Position Summary

The Director of Child Care Initiatives leads Cora's Kids Family Child Care Network's programs, budget, staff, and external relationships. This role combines real fluency in Connecticut's early childhood system — OEC regulations, funding, and licensing — with hands-on budget and project management, and a working understanding of educational coaching practice deep enough to supervise and mentor the coaching team directly. The Director is the network's primary point of contact with funders, partner organizations, coalitions, and the state, and is accountable for the program's financial health, staff development, and day-to-day execution alike.

Key Responsibilities

Budget & Financial Management

• Own the program's operating budget — planning, tracking, and reporting against it across all funding sources

• Manage grant-funded budgets with full compliance accountability, from award through final reporting

• Work with the Finance Team to review budgets and assess financial data

Project & Program Management

• Plan and sequence the network's initiatives across the fiscal year, coordinating timelines across funders, partners, and internal staff

• Track deliverables against deadlines and adjust plans proactively when a timeline is at risk, rather than after it's missed

• Oversee the network's tiered service model end to end — licensing support, group learning, and individualized accreditation coaching — ensuring each piece runs on schedule and within budget

Staff Supervision & Mentorship

• Hire and manage program staff, and create a collaborative team culture consistent with the organization's mission and values

• Set performance benchmarks and accountability structures for program outcomes

• Observe team members in the field and provide reflective, observation-based mentorship of their practice

• Work with team members to set clearly defined goals for provider growth and give strategic direction on how to reach them

• Support staff professional development in child development, leadership, and adult learning

Program Evaluation & Continuous Learning

• Assess family child care program quality using research-based observational tools; track changes in educator skills, knowledge, and attitudes over time

• Analyze and use data to assess program implementation, and report outcomes to organizational leadership

Data Management & Reporting

• Own the network's relationship with its data platform, ensuring it's configured and actively used to support real program decisions and compliance reporting alike

• Ensure the outcomes framework (income, satisfaction, support, quality/accreditation, child outcomes) is tracked consistently and reported accurately

• Oversee the provider data-consent process — what's collected, how it's used, and ensure it's communicated to providers in plain language

• Collect, share, and use data to meet funder accountability requirements and report community-wide data on young children

• Use program data to drive sequencing and resource-allocation decisions throughout the year

Education & Coaching Knowledge

• Bring real knowledge of early childhood education and coaching practice, sufficient to meaningfully supervise and support an Educational Coach

• Understand what quality coaching and accreditation support looks like in a family child care setting, and use that knowledge to guide program design decisions

• Bring substantive, specific knowledge of family child care / home-based care — the licensing pathway, the business realities, and the day-to-day operating context

External Stakeholder Relationships

• Own and grow relationships with external stakeholders

• Cultivate relationships with local and state-level partners, attending key meetings at the local, regional, and state level

• Represent the organization at community coalitions, councils, and events, including public speaking as needed

Experience and Education

Required

• Bachelor's degree

• Deep, working knowledge of Connecticut's early childhood system — OEC regulations, funding streams, and licensing specifically

• Demonstrated budget management experience, including multi-source or grant-funded budgets

• Demonstrated project management experience — planning, sequencing, and delivering against timelines across multiple workstreams

• Substantive knowledge of family child care / home-based care specifically

• Strong, proven external stakeholder relationship management across funders, partner organizations, and providers

• Strong written and oral communication skills; comfortable with public speaking

• Computer skills including Microsoft Word, Outlook, and Excel

• Ability to work effectively with people from a wide variety of backgrounds

Preferred

• Bilingual (English/Spanish)

• Background in early childhood education or coaching, in addition to administrative/leadership experience

• Prior nonprofit program leadership or director-level experience

• Familiarity with the CDA and NAFCC accreditation pathways

Statements in this Job Description are intended to describe the general nature of work being performed. They are not intended to be a complete list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required for the position.

Salary Range: $75,000 to $85,000

United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut includes an excellent benefits package and flexible working arrangements:

1. Paid Time Off – vacation, sick time, 11 paid holidays including 1 floating holiday

2. CT Paid Leave

3. Health Insurance – medical, dental, and vision

4. Life Insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and related coverage

5. Hybrid work arrangements

United Way is an equal-opportunity employer and seeks to hire staff members who reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. All positions are filled without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, employment status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If much of this job describes you, please apply. Research shows that women and people from underrepresented groups often apply to jobs only if they meet all qualifications. We recognize this and encourage those with relevant skills and experience to apply.

