Click column header to sort
About the Organization
Pakachoag Music School of Greater Worcester (Pakachoag) is dedicated to nurturing musical journeys that cultivate the imagination, inspire creativity, and develop artistry -- for students of every age and cultural background. Pakachoag's vision for its school, community, and the world is that everyone, no matter their age, background or circumstance, has equal access to a vibrant, creative life.
In response to cutbacks in funding for public school music programs, Pakachoag was founded in 1982 with programming that included music lessons and early childhood and musical theater programming. For over 40 years, Pakachoag has maintained its commitment to excellence in music education and has grown to be a school revered by students, families, alumni, faculty and the community.
Rated one of the top 75 cities in the country for a high quality of life, Worcester, Massachusetts is a vibrant, multicultural city and an increasingly desirable place for living and working. Pakachoag’s main office is situated in the beautiful and historic All Saints Church, near Worcester’s evolving downtown theater district in one direction and a diverse neighborhood of middle and low-income families -- including White, Hispanic, African-American and refugee families from all parts of the world -- in another. This location strategically offers opportunities to reach and engage both with city and suburban families.
Pakachoag believes that music is for everyone and offers programs to all ages – literally from birth into retirement. In addition to its main offices in Worcester, Pakachoag offers music education programs in Auburn, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Sturbridge, West Boylston and online for individual and shared learning experiences. Pakachoag is renowned for its Performance Programs that focus both the personal and technical growth of performers, and its Suzuki Violin and Cello Programs that are not offered at any other community music school in Worcester County.
In addition to its executive director, Pakachoag has a highly-valued and passionate full time Program Director and has recently onboarded an enthusiastic part time office manager. The organization also has a supportive and growing board of 10 and a dedicated professional faculty of 40. Pakachoag has an operating budget of approximately $500k.
Executive Transition
After more than 30 years of successful leadership, including growing the school’s budget more than tenfold, almost tripling the size of the faculty, and orchestrating a complicated facility move, Executive Director Sarah Smongeski has announced her upcoming retirement.
Friends of Children seeks an experienced nonprofit leader with a deep knowledge of public service to increase the reach and impact of its important work with child welfare.
Organization
Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, Friends of Children (FOC) does whatever it takes to help children and young people impacted by the child welfare system thrive. Through its support programs, FOC helps children meet basic needs and provides important tools, resources and mentorship opportunities. FOC also ensures that foster children are not shielded from the public eye - that they are seen and heard through policy advocacy efforts that make important systematic changes benefitting the lives of children across Massachusetts.
“We speak the truth on behalf of children, no matter how difficult it is to hear. We are champions of their best interests and advocate for the rights and dignity of children in and aging out of foster care. We recognize the whole child and commit to changing the course of their lives. Their future and our community’s legacy depend on it.”
Since its launch in 1990, FOC has grown from an organization that provided individual child advocacy support to parents. FOC has since created publications, sponsored conferences and led a variety of initiatives, including child welfare reform advocacy at the state level, all designed to maximize the potential of collaborations that foster improved service delivery to children and their families across Massachusetts.
FOC is led by the Executive Director, who oversees three Directors--of Policy, Programs and Development--a Program Manager and a Volunteer and Community Outreach Coordinator. While FOC is based in Northampton, Massachusetts, it has recently committed to an office in Boston that will host efforts to support young people who have aged out of the system, as well as provide a base for Boston-based policy advocacy and fundraising. FOC has an operating budget of $780,000 and a Board of Directors consisting of seven supporters.
Opportunity
With its bilateral focus on programs and policy/advocacy work, FOC is at the forefront of the state dialogue on the importance of improving the foster care system in Massachusetts. The Executive Director will lead FOC by:
Serving as the face of the agency with legislators and policy decision-makers, state social service agencies, donors, and community partners.
Developing and Overseeing a Strategic Plan to elevate the critical role of FOC as it continues to address child welfare programmatic and policy issues. That plan will include administrative, programmatic and external strategic aspects.
Developing and executing a short and long-term fundraising plan that ensures the continued growth of current programs and the support of Boston area activities, as well as growing future endeavors by developing relationships that will generate new revenue streams.
Circle of Hope is offering the opportunity for a strategic, mission-driven leader to lead a strong and healthy organization that is poised to scale its high-impact work.
