About Healthy Places by Design
Healthy Places by Design envisions a nation of healthy, equitable communities where everyone reaches their full potential. They achieve this by advancing community-led action and proven, place-based strategies to ensure health and wellbeing for all. They are strategic partners for communities and those who invest in them, helping turn visions of health equity into lasting impact. They work with philanthropies, associations, and others to engage local leaders and residents in community-designed, community-led, strategies to equitably improve health outcomes.
Launched in 2002 as a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, they were at the forefront of the “active living movement,” a new paradigm that contributed to a multi-sector understanding of health. This new approach asked how individuals’ choices were being affected by external forces.
Since then, they have partnered with foundations and communities across the country to help shift the conversation toward one that recognizes how the places where we live affect our health. Together, they have demonstrated that by reshaping policies, systems, and environments, multi-sector community partnerships can help everyone achieve their full potential for health and wellbeing.
Their work with local leaders in 42 states has underscored the importance of community context. They recognize that community members’ experiences often reveal which policy, environment, or systems changes will have the most impact and be the most sustainable. They have championed authentic community engagement as an essential practice for lifting up and learning from local realities. And equity has formed the foundation of their approach from the start. They leverage what privilege and power they have by connecting to, collaborating with, and supporting organizations that represent or are led by people who are most affected by health disparities and ensure that health equity is elevated as a priority in all projects and initiatives.
Healthy Places by Design offers strategic consulting and advising, community leader assistance, and collaborative learning facilitation, all led by their Community Action Model. The model highlights the importance of a community’s context, defines six essential practices for success, and outlines a 3P Action Cycle: Partner, Prepare, and Progress. It represents more than 20 years of learning and refinement by Healthy Places by Design and is a well-tested approach for local investments.
For more information on Healthy Places by Design, please visit their website. HPBD is a fiscally sponsored organization of Third Sector New England (www.tsne.org).
The Opportunity
Healthy Places by Design is seeking a strategic and operationally minded Deputy Director to ensure the organization achieves its desired goals and to grow its capacity for impact in the future. Reporting to the Executive Director, this role is responsible for providing collaborative senior leadership to elevate Healthy Places by Design as a prominent national leader in the healthy communities field, fulfill the organization’s equity mission, ensure its long-term sustainability, and maintain a culture that supports a high-functioning and collaborative national team.
Bringing a systems orientation, the Deputy Director will oversee financial strategy, human resources and operations and ensure that all organizational processes and services are high-quality, efficient, effective, and mission focused. As a senior leader at the organization, they will serve as a compelling spokesperson, contribute to strategic partnership development, and actively support business development efforts. The Deputy Director will oversee organization-wide initiatives, develop and track progress against goals and partner with the Executive Director to communicate effectively with the staff, Board, clients, donors, thought leaders and other external stakeholders. This is an exceptional opportunity for someone who is passionate about improving the health of communities and takes pride in ensuring best-in-class organizational and programmatic operations that help achieve that mission.
Key responsibilities include:
Strategic Vision and Organizational Leadership
- Collaborate with the Executive Director, staff and key advisors to create a strategic framework and corresponding systems that will guide investments of organizational time and resources (budget, staff, priorities) in service of Healthy Places by Design’s vision and mission.
- Cultivate new, strategic partnerships that strengthen Healthy Places by Design’s national influence and ability to achieve the organization’s goals and priorities.
- Lead organizational assessments of effectiveness, including an internal annual client-feedback process, to ensure the delivery of high-quality services while managing for current and future growth.
- Work with the Operations Officer and other staff to ensure organizational effectiveness.
- Serve as the lead organizational representative in the Executive Director’s absence.
Business Development
- Collaborate with the Executive Director to co-lead comprehensive marketing, branding, and business development strategies designed to maintain and expand the organization’s presence in the field while ensuring its financial sustainability.
- Investigate business development ideas and tools that could expand the reach and/or deepen the impact of organizational services and products.
- Work with the Executive Director to strengthen the team’s collective capacity to raise revenue and meet long-term goals.
Research, Development, and Learning:
- Foster organizational innovation by working with senior staff to incorporate collaborative learning across projects.
- Support processes that assess, document, and disseminate best practices and/or key lessons learned.
- Ensure that new knowledge and insights are incorporated into the development, enhancement and maintenance of products and services, as well as the organization’s strategic direction.
- Ensure that all products, services, and innovations are equity-centered, and mission-focused.
Financial Planning and Sustainability
- Provide strategic financial oversight, in collaboration with the Executive Director and Operations Officer, designed to maintain the overall financial health of the organization.
- Collaborate with the organization’s fiscal sponsor (Third Sector New England) and the Operations Officer to develop and monitor proposals, budgets, contracts, staffing plans, financial reports, progress reports and long-term financial projections.
Human Resources
- Contribute to an organizational culture that supports a high-functioning, collaborative and mission-driven team and values work-life balance.
- Collaborate with the Executive Director to identify and implement strategies that facilitate professional development, leadership development and continuous learning for all employees.
- Manage recruiting and staffing, performance management and improvement systems, and contribute to a company culture that emphasizes quality, continuous improvement, and high performance.
- Supervise and conduct annual performance reviews for direct reports.
Project Leadership and Consultation:
- Lead and/or provide support to team leads on high-quality, and equity-focused consultation projects (i.e., strategic thinking and planning, technical assistance, facilitation, and other support).
- Maintain the organization’s reputation as a thought leader in the field by maintaining content expertise and remaining at the forefront of emerging issues in the healthy communities field.
- Lead special projects as needed (e.g., facilitate strategic planning efforts, develop new training programs).