Position Summary

The Educational & Curriculum Manager delivers individualized, in-home coaching to family child care providers pursuing CDA credentialing and NAFCC accreditation, and owns the network's curriculum — selecting, adapting, delivering, and continuously improving it based on real outcomes data. This role combines deep early childhood education and coaching expertise with direct knowledge of family child care as a business and a practice, and requires genuine comfort building relationships in providers' homes with a bilingual, largely immigrant population. The value of this role is relational as much as instructional: knowing each provider, showing up consistently, and turning training and curriculum into something a provider actually completes.

Key Responsibilities

Individualized Coaching

• Deliver 1:1 coaching using the Practice-Based Coaching (PBC) model — shared goal-setting, in-home observation, reflection and feedback — to the network's accreditation-track providers

• Manage a coaching caseload and schedule directly, prioritizing across providers based on where they are in the accreditation timeline

Accreditation Support & Knowledge of Family Child Care

• Guide providers through the CDA credential and NAFCC accreditation process from start to finish, grounded in real knowledge of how a family child care business actually operates

• Provide hands-on help with the actual enrollment and registration steps, including sitting with a provider through a college registration portal

Curriculum Development & Management

• Design and deliver a six-session, NAFCC-aligned bilingual training series: Relationships, The Environment, Developmental Learning Activities, Safety & Health, Professional Practices, and Business Practices

• Anchor each session to evidence a provider can use directly in a CDA portfolio or NAFCC self-study

• Own and maintain the network's curriculum resources

• Adapt and translate curriculum materials for bilingual delivery, ensuring content is linguistically and culturally appropriate for the population served

• Evaluate curriculum effectiveness using program outcomes data

• Keep curriculum current with evolving CDA and NAFCC standards, updating materials as accreditation requirements change

• Serve as the network's curriculum resource for any future facilitators of group learning content, so quality and consistency don't depend on one person's institutional memory

Data Management & Documentation

• Log coaching contacts, sessions, and observations in the network's data platform as part of the coaching cycle itself

• Document each Practice-Based Coaching cycle (goal, observation, feedback) so a provider's progress is trackable over time

• Track each provider's CDA/NAFCC milestone progress in the system so it feeds directly into program-wide reporting

• Administer and record brief post-visit and post-session feedback consistently — incomplete data quietly undermines the whole outcomes framework

• Encourage and record developmental screening completion as a routine part of coaching visits

External Relationships

• Coordinate directly with partner organizations on bilingual co-facilitation and shared training content

Adult-Learning-Informed Practice

• Use plain-language materials, teach-back techniques, and native-language-first instruction suited to adult learners with a wide range of formal education

• Treat lived caregiving experience as a resource to build on

Experience and Education

Required

• Degree or credential in early childhood education or child development specifically

• Demonstrated educational coaching experience with adult learners, ideally in an early childhood or home-visiting context

• Experience developing, adapting, or evaluating curriculum for adult learners

• Substantive knowledge of family child care specifically — licensing, business operations, day-to-day practice

• Comfortable doing sustained, hands-on work in providers' homes

• Bilingual (English/Spanish)

Preferred

• Direct familiarity with CDA and/or NAFCC standards

• Experience with Practice-Based Coaching or a comparable evidence-based coaching model

• Experience working with bilingual and first-generation populations navigating formal credentialing systems

Statements in this Job Description are intended to describe the general nature of work being performed. They are not intended to be a complete list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required for the position.

Salary Range: $60,000 to $68,000

United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut includes an excellent benefits package and flexible working arrangements:

1. Paid Time Off – vacation, sick time, 11 paid holidays including 1 floating holiday

2. CT Paid Leave

3. Health Insurance – medical, dental, and vision

4. Life Insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and related coverage

5. Hybrid work arrangements

United Way is an equal-opportunity employer and seeks to hire staff members who reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. All positions are filled without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, employment status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If much of this job describes you, please apply. Research shows that women and people from underrepresented groups often apply to jobs only if they meet all qualifications. We recognize this and encourage those with relevant skills and experience to apply.

Position Summary

The Director of Leadership Giving is a hybrid frontline fundraising professional responsible for growing philanthropy across a portfolio of major and mid-level donors while leading annual giving strategies that strengthen the organization's donor pipeline.

This role manages a portfolio of major donor prospects and leadership-level donors while overseeing engagement strategies for mid-level donors, annual giving campaigns, and donor pipeline development. The Director of Leadership Giving identifies, cultivates, solicits, and stewards donors whose philanthropic interests align with the organization's mission and strategic priorities.

