Summary
Description
Job Title: Senior Director of Programs
Organization: Melville Charitable Trust
Location: Remote
Reports To: Executive Vice President
Salary: $180,000 – $200,000
Position Overview:
The Senior Director of Programs at the Melville Charitable Trust will play a critical leadership role in advancing the Trust’s efforts to end homelessness and promote housing justice. Reporting to the Executive Vice President, the Senior Director will shape and guide key initiatives, manage a growing portfolio of housing justice grants, and lead the evaluation of the Trust’s investments while fostering strategic partnerships across the field. In this role, they will develop innovative models to strengthen housing stability and address systemic racial inequities. They will identify emerging opportunities, drive collaboration, and implement strategies to increase the protection, preservation, and production of affordable housing for those most disproportionately impacted by homelessness and housing instability. Their strategic work will focus on tackling the root causes of homelessness to enhance the Trust’s reach and effectiveness in creating lasting, equitable change.
The ideal candidate will be a thought leader with deep expertise in housing justice, a strong network in the housing field, and a commitment to ensuring historically marginalized communities have access to safe, stable, and affordable housing.
Key Responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership & Vision
- Collaborate with senior leadership and external stakeholders to develop and lead high-impact initiatives aimed at addressing systemic housing access and equity challenges for marginalized communities.
- Utilize data analytics, research, and field insights to identify emerging policy trends and inform bold, forward-thinking. interventions and innovative grantmaking.
- Advocate for systemic change by translating data, results, and learnings into actionable policy recommendations that promote housing justice.
- Foster cross-sector collaborations and multi-stakeholder partnerships to align efforts, scale impact, and amplify the Trust’s impact in the housing justice ecosystem.
Grantmaking
- Lead the Trust’s Advancing Housing Justice grant portfolio, focused on the protection, preservation and production of affordable housing, equitable development, and community-driven solutions.Work collaboratively with the Trust program team, scout and identify potential grantees, and field building opportunities.
- Work with current and potential grantees to develop funding proposals that align with the Trust’s strategic priorities and field needs.
- Prepare written analyses, supporting materials, and presentations for board meetings.
- Monitor and manage active grants, ensuring compliance, timely reporting, and alignment with intended impact.
- Build long-term relationships with grantees to support capacity building and foster sustainability of funded initiatives.
- Identify gaps in the funding landscape and recommend strategic investments to drive systemic change.
- Impact, Evaluation & Learning
- Lead the Trust’s data-driven impact and learning strategy, ensuring grantmaking decisions are informed by robust data analysis and evidence-based practices.
- Expand and refine evaluation frameworks to track short- and long-term outcomes, emphasizing measurable progress in housing stability, racial equity, and homelessness prevention.
- Leverage quantitative and qualitative data to identify trends, assess program effectiveness, and guide continuous improvement in funding strategies.
- Implement data visualization tools and dashboards to communicate impact clearly to internal stakeholders, board members, and external partners.
- Work with the program team to develop strategies to share key insights and data-driven findings about our grantmaking with the philanthropic, nonprofit, and public sectors to shape broader approaches to housing justice.
Stakeholder Engagement & Influence
- Steward strategic relationships and collaborations with key stakeholders across sectors to drive systemic change and shared goals.
- Represent the Trust as a thought leader at local and national housing and philanthropic forums and conferences.
- Curate high-level convenings to advance collective impact and foster cross-sector collaboration on critical housing justice issues.
- Develop and contribute content for the Trust’s external communications across traditional platforms and social media channels.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in social work, public policy, nonprofit management, or a related field (Master’s preferred).
- Minimum of 8-10 years of experience in policy, nonprofit leadership, or a related field, with a track record of driving strategic initiatives and systems-level change. Strong preference for someone with experience in private philanthropy.
- Deep expertise in housing, community development, homelessness.
- Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to think beyond traditional grantmaking and explore innovative financing, policy, or programmatic solutions.
- Proven ability to design and implement strategic initiatives that drive measurable change.
- Demonstrated leadership in racial equity and social justice.
- Able to cultivate strong and cooperative working partnerships with grantees, government agencies, foundations, and other partners, with the ability to engage the highest levels of leadership in these organizations.
- Experience with outcome measurement, evaluation methodologies and data-driven decision-making (experience with Results Based Accountability or Results Count a plus).
- A team player, who can operate effectively with peers within a small, collegial, yet demanding, work environment.
- Excellent communication, interpersonal and writing skills, with the ability to engage diverse stakeholders.
Compensation and Benefits:
- Competitive salary in the range of $180,000 to $200,000, commensurate with experience.
- Comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plan, and generous paid time off.
- Professional development opportunities.