The Organization
The mission of Circle of Hope is to provide infants, children, and adults experiencing homelessness in Boston and MetroWest with clothing and necessities in order to preserve and enhance overall health and personal dignity.
Founded in 2008 with a small group of volunteers to mobilize community members and support a small group of local homeless shelters, Circle of Hope has grown into a deeply respected and thriving organization that impacts the lives of approximately 25,000 individuals in the Greater Boston and Metro West areas annually.
To fulfill its mission, Circle of Hope strategically partners with 25 homeless shelters, healthcare clinics, and community programs in Boston and MetroWest in order to serve thousands of infants, children, and adults experiencing homelessness. The organization’s partners include family shelters, individual overnight shelters, domestic violence shelters, healthcare clinics, public universities, high schools, Boston Police Department, and other innovative programs that provide shelter or services to people experiencing homelessness.
Circle of Hope is a nimble and responsive organization that provides unique and vital services to the community’s most vulnerable people experiencing homelessness. Circle of Hope is the only nonprofit clothing provider that serves an entire family at no expense to the recipient family or service provider/shelter organization. At the onset of the Covid pandemic, Circle of Hope was able to quickly pivot to meet the changing needs of its clients by distributing “COVID Kits” full of essentials for disease prevention, gaining the recognition of a broadened group of donors and funders. Circle of Hope continues to adapt its operations and model of service to meet the needs of a growing homeless population.
Circle of Hope’s services and programs affirm dignity and promote health, allowing people in crisis to thrive.
- Through the Welcome Baby Program, Circle of Hope provides vital support to mothers experiencing homelessness and their babies and helps newborns thrive in the fragile postpartum months.
- Through the Dignity Project, Circle of Hope supplies hygiene essentials to people experiencing homelessness, trauma and emergencies.
- Through the Emergency Response Program, Circle of Hope responds within 48 hours to all emergency requests from our shelter, clinic, schools, and community partners, making deliveries of clothing and essentials for infants, children, and adults experiencing homelessness.
- Through the Get Set Program, Circle of Hope supports public college students who are homeless and changes the trajectory to graduation, helping disrupt the cycle of poverty, chronic homelessness, and inequity.
Circle of Hope has eight dedicated part time staff who enjoy a culture of collaborative teamwork, unwavering support, and mutual respect, and is governed by an engaged and growing nine-member board of directors. Circle of Hope is a financially sound organization with an operating budget of $1.4m.
Executive Transition
After founding Circle of Hope and leading the organization to become an essential service provider to the community’s most vulnerable people experiencing homelessness, Barbara Waterhouse will be retiring in June of 2023. Ms. Waterhouse will be available on a consulting basis to the new Executive Director and the Board of Directors to facilitate a smooth and successful transition.
Executive Director
Opportunity
The Executive Director of Save The Bay – Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island) will lead a strong, established and growing organization with a passion for the mission to protect and improve Narragansett Bay. The new leader will serve as the fifth Executive Director to lead the 53-year-old environmental advocacy organization in its exciting new chapter. With recently expanded education programs, increased habitat restoration capacity, a strengthened board structure, a highly sustainable financial position, and an exceptionally strong leadership team, the Executive Director will take the reins of this highly functioning organization at a time of major expansion. This is a unique opportunity with a leading environmental organization offering a highly competitive compensation and benefits package.
Organization
Save The Bay is a member-supported, volunteer-powered nonprofit organization with a mission dedicated to protecting and improving Narragansett Bay and Little Narragansett Bay, and all of the waters that flow into them it, from Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Save The Bay works to fulfill its mission and vision of a fully swimmable, fishable, healthy Narragansett Bay, accessible to all through activities that improve water quality, marine and aquatic ecosystems, and coastal habitat while training the next generation of Bay stewards. The organization focuses on three areas of work: advocacy and public policy, education and community outreach, and habitat restoration and adaptation.
Save The Bay is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island with additional locations in Newport and Westerly. The organization is led by a growing and professional staff of 40, supplemented by hourly staff, interns and volunteers, and with an annual operating budget of approximately $3.5M. Governed by a 20-member Board with guidance from a board of trustees, committee members, and a President’s Leadership Council, Save The Bay thrives on the community support from thousands of volunteers, members, and students.