The position serves as a key connector between annual giving, affinity groups, workplace giving, and major gifts, ensuring donors move through a meaningful engagement pathway that results in increased retention, upgraded giving, and long-term investment in the organization.

The Director of Leadership Giving works collaboratively with marketing, community impact, corporate partnerships, and volunteer engagement teams to create compelling donor experiences and maximize philanthropic revenue.

Essential Functions

1. Major Gift Portfolio

   • Qualify and manage a portfolio of approximately 100–150 major donors and prospects.

   • Develop individualized engagement, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship plans for each donor.

   • Establish annual revenue goals for each portfolio donor based on giving history, philanthropic interests, and capacity.

   • Conduct donor meetings, discovery visits, and stewardship conversations.

   • Develop and present customized proposals, funding opportunities, and gift requests.

   • Partner with program and community impact staff to identify funding opportunities and report donor impact.

   • Secure and close major gifts, multi-year commitments, endowment gifts, and planned gifts when appropriate.

2. Mid-Level Giving Strategy & Portfolio Management

   • Oversee and manage a portfolio of approximately 200 leadership-level and mid-level donors.

   • Develop strategies to retain, upgrade, and deepen engagement among donors giving approximately $500–$1,000 annually.

   • Implement personalized outreach through phone, email, mail, events, and occasional donor visits.

   • Create donor journeys that strengthen relationships and encourage increased philanthropic support.

   • Identify and qualify donors with major gift potential and move them into individualized cultivation strategies.

   • Monitor donor movement and progression through the donor pipeline.

3. Event Integration (Revenue-Focused)

   • Lead the fundraising strategy for donor-focused events, including the annual gala and leadership giving events.

   • Collaborate on sponsorship and table sales strategies.

   • Utilize events as opportunities for donor identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.

   • Ensure post-event follow-up and donor conversion strategies are executed.

4. Collaboration

   • Marketing for donor communication and storytelling

   • Community impact for funding opportunities and impact reporting

   • Corporate partnerships for shared prospects and sponsorship alignment

5. Data Management & Performance Reporting

   • Maintain accurate donor records and moves management activity within the CRM.

   • Track fundraising progress against revenue and activity goals.

   • Analyze donor trends, retention rates, upgrade opportunities, and campaign performance.

   • Prepare monthly reports and dashboard metrics for leadership.

   • Utilize data to inform fundraising strategy and donor engagement efforts.

3. Key Performance Indicators - KPI's for this position include the following areas of accountability and expected outcomes:

1. Ability to qualify donors from the larger pool of organizational donors that meet the major gift criteria.

2. Ability to create reasonable financial goals for each donor which is based on their giving and their potential

3. Ability to create a personal contact and ask plan, that takes into account the individual donor’s interest, motivations, giving patterns and ask preferences, for each donor on his or her caseload in a timely and cost-effective manner.

4. Ability to retain and upgrade donors.

5. Ability to secure project and organization information and create and write effective offers, proposals and asks. Ability to secure information that can be sent back to donors to report on how their money was used.

6. Ability to create timely reports that reflect caseload performance.

7. Ability to manage people, process, deadlines and budget while adhering to the policies and procedures of the organization.

8. Ability to get along with peers, subordinates and management and maintain a positive and constructive attitude while solving problems. Ability to be a team player and protect the mission, goals and values of the organization.

Required Experience and Education

• 5–7+ years fundraising or relationship-based sales experience

• Knowledge of and experience in planned giving (trusts, bequests, giving through retirement plans, etc.), donor advised funds, estate and financial planning for individuals, and trends in major giving

• Proven track record of securing major gifts and experience closing multi-year gifts

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills

• Experience with CRM systems and moves management

• Experience with proposal writing, prospect research, volunteer management, individual giving campaigns, capital campaigns, donor cultivation and recognition

• Organized with the ability to implement systems and follow-up processes

Statements in this Job Description are intended to describe the general nature of work being performed. They are not intended to be a complete list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required for the position.

Salary Range: $85,000 to $100,000

United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut includes an excellent benefits package and flexible working arrangements:

1. Paid Time Off – vacation, sick time, 11 paid holidays including 1 floating holiday

2. Paid Family Leave

3. Health Insurance – medical, dental, and vision

4. Life Insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and related coverage

5. Hybrid work arrangements

United Way is an equal-opportunity employer and seeks to hire staff members who reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. All positions are filled without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, employment status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If much of this job describes you, please apply. Research shows that women and people from underrepresented groups often apply to jobs only if they meet all qualifications. We recognize this and encourage those with relevant skills and experience to apply.