Chief Executive Officer

Chief Executive Officer

Ready for School, Ready for Life

Greensboro, North Carolina

 

About Ready for School, Ready for Life

 

Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) is a collaborative effort to build a connected, innovative system of care for Guilford County’s youngest children and their families to ensure that children are ready for kindergarten. Utilizing a collective impact approach, Ready Ready serves as the backbone organization for a group of community-based organizations serving families with children from prenatal through age 5 in Guilford County, North Carolina. Ready Ready is executing against a collective vision to coordinate, support, integrate, and elevate the work of partners to create population level change in kindergarten readiness.

 

Ready Ready’s focus on families and children is grounded in well-documented brain science and socio-economic research that demonstrates the value of high-quality experiences from the pre-natal stage through age eight. Studies show that when children enter kindergarten developmentally on track, their chances of success in school, reading well by 3rd grade, and life increase dramatically. Serving as a backbone organization for more than 300 sector partners, Ready Ready has built a collective vision for assessing what families want and need, connecting them with the right services at the right time, using data to drive decisions, and rigorously measuring outcomes and impact. For families, Ready Ready streamlines the process for accessing support services, ensuring that their children have the foundation they need to thrive in school.

 

Ready Ready was born in 2007 from a community effort focused on reducing poverty in Guilford County. In 2018, The Duke Endowment, North Carolina's largest private foundation, and Blue Meridian Partners, a national partnership of results-oriented philanthropists, joined the effort to promote economic and social mobility in Guilford County. As transformational investors in Ready Ready, they support the organization in building a long-term, comprehensive, evidence-based approach to creating systemic change through building the capacity for partner organizations so that collectively, their work will fundamentally improve childhood outcomes for Guilford County. This is system-building work at its core and Ready Ready aims to serve as a tangible demonstration of the ability of communities across North Carolina and nationally to set all children up for success.

 

With an entrepreneurial spirit and dynamic culture, Ready Ready has an operating budget of $6M and a talented and diverse team of 18. In order to support the collective in ensuring that every child in Guilford County is ready for kindergarten, Ready Ready supports partner organizations and public agencies providing direct service with the following:

 

• Expansion and integration of evidence-based programs

• Design and execution of an integrated data system

• Design and execution of a family-friendly navigation system

• Implementation of continuous quality improvement practices among service providers

• Rigorous evaluation of implementation and impact

• Implementation of an early literacy strategy

• Enhancing pre-K to Kindergarten transition

• Expanding work to include children prenatal to age 8

 

Ready Ready enhances this direct service through its collective impact backbone (intermediary) role in guiding vision and strategy, supporting aligned activities, establishing shared measurement practices, building public will, advancing policy, and mobilizing funding.

 

Ready Ready is built on core values and principles that guide the organization in all of its decisionmaking and strategy. Ready Ready believes in being family-led; inclusive; equity-driven; responsive to evidence; transparent; and collaborative.

 

You can learn more about organizational values, partners, and mission on the Ready Ready website.

 

About Guilford County

 

Approximately 6,000 children are born in Guilford County each year and about half of these babies are born into poverty. The County is home to approximately 29,000 children under the age of 5 and in 2022, 44% of children lived in poor or low-income households.

 

The county’s diverse population of approximately 550,000 people live primarily in the cities of Greensboro and High Point, the state’s 3rd and 6th largest cities. Guilford County Schools, one of the 50 largest school districts in the country, boasts a student population with 120 languages spoken. Just over 41% of 3rd grade students scored proficient in reading in 2022-2023.

 

Candidate Profile

 

The Ready Ready Board is open to considering a variety of professional backgrounds and recognizes that no one individual will possess every qualification outlined. As a successful candidate for the Chief Executive Officer role, you will bring many of the following professional qualifications and personal attributes to this role:

 

A Collaborative Leader

 

The CEO will believe deeply in the power of collective impact and the importance of backbone organizations. They will naturally and intentionally involve varied constituents in building on the organization’s vision and executing on the strategies necessary to meet bold goals. That said, they will be adept at triangulating constituent input into clear, actionable priorities that the community and team can champion, even if not every individual perspective is fully integrated. Working within the existing organizational vision, the CEO will use creative and innovative thinking to collaborate on effective strategies to accomplish the work. The CEO will practice humble leadership, recognizing the value that others bring to the work and effectively organizing resources in support of organizational impact.