Priorities
The next Executive Director will champion the care and stewardship of Narragansett Bay to ensure that it is healthy, protected, and treated with respect for the benefit of all. Key priorities for the Executive Director include:
Immediate
- Program Expansion: Expand Save The Bay’s presence and engagement with the opening of the new aquarium in the heart of Newport. Raise the visibility and impact of Save The Bay to reach communities that previously have not been involved with an environmental organization or issues.
- Funding and Resource Development: Increase focus and cultivation of donors for expanding the education program and Save The Bay’s reach in Southeast New England. Continue to build the endowment, the new aquarium and Newport County fundraising. Maintain and build upon the organization’s strong financial foundation.
- Staff Growth and Development: Explore opportunities for expanding operational areas; continue recruiting and building an exceptionally strong workforce.
Long-range
- Implementing the DEI Goals Outlined in the Strategic Plan: Look across sector issues and diversity within the environmental sector to enact tangible ways to engage more diverse staff and Board leadership; cultivate the Board, staff and donor base to include a more diverse and representative population.
- Staying True to the Advocacy Centered Mission: Manage and grow the Education programs leveraging the new aquarium and related funding without diluting Save The Bay’s primary function as an advocacy organization; ensure the success and self-sustainability of the aquarium in a way that retains a focus on advocacy.
- Staff Retention: Support staff and the challenges associated with transition and growth. Retain and document the institutional knowledge of long-term staff.
Opportunity
The North Hartford Partnership (NHP) seeks an entrepreneurial leader to bring together and inspire residents and institutions around shared, data-driven strategies to close health, housing and economic opportunity gaps across North Hartford. The inaugural Executive Director of this newly independent nonprofit will use a collective impact approach centered on resident participation and data driven improvement strategies to advance economic mobility and outcomes for North Hartford residents. The Executive Director will lead the NHP to the next level at a moment of dynamic and exciting change for the community. The Executive Director will steward existing projects including:
- The operations of the Swift Factory, an economic development and health promotion hub developed by Community Solutions and the NHP that opened in 2020 in the heart of the community.
- A range of housing stabilization and physical development initiatives including the North Hartford Housing Trust.
- Facilitation of collective, resident-led improvements to closing health equity and opportunity gaps between North Hartford and the surrounding region.
- Support of key partner-led initiatives to improve cradle to career opportunities for neighborhood children, and a bold effort to eliminate “inflow” into homelessness from North Hartford that serves as a national model.
Organization
The North Hartford Partnership is a nonprofit organization working with the community to advance equitable social and economic development in the North Hartford Promise Zone (NHPZ) in Hartford, Connecticut. Working with residents, local partners and the NHP Board, the Executive Director will be accountable for achieving measurable, population level goals through collective action.
Launched as a project of Community Solutions International in 2010, the North Hartford Partnership became a separate, affiliated not for profit in 2022. The Executive Director will oversee an initial staff of four, an annual operating budget of approximately $1 million, management of the 85,000 square foot campus of the Swift Factory, and operation of the North Hartford Housing Trust (NHHT), a separate legal entity supported by the NHP. Responsible for convening partners and stakeholders to advance collective priorities, the Executive Director will report to the NHP Board of Directors.
North Hartford is a 3.11 square mile area home to nearly 24,000 residents, a neighborhood rich in assets and home to an active community of West Indian/Caribbean immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos. Over the years, economic conditions have compounded with the effects of decades of racially biased policies and disinvestment leading to housing instability, poor health outcomes and decreased average life expectancy. Housing stability is an urgent concern, with an estimated >20% of homelessness in the region originating from North Hartford alone and eviction rates also among the highest in the region.
Priorities
The successful candidate will embrace and lead a community-organizing ethos that puts residents in the driver's seat of identifying and implementing solutions to shared problems and opportunities, and help identify faltering public systems to increase their efficacy for residents through collaborative action. The Executive Director will lead and inspire staff, volunteers and partners to collaborate, learn, and propel systemic change in population level health, safety and economic prosperity, with a particular focus on community outcomes for housing stability and job creation. They will identify, partner with and support organizations in the neighborhood that share the values of resident leadership and collective action and a steadfast commitment to achieving racial justice.
The Executive Director will create and respond to feedback loops to assess and advance progress towards measurable, time-bound, neighborhood improvement goals; look past commonly accepted system flaws and find new opportunities to leapfrog the neighborhood to new heights and collaborate with partners and residents to develop common tools and resources to expedite design, adoption and scaling up of collective neighborhood initiatives.