Vice President of Finance and Operations

About GreenLight Fund

Founded in Boston in 2004, GreenLight Fund is a national nonprofit with a local focus that partners with communities to create opportunities for inclusive prosperity. In our 11 sites, we facilitate a community-driven process that matches the local needs of individuals and families not met by existing programs, to organizations with track records of success elsewhere. Working with communities, we identify, invite in, and launch proven organizations, providing collaborative support so they can quickly take root and deliver change. Everything we do is designed to remove barriers to inclusive prosperity all too often rooted in racial inequities.

Our impact increases exponentially as we address one specific, community-identified need each year, in each GreenLight site. Since 2004, we have launched 39 portfolio organizations across 11 sites, invested $26M, and attracted an additional $169M from other funding sources, reaching more than 417,000 individuals and families in 2021 alone.

GreenLight Fund is headquartered in Boston, with sites in Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Twin Cities. GreenLight is continuing to expand and is currently opening a new site each year, including Chicago in 2023.

At the national level GreenLight runs campaigns to fund multiple years of national operating costs. The current four-year $16 million campaign is underway, and we expect to complete it in mid-2022. At the site level, GreenLight raises multi-year funds of approximately $5M to operate and invest in portfolio organizations over a five-year period.

With a new strategic plan in place, GreenLight Fund is poised for continued growth, with a focus on deepening community impact, growing to new cities, building our learning capacity, building strategic partnerships, and centering equity in all that we do.

To learn more about GreenLight Fund’s work, please visit our website.

The Opportunity

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer and serving as a member of the five-person management team, the Vice President of Finance and Operations (VPFO) will lead GreenLight’s finance, operations, IT, and facilities functions as we grow to serve more regions. Currently operating with a $7M+ budget and a staff of close to 40 employees, the VPFO will play a hands-on role ensuring that GreenLight has the financial and operational backbone to achieve its mission. This person will also serve as a trusted advisor and partner on the financial planning aspects of the implementation of our current strategic plan and growth.

GreenLight has grown considerably in the past year and the VPFO will play a critical role in evaluating the effectiveness and long-term fit of our existing systems and processes against our strategic plan and future growth goals. This is an ideal opportunity for an entrepreneurial and operationally minded individual to shape the systems and process of a growing nonprofit to ensure it achieves its mission of spurring economic mobility and opportunity across the country.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Serve as the organizational leader managing finance; support senior management, the Board, and Executive Directors through planning, financial modeling, and compliance
• Lead the development of the organization’s long-term financial strategy, including financial models, analyses, and forecasts that will strengthen the organization’s balance sheet and ensure strong financial health and sustainability over time
• Manage the finance function to ensure the accurate execution of operational finance (i.e. accounting, reporting, banking, payroll, budgeting, procurement, and compliance) and the delivery of all mandated financial reports
• Lead a small team consisting of an operations associate, staff accountant, and various outsourced vendors, to ensure effective and forward-looking financial and operational management
• In partnership with the Board Finance Committee, manage GLF’s investments, including review and revision of investment policy and working with advisors to manage portfolio
• Lead site-wide management of compliance systems, legal affairs as related to finance, insurance, and other risk management strategies in alignment with federal, state, and local legal and regulatory requirements
• Identify opportunities for improvement and/or develop critical organization-wide systems, ensuring that technology and staff work effectively across sites; manage selection, improvement, integration and/or maintenance of critical national operating platforms; currently Salesforce, Box, Apricot, Zenefits, Google, Zoom
• Develop, in collaboration with the teams, robust and challenging key performance indicators for facilities, IT, operations, and finance, continuously reviewing performance and adapting indicators to demonstrate improvement
• Partner with vendors to build a more robust IT function for the organization including strategic and integrated approaches to hardware, software, and security
• Support and potentially grow the finance and operations team and network of vendors to ensure a high level of operational excellence

Candidate Profile

The Vice President, Finance and Operations will bring a high degree of expertise in financial management, preferably in a nonprofit setting, combined with exceptional interpersonal skills and a customer-service orientation. While no one candidate will possess every quality outlined for this position, the successful candidate will bring many of the following professional qualifications and personal attributes:

• At least 10 years of professional experience, with demonstrated success leading the finance function in a growing nonprofit
• Experience and ability to lead the finance function and serve as a thought partner and advisor to the Board and management team
• Ability to develop, and implement process improvements, system overhauls and solutions to ensure organizational efficiency and effectiveness; leverages exceptional organizational, proiect, time and task management skills as well as prioritization skills
• Demonstrated ability to set strategy and lead the implementation of new systems and processes to ensure adoption and effectiveness
• A keen intellect, with the ability to be an independent thinker and creative problem solver
• Exceptional interpersonal skills and customer service mindset, with the ability to develop strong relationships with leaders across an organization
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, ability to generate reports and memos for both internal and external audiences
• Ability to manage up and sideways to support a regionally dispersed group of site Executive Directors
• Familiarity and comfort devising and establishing IT policies, systems, and processes that support broader organizational strategies

Compensation & Benefits

The salary range for this position starts at $150,000 and will be competitive and commensurate with experience. The compensation package also includes the following:

• Health Insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield (80% paid by GLF)
• Dental and Vision Insurance through Guardian (80% paid by GLF)
• Full coverage of all mental health visits through Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Safe Harbor 401k. GLF will match 100% of the first 3% of salary and 50% of the next 2%
• Short and Long-term disability and Life insurance fully paid by GreenLight Fund
• 11 company-wide holiday closings and 3 floating holidays
• Generous PTO and parental leave
• Up to $75 per month of cell phone reimbursement
• Up to $100 per month of WiFi reimbursement
• Up to $1,500 per year for professional development
• Access to Holisticly (40 Holisticly Credits per Month)

Greenlight Fund is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages applications from people of color, persons with disabilities, women, and LGBT applicants.

Contact

Koya Partners has been exclusively retained for this search. To express your interest in this role, please submit materials here. Materials should include a thorough resume and compelling letter of interest. All inquiries and discussions will be considered 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.

About Koya Partners

Koya Partners, a part of the Diversified Search Group, is a leading executive search and strategic advising firm dedicated to connecting exceptionally talented people with mission-driven clients. Our founding philosophy—The Right Person in the Right Place Can Change the World—guides our work as we partner with nonprofits & NGOs, institutions of higher education, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.

For more information about Koya Partners, visit www.koyapartners.com.