuring out some of its processes.
    ● Demonstrated ability to coach team members learning and growing in technical skills.
    ● Openness to using and improving on the 20 Degrees way of doing things.
    ● Determination to find good answers, even when things aren’t super clear.
    ● Willingness to talk about racial equity as it relates to 20 Degrees, child care, money, and current events. We’re all about learning and growing together.
    ● Experience working with a variety of child care modalities (in-home, center-based, etc).

    Extra Kudos if You Bring
    ● Knowledge of innovative funding and financing for child care businesses
    ● Experience managing early childhood education shared services programs and models

    Additional Information
    This salaried position is 100% virtual and full-time. Likelihood of 10% travel to support child care providers at sites in the Washington, DC region. Open to anywhere in the United States, with a preference to candidates located in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Willingness and ability to work with the Eastern Time Zone is necessary. Base compensation ranges between $125,000 to $150,000 plus additional variable comp including profit share and individual bonus. Generous benefits include health insurance, 401(k) match, paid vacation, strong culture and professional development opportunities.

    About 20 Degrees
    20 Degrees is a team of innovative, irreverent optimists changing the culture of philanthropy and the business of early education. Through our revenue generation services along with our customized solutions to build financial resilience and actual sustainability, we are redefining the nature of capacity building. Our background in financial management and entrepreneurship is complemented by our experience in fundraising, grantmaking, and organizational leadership. 20 Degrees’ revenue work as well as its COVID-19 Toolkit for Nonprofit Leaders has been featured by The Washington Post, WAMU, Impact Alpha, Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Washington Business Journal and numerous other impact news outlets. Since its inception, 20 Degrees has worked directly with hundreds of early childhood education providers, nonprofits and small businesses to strengthen financial sustainability.

    Apply for this job here.