 

A Passion for the Mission

 

The CEO will have a demonstrated passion for serving children and families and a deep belief in both the power of collective impact and the need for systems change. They will lead with a nuanced understanding of how systems disproportionately impact and influence family outcomes. With a strong commitment to the inclusion of family voice in every aspect of the early childhood system of care, including governance, the CEO will recognize the diversity of Guilford County as an asset and embrace Ready Ready’s history of working in partnership with the community and its focus on equity. The CEO will bring cultural competence and an ability to work effectively with the Board, funders, staff and community partners, including public institutions as well as neighborhood partners, all in service of the mission of improving outcomes for children in Guilford County.

 

Executive Management

 

The CEO will be a seasoned executive with strong organizational, fiscal, and performance management experience. An experienced and talented fundraiser, the CEO will bring a tenacious commitment to meeting bold fundraising goals to support Ready Ready’s ongoing work. With a track record of sound financial and performance planning, oversight, and accountability, they will be committed to frequent, transparent reporting on organizational performance to the Board, funders and other partners. With experience leading through change and transition, they will assess and build on the current strengths of the organization and team while identifying areas of opportunity in collaboration with those closest to the work. They will inspire and motivate the team while providing required direction and resources to be successful. The CEO will build a culture that is supportive, high-performing, and focused on shared goals. While the CEO will oversee every function, they will be the lead external champion and fundraiser for Ready Ready, building support and visibility for the organization. Experienced in managing a large and diverse Board, the CEO will possess the knowledge and ability to ensure that the Board is achieving its primary responsibilities of strategic vision, governance and fundraising.

 

Community Orientation

 

The CEO will bring a deep connection to Guilford County and/or communities with similar demographics and characteristics, including an abiding belief in the strength and resilience of families and communities. They will also demonstrate commitment to the history and goals of Ready Ready and the organization’s priorities around being family-led. The CEO will recognize and value the importance of establishing strong relationships with all constituents and will be (or become) a community-trusted leader through deep and active listening and delivering on support for identified solutions and initiatives. The CEO will broker productive collaboration between neighborhood-level actors and public institutions to ensure resources and programs truly serve residents’ greatest needs and build trust. With strong communication skills and a commitment to transparency, the CEO will effectively articulate and convey Ready Ready’s mission and vision to a range of constituents including donors, partners, families, the Board of Directors and staff. With a sharp focus on delivering what is promised, the CEO will be a highly ethical and transparent leader with a willingness to serve as a partner to others and embrace community ownership of the effort.

 

Systems Thinker

 

The CEO will bring awareness of the various systems that impact children and families in Guilford County and will have experience navigating through similar systems. They will recognize the inter-related nature of systems at the local, regional, state, and national level and can develop strategies to create systems change in support of Ready Ready’s goals. Over time, the CEO will increasingly advocate for and integrate the data, work, and innovations of Ready Ready into North Carolina-wide strategies that make policies, practices, and resourcing better for all NC children and families, including Guilford County’s.

 

Compensation & Benefits

 

The salary range for this role is $200,000 - $225,000 with a benefits package that includes:

 

• 100% employer paid medical, dental & vision for employee only

• 401K with 4% employer match after vesting

• 20 days of PTO annually and 13 paid holidays

• Hybrid work schedule

 

Ready Ready operates a hybrid schedule, with some in-person work in one of the shared offices in Greensboro or High Point, North Carolina and some remote work. The CEO will need to reside in Guilford County. Relocation assistance is available if needed.

 

Ready Ready is a proud equal opportunity employer. We work diligently to recruit a broad pool of candidates and to hire and promote qualified individuals whose personal experiences, characteristics, and talents reasonably reflect the diversity of the communities served by Ready Ready. Our equal employment opportunities apply to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. We encourage applications from women, minority groups, veterans, and people with disabilities.

 

Koya Partners l Diversified Search Group has been exclusively retained for this engagement, which is being led by Cassie Scarano and Ariella Pasackow. To apply, please submit a compelling cover letter and resume by filling out our Talent Profile. All inquiries are strictly confidential.

 

Koya Partners is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals living with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual living with a disability and need assistance expressing interest online, please email NonprofitSearchOps@divsearch.com. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.